Latest / Reformed Thinking / Yoked Words: Zeugma and the Rhetorical Force of the English Bible

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Yoked Words: Zeugma and the Rhetorical Force of the English Bible · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform thinking. I'm really glad you're here with
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us today. We were opening a file that I
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have to be honest, when I first saw the topic I thought you
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might have sent me to a a linguistics lecture by mistake.
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It's good to be here, and I get that.
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I can see why you'd be a little hesitant.
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Yeah. I mean, when we start talking
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about syntax and, you know, verb governance, it sounds like we're
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right back in high school English class.
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Exactly. But the goal today is to show
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that these aren't just dry academic rules, they're actually
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windows into the mind of God. So the specific term we're
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tackling it has a name that sounds like AI.
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Don't know, a rare tropical disease or maybe a sci-fi
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villain. The word is zugma.
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It does have a certain ring to it, yeah.
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It really does. But as I started digging into
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the research, I began to see it differently.
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I started thinking of it as a kind of divine speed bump.
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You know that feeling when you're reading the Bible, maybe
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an older translation like the King James, and you hit a
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sentence where the verb just doesn't quite seem to fit the
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object? Yeah, I feel a little clunky.
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A little clunky or just intense in a way you can't quite put
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your finger on. That is the exact sensation.
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And usually, you know, modern readers, we just assume that's
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an artifact of translation or maybe that ancient writers just
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didn't know how to smooth out a sentence.
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But what we're going to find is that those bumps, the speed
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bumps, are completely intentional.
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OK, so let's establish the mission for this deep dive.
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We're setting out to discover how the Holy Spirit uses very
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specific grammatical structures. I mean literally the choice of
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words and syntax to reveal Christ and, well, to arrest the
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reader's attention. That's a great way to put it.
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We're looking at how unusual grammar makes for perfect
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theology. I like that.
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And before we jump into the specific examples, which are
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really fascinating, we need to lay some ground rules.
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We have to understand the theological basis for why we're
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even allowed to look this closely at the text.
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Right, because we're not just doing literary analysis here.
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This isn't just an English paper.
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No, not at all. We're operating from the
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standpoint of the Westminster profession of faith,
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specifically Chapter 1, Section 8.
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OK. And this covers the doctrine of
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verbal plenary inspiration. OK, let's break that down.
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Verbal plenary inspiration. So it means that the Holy Spirit
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superintended not just the big ideas or the general concepts of
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scripture, but the very words, the verba and the syntax that
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the human authors used. So down to the prepositions and
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commas. Every bit of it.
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When Paul wrote his letters or Moses wrote the Pentateuch, the
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Spirit was ensuring that the selection of verb tenses,
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rhetorical devices, everything was exactly what God intended.
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You know, like Second Timothy 3.1.
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Singh says all scripture is breathed out by God.
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So we are literally handling the breath of God.
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We are. And if we really believe that,
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then these rhetorical devices, they aren't just poetic
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flourishes. They're not just the author
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trying to sound fancy. Deliberate tools.
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Deliberate tools of revelation. And that brings us right back to
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Zugma. OK, so give us the technical
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definition before we see it in the wild.
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Well, the word comes from the Greek zugnomi, which means to
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yoke. Like yoking oxen together.
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Exactly so in grammar, a zugma is when a single governing word.
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It's usually verb is yoked to two or more nouns.
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But here's the key. Often that verb fits one of the
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nouns perfectly, but it creates a kind of tension or an uneven
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fit with the other one. So it's like 1 verb doing double
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duty, but it's straining a little bit under the load.
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That's a perfect way to describe it.
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And that strain, that grammatical tension, is what
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we're calling the rhetoric of revelation.
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It forces you, the reader, to pause.
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It grabs your attention. It makes you ask, wait, why?
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Why is it like that? And in that pause, the truth
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gets in. That's the idea.
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I love that it's like a grammatical jolt to wake us.
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U OK, let's look at this first case study because this one
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really just blew my mind. We're going to the Old Testament
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Exodus Charter 20, verse 18. This is the terror of Sinai.
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A huge moment in redemptive history.
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God is giving the law. Right.
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And if you're reading this in the King James Version, that
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says and all the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings
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and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain smoking.
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Did you catch the clash there? Oh yeah, it says they saw the
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thunderings, and then it says they saw the noise of the
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trumpet. And you can't.
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I mean, obviously you can't see Thunder, you hear it.
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You can't see the noise of a trumpet.
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You hear it right? But the text doesn't say they
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saw the lightning and heard the Thunder, no.
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It yokes all of those things under the single verb.
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To see, the Hebrew verb is raha, and this is not a translation
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error. This is a deliberate grammatical
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collision. We call this the synesthesia of
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judgment. Synesthesia.
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That's that condition where your senses get crossed, right?
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Like people who taste colors or see sounds.
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That's it. Yes, and here the Holy Spirit is
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using this grammatical structure to capture the the totalizing
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nature of the law. The glory of God at Sinai was so
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overwhelming, so utterly terrifying, that the distinction
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between the senses just collapsed.
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It wasn't just watching a storm. No, they were being confronted
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by the unmediated majesty of the Creator.
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It's like the input was too high for their sensory receptors.
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The whole system just crashed. That's a perfect analogy.
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Sight became audible, sound became visible, and the message
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is that in the presence of absolute holiness, our human
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faculties, just they collapse. You can't process the raw
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justice of God with your normal navigational tools.
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And this connects directly to the central idea of the text
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then, doesn't it? The law is lethal.
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It is the law without a mediator is terrifying.
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The people were so overwhelmed by the sensory chaos that they
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actually begged Moses. You speak to us and we'll
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listen, but please do not let God speak to us or we will die.
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They couldn't handle the grammar of God's holy.
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That is just terrifying. But this is where it gets really
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interesting for us as Christians.
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I mean, how do we connect this to the New Testament?
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We don't stay at Sinai. No, we don't.
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And the author of Hebrews actually picks up on this exact
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contrast. In Hebrews 12, he says you know
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you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is
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burning with fire to darkness, gloom and storm.
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He's describing that synesthetic terror.
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But where have we come instead? We've come to Mount Zion, to the
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city of a living God, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new
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covenant. So the resolution to the whole
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seeing Thunder problem. It's Christ.
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It has to be. We need a mediator who can
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withstand that Thunder. Christ absorbed the storm of
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wrath. He took that sensory overload of
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judgment upon himself on the cross.
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So we don't have. To so that the believer can hear
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the still small voice of pardon. So we shift from seeing Thunder
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in absolute fear to beholding the Lamb in faith.
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That is the movement of the entire gospel.
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The Zougma at Sinai shows us our problem.
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We are finite sinners before an infinite God, and we break under
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the pressure. The gospel provides the shelter.
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That's incredible. Makes you realize that even the
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strangest phrasing in the Old Testament is pointing us to our
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need for Jesus. Every jot and title.
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OK, let's move to the New Testament.
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This next example is maybe a little less terrifying, but may
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be a little more insulting. Yes, we're.
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Going to 1st Corinthians 3 verse 2, this is Paul talking to the
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church in Corinth. The milk and meat passage.
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Right, we've all heard sermons on this.
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I fed you with milk, not with meat.
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It's the standard metaphor for spiritual maturity.
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But there is a hidden sting in the Greek grammar here that I
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never know about until I read this research.
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It's a fascinating example of a Zougma being used as a direct
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rebuke. So let's look at the text.
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Paul says I have fed you with milk and not with meat.
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The Greek verb he uses for fed is epotisa.
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And what does Epotisa literally mean it?
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Literally means to give to drink.
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OK, so I gave you milk to drink. That makes perfect sense.
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It fits perfectly with milk. You drink milk, but then he
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yokes that exact same verb to the second object, meat or solid
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food. So grammatically he is actually
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saying I gave you meat to drink, correct?
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And you cannot drink meat. Unless you put it in a blender,
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which just sounds awful. It's very gross, but Paul
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refuses to supply the second verb.
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You know, a polite, grammatically smooth sentence
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would say I gave you milk to drink and meat to eat.
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Paul does not do that. He completely omits the verb to
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eat. Why?
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I mean, is he just being lazy with his writing?
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Not a chance. Paul is a master rhetorician.
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He's doing this to refuse to dignify the Corinthians own self
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perception. OK, remind us of the context.
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Well, you have to remember what was happening in Corinth.
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These people thought they were the spiritual elite.
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They prided themselves on no knowledge and Sophia wisdom.
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They thought they were the meat eaters of the Christian world.
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They saw themselves as the adults in the room.
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Exactly, and Paul's grammar treats them like they are
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infants who can only drink. By sustaining this zukma, by
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refusing to even write the word eat, he is effectively saying in
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my eyes, and in reality, you are so infantile that I won't even
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use the vocabulary of adulthood for you.
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You're only capable of drinking. Wow, so the syntax itself is the
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insult? It actually mirrors their
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developmental arrest. It does.
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It directly confronts their intellectual pride.
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This has some huge implications for how we view sanctification,
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doesn't it? Because I think a lot of us,
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myself included, can fall into what the source material calls
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the intellectualist error. Oh, it's a very common trap,
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especially in Reformed circles. We tend to equate spiritual
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maturity with how many theological books we've read, or
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how well we can debate the finer points of, you know, super
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lapsarianism. Guilty.
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But look at what Paul is saying. The Corinthians, they had the
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knowledge, they knew the meat intellectually, but Paul calls
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them carnal, fleshly. Why?
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Because there was jealousy and strife among them.
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Yes. So according to the Westminster
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Confession, sanctification isn't just about what's in your head.
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It's holistic. It's holistic.
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It involves the intellect, the affections, and the will.
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If your life is characterized by bickering and jealousy and
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division, Paul says you are a baby.
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I don't care if you've memorized Calvin's Institutes.
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If you cannot love your brother, you are still on the bottle.
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That is a diagnostic tool we could all probably use.
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If there is strife, you are a baby.
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It is so humbling, and the remedy isn't to go find some
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deeper, more esoteric teaching. Right.
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It's not about moving past the basics.
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We never outgrow the gospel. We don't we grow into the
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Gospel. The remedy is to actually digest
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the milk, which is Christ's crucifix, until it actually
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changes your character. We have to swallow our pride
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before we can even begin to digest meat.
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That's heavy stuff. OK, let's Kee moving.
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We've looked at the grammar of judgment, the grammar of
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immaturity. Now I want to look at the
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grammar of legalism. This one is from First Timothy
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4, verse 3. This is a classic example of
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what we might call a broken grammar for a broken theology.
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So set the scene for us. Paul is warning Timothy about
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false teachers. Yes, he's warning against
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ascetics, people who think that to be truly holy you have to
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deny the body, deny creation, and he describes their teaching
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in verse 3. The King James puts this way,
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forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from
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meats. And if you look closely at the
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KJV, that word commanding is in italics.
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Right, which is the convention for showing it's not actually in
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the original Greek. The translators added it to make
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the sentence make sense in English.
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OK, so without that added word, what's the Greek literally say?
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It literally says forbidding to marry and to abstain from foods.
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Wait a minute. So the verb forbidding is
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governing both parts of that sentence.
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It is, and that creates A logical disaster.
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If you read it strictly grammatically, it says they are
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forbidding to abstain from foods.
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Which would mean they're forcing people to eat.
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Exactly. Which is the precise opposite of
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what these heretics were actually doing.
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They were forcing people to fast.
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So Paul creates this zugma. Or technically it's a kind of
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ellipsis where the first verb governs the second clause, but
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it completely breaks the logic. But why would he do that?
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Why not just write forbidding marriage and commanding
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abstinence? It would be so much clearer.
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Because the broken grammar mirrors the irrational, frantic
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nature of legalism itself. Legalism is hasty.
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It's disjointed. It lacks the beautiful symmetry
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of truth. These false teachers are so
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eager to pile up rules, so zealous to bind the conscience,
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that they end up tripping over their own syntax.
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It creates this sort of rushing, breathless quality to the
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prohibition. Just don't.
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Don't, don't. It does, and theologically it
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shows us that error is a distortion.
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It twists reality, and it even twists the language we use to
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express it. This is a direct assault on the
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doctrine of creation. Right, WCF chapter 4.
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God created all things very good.
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Correct. This kind of legalism, this
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asceticism, it views matter as evil.
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It says don't touch, don't taste, don't handle.
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It's a completely negative theology.
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It defines holiness by what you don't do.
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And the gospel is always positive.
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Always the gospel declares every creature of God is good, and
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nothing is to be refused if it is received with Thanksgiving.
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Thanksgiving. That's the antidote.
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It is the legalist can't perform the act of Thanksgiving because
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they fundamentally reject the gift.
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But the Christian liberty we have, which is laid out in WCF
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chapter 20, means we receive God's gifts, whether it's food
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or marriage, and we worship God through our enjoyment of them.
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So Christ is the Lord of the conscience, not these man made
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rules. And he frees us from this
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endless list of do's and don'ts. The legalist is trapped in this
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broken grammar of forbidding, forbidding, forbidding.
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The believer gets to live in the coherent, joyful grammar of
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receiving and giving thanks. I love that it really shows that
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legalism isn't just theologically wrong, it's ugly.
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It's grammatically and aesthetically ugly.
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It's a distortion of the beautiful order God created.
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OK, let's do a quick fire round. We have a few brief case studies
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in the outline that I think are just too good to skip.
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First up, Sovereignty Acts 4.27 and 28.
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This is the prayer of the early church after Peter and John are
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released. A very powerful prayer.
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They say that Herod and Pilate gathered together to do whatever
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thy hand and thy counsel determined.
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There's the yoke, hand and counsel.
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Right. The verb determined or
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predestined fits counsel perfectly.
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You determine something with your mind, your counsel, your
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will. But it's yoke to hand.
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So why combine them like that? To show that God's power, His
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hand, is never detached from His decree, His counsel, and vice
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versa. The suffering of Christ wasn't
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some random accident. It wasn't just raw power
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crushing him, and it wasn't just some abstract player.
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It was the sovereign hand perfectly executing the
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sovereign plan. It's the unequal yoke that
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cements the doctrine of sovereignty.
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It forces us to see that even the worst evil imaginable, the
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crucifixion of Jesus, was held firmly within the grip of God's
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determined purpose. Next one Wisdom versus folly.
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Proverbs 26 verse 6 He that sendeth the message by the hand
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of a fool drink its damage. This one is so visceral.
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You have a concrete action, drinking yolked with a totally
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abstract consequence, damage or violence.
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You can't literally drink damage.
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No, but the Zoogma makes you feel it.
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It brands the imagination. It's saying that foolishness,
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like entrusting a serious task to an idiot, is an act of self
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injury. It's like swallowing poison.
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It takes the concept of folly out of the realm of just being a
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mistake and puts it into the realm of actual physical harm.
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That's what good wisdom literature after does it makes
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moral truth bite. Last quick one, worship Luke one
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verse 64 Zechariah. After months and months of
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silence because of his unbelief. The text says his mouth was
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opened immediately and his tongue loosed and he spake
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blessing God. You see the flow there.
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It's immediate. The reopening of his speech
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flows directly into praise. The Zoogma links the physical
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restoration of his tongue to the spiritual act of blessing God.
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The lesson being that restored faculties are for God's.
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Glory. Precisely.
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Mercy leads to doxology. He didn't use his new voice to
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complain about the silence, he used it to bless the one who
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silenced him and then restored him.
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That brings us to a really practical question.
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We've been looking at the Greek and Hebrew, and we've been
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referencing the King James Version a lot, but most of our
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listeners probably use the NIV or the ESP or maybe the CSP.
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And this is what we call the translation dilemma.
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Right, so why do some versions sound so smooth and others sound
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a little off? It all comes down to translation
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philosophy. You can think of it as a
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spectrum. On one end you have formal
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equivalence. That's translations like the
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NASB or the KJV. Their goal is preservation.
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They want to keep the structure of the original language as much
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as possible. So they keep the zeugma, they
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keep the jolt. Often, yes, they keep the seeing
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Thunder, but the cost is that it can require more effort from the
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reader to understand it. Sounds a little weird in
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English. And on the other end of the
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spectrum. You have dynamic equivalents or
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functional equivalents. That's like the NIV or the NLT.
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Their goal is explication. They want to convey the meaning
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as clearly as possible, so they will often smooth out the
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grammar. So in Exodus they might just say
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they saw the lightning and heard the.
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Thunder. That's exactly right.
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They'll add the verb heard to make it good clear English.
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With clarity. It definitely increases clarity.
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But, and this is the big trade off, it reduces the rhetorical
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force, it removes the shock value.
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You lose the synesthesia, you lose that sense of the universe
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is breaking down in the presence of God.
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So what's your advice? I mean, which one should we be
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reading? My advice is don't choose just
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one. Compare them.
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Use a smoother translation for, say, reading large chunks and
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getting the narrative flow, but use a more literal translation
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for deep study. Notice when a single word is
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doing double duty. When you hit a sentence that
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feels off or a little clunky, don't just assume it's a
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mistake. Stop.
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Dig in. It forces you to slow down and
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really meditate on the text. It's that speed bump idea all
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over again. If you smooth out all the speed
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bumps, you might just drive too fast and miss the scenery.
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You're exactly right. OK, now let's pivot to the
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pulpit. We have a lot of pastors and
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teachers who listen. How does this apply to
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preaching? I have to assume you're not
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suggesting they get up on Sunday and say open your Bibles to this
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fine example of Zukma. Please no, do not do that.
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That is a great way to put your congregation to sleep and
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frankly, feed your own academic pride.
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Today's sermon is on the syntactical anomalies of the
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Pauline corpus. Terrible.
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The goal of the pastor is to preach the effect, not the
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label. You don't explain the mechanics
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of a joke, you tell the joke so people laugh.
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You don't explain the mechanics of the zugma, you preach it so
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people feel the tension. So for that Sinai passage,
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instead of saying this is synesthesia, you would say.
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You would say something like, look at how the Bible describes
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this terrifying moment. It says they saw the Thunder.
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It's as if their senses were so overwhelmed by God's holiness
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that their eyes could hear and their ears could see.
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The Bible uses this impossible language to show us an
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impossible situation. That hits home.
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It makes you feel it. It creates the feeling without
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using the $5 word and. We talked about how the grammar
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often confronts our idols. Yes, and the preacher needs to
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identify which idol the text is smashing.
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In Corinth, that broken grammar smashed the idol of intellectual
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pride, and First Timothy it smashed the idol of control and
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legalism. So the grammar itself acts as a
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kind of divine critique. It does.
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It exposes where we we are trusting in ourselves.
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But, and this is so crucial, we cannot leave people in the
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grammar. We have to move from syntax to
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savior. Unpack that for us.
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The grammatical tension, that uneven fit, it creates A longing
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for resolution. The terror of Sinai creates a
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deep longing for a mediator. The immaturity of Corinth
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creates A longing for true growth in Christ.
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The brokenness of legalism creates a longing for the pure
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grace of the Gospel. So the zukma is really a
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signpost, and it's pointing to Jesus.
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Always the written word is the perfect mirror of the Incarnate
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Word. We analyze the text so that we
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can behold the man. If your study of grammar doesn't
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lead you to worship Jesus Christ, then you're just doing
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linguistics. You're not doing theology.
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That is a critical distinction. We're not here to worship the
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grammar. We're here to worship the God
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who used the grammar. So as we wrap up this deep dive
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for Reformed thinking, let's just review the path we took.
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We started with this idea of divine speed bumps.
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We did. We saw that the Holy Spirit in
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His sovereignty selected specific syntax to reveal His
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truth. We looked at the synesthesia of
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judgement at Sinai, the seeing Thunder and how it drives us to
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our need for a mediator. We looked at the grammar of
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immaturity in Corinth trying to drink meat and how it exposes
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our own pride. We examined the broken grammar
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of legalism and how it mirrors the irrationality of trying to
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earn God's favor by rejecting his good gifts.
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And we saw how sovereignty, wisdom and worship are all
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encoded in these yoked words. It really just validates the
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value of reading slowly, doesn't it?
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Of noticing the small details. It does.
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You know, we often talk about the big picture of the Bible,
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and that matters so much. But the microscope matters too.
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It really does. I want to leave our listeners
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with one final thought, something to chew on.
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We have spent this time talking about how precise God is with
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His word, down to the verb, down to a missing word.
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If God has been this precise with the grammar of His
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revelation, taking such incredible care to orchestrate
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the syntax to reveal His glory, how much more can we trust him
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with the details of our salvation?
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That is the ultimate comfort, isn't it?
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If he didn't stutter or make a mistake in his word, he's not
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going to stutter or make a mistake in his plan for your
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life. We're not just critics analyzing
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a text. We are servants listening to a
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shepherd. And that shepherd speaks with
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perfect clarity, even when he uses a speed bump to get our
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attention. Thank you so much for unpacking
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this with us. This has been a fascinating look
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at the grammar of God. It has been my pleasure.
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For our listeners, keep reading, keep thinking, and keep digging
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deep. This has been reformed thinking.
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We'll see you next time.