Friday, January 18, 2008

I Made the "Mistake"...

of playig the following video while I was sitting in a Starbucks.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

I should add ...

to my previous post that this reminds us that word studies alone do not always lead us to the whole truth. If the grammar of the verse in the translation is not correct, then word studies will of course shed light on individual words but we will still miss the overall meaning of the verse, and end up thinking the verse says something it does not in fact say.

Unfortunately checking the translation of a verse is not usually very easy. This is because analytical concordances (hardbound or computer programs) do not give visibility into the part of speech. It simply gives a Strongs number that corresponds to the most general form of a word. For example, a reference of "he runneth", "you run", or "they run" will all give the same Strongs number -- for the verb "to run". This visibility is not always sufficient.

An interlinear can be very helpful. But we still need to be careful even with this tool. When I was checking out Zechariah 14:6 in my interlinear, it had "precious ones" listed as Strongs# 6918. It is actually Strongs# 3368. When I cross-checked 3368 against 1 Kings 5:17 to verify it was indeed the plural form, I found that the verses in the interlinear's english baseline for 1 Kings 5 in my interlinear were misnumbered.

Upon Further Review

I double-checked the Hebrew very closely, and I am now even more convinced that my grammatical analysis of Zechariah 14:6 is correct. The Hebrew of the verse says,

"And it shall be in that day, there shall not be light; the precious [ones] shall thicken (or congeal, or settle out)"

The word "light" is a singular noun. The word "precious" is plural, not singular. The verb "thicken" is plural. Thus "precious" agrees grammatically with "precious ones"; and the singular "light" agrees with "there shall not be".