Latest / Reformed Thinking / Hearing the Weight of “Extra Words”: Amplification and Pleonasm in the English Bible

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Hearing the Weight of “Extra Words”: Amplification and Pleonasm in the English Bible · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome back to reformed thinking.
• 0:02
  It's good to be. Here we are, sitting down today
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  to open UA stack of sources that might, at first glance, seem a
• 0:08
  bit, well, a bit dry. We're not looking at front page
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  headlines or the latest cultural skirmish.
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  No, we're going a little deeper. We are looking at the Bible, but
• 0:17
  specifically we are looking at the actual words on the page in
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  a way that might just force us to rethink how we read.
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  We're looking at the mechanics of the text, the grammar even.
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  We are. And you know, the premise of our
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  conversation today remains the same as always.
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  We are two Protestant Christians taking a serious look at some
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  source materials, articles, essays, theological works, and
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  we're accessing them through the lens of Reformed theology.
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  And specifically the Westminster Confession.
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  That's our standard. That's our anchor.
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  We want to see how the historic faith informs the way we read,
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  the way we think, and, well, how we worship, right?
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  So today we're talking about words, but not just any words.
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  We are talking about the words that, if we're being totally
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  honest with ourselves, sometimes annoy us when we're reading the
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  scriptures. You're starting us off with a
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  confession of annoyance. That's a bold move.
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  I think it's a relatable 1. I want you to picture this.
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  You're reading the King James Version, or maybe the NASB, one
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  of the more literal formal translations, and you hit a
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  phrase that just feels clunky. It feels repetitive.
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  You get phrases like, he answered and said.
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  Oh yeah, that one. I, even I or the plastic.
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  Truly, truly. Verily, verily of the old
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  translations, yes. That is the one.
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  And the modern impulse, certainly my impulse when I'm
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  reading quickly is to mentally edit that down.
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  I think to myself, OK, he answered and said.
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  Why use two verbs when he said it does the job perfectly fine?
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  It feels inefficient. It feels like inefficiency.
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  It feels like clutter. You know it.
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  Feels like bad editing really. If you submitted that in college
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  paper, your professor would circle it in red ink.
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  Exactly. If I were writing an e-mail I
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  wouldn't write. I answered and said see at noon.
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  I should just say see you at noon.
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  So the question we're tackling today is this.
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  Are these just artifacts of an ancient language that didn't
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  know how to be concise, or is there something else going on?
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  And that impulse you're describing, that desire to
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  streamline, to optimize, to get to the point, that is the very
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  thing our sources for today are challenging.
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  In fact, they argue that this impulse reveals a specific sin
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  of our time. A sin?
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  Wow, that seems that seems harsh.
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  Well, it's the sin of pragmatism.
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  We live in an age that idolizes the sound bite.
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  We want the tweet, the summary, the bottom line now.
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  But the argument here is that when we try to clean up the
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  Bible's grammar, we are actually fighting against the Holy
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  Spirit. So we're going to be talking
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  about grammar. Is that what this deep dive is
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  about? We are, but it's a very specific
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  kind of grammar. The sources introduced 2 key
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  terms. We need to get comfortable with
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  pleonasm and amplification. OK, let's unpack this pleonasm.
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  It sounds like a medical condition.
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  It does, doesn't it? But pleonism simply means means
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  surplus wording. It's the use of more words than
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  are grammatically necessary to convey the bare meaning.
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  So answered and said is a pleonasm.
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  A perfect example. An amplification is the broader
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  category. It's the whole idea of expanding
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  an expression to heighten its force or its clarity.
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  And the central thesis we're looking at today is that these
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  are not editorial mistakes. They are what one of our sources
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  calls the Grammar of Solemnity. The grammar of solemnity.
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  I like that phrase, it gives it some weight.
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  It does, and it's all grounded in our doctrine of Scripture.
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  If we believe in verbal plenary inspiration, which as Reformed
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  folks we absolutely do, we believe that God braved out not
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  just the concepts, but the very words and the syntax.
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  Second Timothy 3.16 All scripture is God breathed.
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  That's it. So if the Holy Spirit shows his
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  2 words were one would seem to do, he didn't do it because he
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  was tired or inefficient. He did it on purpose to arrest
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  the reader's attention. To edit those words out is to
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  mute the very emphasis God intended.
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  Wow, that puts a whole new weight on those clunky phrases.
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  Suddenly they're not clunky. Anymore, they're intentional,
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  and that changes how we read. So here's the road map for our
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  discussion today. 1st, we are going to look at the theology
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  behind why the Bible repeats itself.
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  Then we are going to break down the different types of these
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  extra words. Our sources give us a really
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  helpful taxonomy for that. A classification system.
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  Exactly after that, we're going to look at some specific case
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  studies from the Garden of Eden right up to the lips of Jesus
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  Christ. And finally, we will talk about
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  how this changes our daily reading, our worship,
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  everything. It's basically a defense of the
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  dignity of redundancy. I love that the dignity of
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  redundancy. So let's jump into Section 1,
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  the theology of words. You mentioned pragmatism
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  earlier. Why is this drive for efficiency
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  such a problem when we come to the text?
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  Well, just think about how we consume information today.
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  We value speed. We want the summary, the
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  abstract, the bullet points. The TL doctor too long, didn't
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  read. Precisely.
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  But the sources argue, and I think rightly so, that
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  efficiency is not a fruit of the Spirit.
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  Patience is. Love is. self-control is.
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  Efficiency isn't on the list. That is a convicted thought
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  right out of the gate. I feel that.
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  It is, and this connects directly to our confessional
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  standards, the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 1,
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  Section 8. It speaks of the Old Testament
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  in the Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek being
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  immediately inspired by God. And not just inspired, but
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  preserved. And by his singular care and
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  Providence kept pure in all ages.
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  So the standard, the final Court of Appeal in all matters of
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  faith and life, is that original text.
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  So the authority is in the Hebrew and the Greek.
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  Correct. The beauty and authority reside
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  in those original words. The danger comes when we embrace
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  a philosophy of translation that's often called dynamic
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  equivalence. It's.
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  The idea of translating thought for thought rather than word for
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  word. The goal is usually to make the
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  text sound natural in the target language, in our case modern
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  English. Which sounds good on paper.
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  I mean, we want people to understand the Bible, right?
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  We don't want it to be an obstacle.
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  We absolutely do. Yeah.
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  But here's the danger In smoothing out the text to make
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  it sound like normal 21st century English, we can
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  accidentally prioritize our culture over the divine source.
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  We prioritize our own comfort, our own cadence over God's
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  cadence. So you're saying we might get
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  the idea but we lose the feel? Or maybe something more?
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  It is more than just the feel, it's the authority, it's the
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  intended effect. One of our sources makes a vital
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  distinction here, inspiration versus concepts.
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  The question is, is it enough to just get the main idea?
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  I think most people would say yes to that.
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  If I know Jesus is saying listen up, does it really matter if he
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  says truly once or truly truly twice?
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  The reformed answer grounded in WCF 1.8 is a resounding yes.
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  It matters because we believe God breathed out the words, not
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  just the fuzzy concepts behind them.
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  The syntax, the structure of the repetition, it's all part of the
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  inspired text. So this gets back to what you
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  called the dignity of redundancy.
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  It does. God is not wasting ink.
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  He's not just filling space on the scroll.
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  When he uses more words than seems strictly necessary, it
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  acts as a well as a divine speed bump A.
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  Speed bump. I like that analogy.
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  Yes, it's meant to slow you down when you hit a phrase.
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  Like he opened his mouth and taught them.
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  Your brain has to process that extra clause.
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  It's only a fraction of a second, but it forces you to
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  linger on the text. It stops you from just skimming
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  over it. Right.
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  And the anchor question, according to our material,
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  shifts completely. Instead of asking how can I edit
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  this to be faster, the faithful reader must ask why is it here?
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  What is the Spirit doing with this emphasis?
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  That why is vital. But why do we need these speed
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  bumps? Why can't God just speak to us
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  directly and efficiently? We're busy people.
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  And that brings us to biblical anthropology, the doctrine of
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  man, and specifically the doctrine of sin.
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  It always comes back to sin with us, doesn't.
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  It it does because it's the fundamental problem.
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  Our source points out that the human heart is, as Jesus himself
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  said on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24.25, slow to believe.
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  We are dense. We are thick headed, that's for
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  sure. We are Sin has what theologians
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  call a noetic effect. It's a fancy word, but it just
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  means. It darkens the understanding.
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  It affects our minds. We don't just need information,
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  we need persuasion. We need emphasis.
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  God uses pleonasm, this surplus wording, as a gracious
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  accommodation to our spiritual weakness.
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  So the repetition isn't because God is stuttering, it's because
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  we're deaf. Precisely.
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  That's a perfect way to put it. We need the verily, verily
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  because we are so prone to doubt.
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  We need the emphasis because we are so prone to drift.
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  If God just whispered a promise one time, we'd forget it or
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  rationalize it away. So he double s it.
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  He triples it. He stacks words on top of each
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  other to penetrate our thick skulls and our hard hearts.
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  That's actually very comforting when you think about it.
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  It means the clunkiness of the Bible isn't a flaw in the text,
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  it's actually evidence of God's patience with us.
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  It is an act of divine love. He speaks to us as we are, not
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  as we ought to be. OK, so that's the theology.
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  We need the repetition because we're slow and forgetful
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  sinners. But let's get practical.
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  Let's move to section two of our discussion, which is about the
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  mechanics of amplification. How do we actually spot this in
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  the text? Because to me it sometimes just
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  looks like a run on sentence. Well, this is where our sources
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  provide a really helpful taxonomy, A classification
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  system. They break it down into what
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  they called the five Families of Pleionasm.
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  I love a good list. Let's go through them.
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  What's the first one? 1st, and this is the most
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  obvious 1, you have repetition based intensification.
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  This is simply doubling or tripling.
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  A word for effect we've mentioned truly, truly.
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  Another one would be when Jesus cries out, Oh Jerusalem,
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  Jerusalem. Right, and the function there is
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  pretty clear. It acts like a spoken underline
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  or bold faced text. You can't print bold text in an
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  ancient scroll, so you repeat the word.
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  It's a way of turning up the volume on that specific word or
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  idea. OK, that makes sense.
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  It's for emphasis. What's the second family?
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  Formula based pleonasm. Now these are those narrative
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  markers we talked about the beginning.
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  He answered and said, or he lifted up his eyes and saw, or
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  he rose up and went. Yes, those are the ones that
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  drive modern editors crazy. He rose and went.
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  Just say he went. Why 2 actions?
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  But functionally, these are literary Rd. signs.
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  They're not just conveying data. They control the pacing of the
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  narrative. They tell the reader, OK, pause,
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  we're moving to a new scene now. Or pay close attention.
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  Significant speech is about to happen.
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  If you cut all of them out, the narrative becomes a breathless,
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  frantic race. These formulas give the story
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  its proper rhythm. Like a chapter break, almost a
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  little signal to reorient yourself.
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  OK #3. #3. Superlative constructions.
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  This is the classic X of X's pattern that we see all over the
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  Old Testament Holy of Holies, King of Kings, Song of Songs.
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  I have always loved those phrases, they sound so majestic.
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  They do, and there's a grammatical reason for it.
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  The source explains that ancient Hebrew lacks a simple suffix for
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  superlatives. English has St.
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  We can say holiest or greatest or strongest.
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  Hebrew doesn't do that easily. So how did they express the
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  absolute maximum of something? They use this genitive
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  construction, the Holy of Holies.
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  It means the most holy place imaginable.
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  The Song of Songs means the greatest of all songs.
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  So King of Kings isn't just a poetic title, it's a grammatical
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  necessity in Hebrew to say the ultimate king.
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  That is it. It expresses the highest
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  possible rank, the pinnacle of that category.
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  That's fascinating. I never knew that.
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  OK, what's #4? #4 is stacking an accumulation.
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  This is when the text piles up a series of related terms.
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  You see this in the Law a lot, especially in a book like
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  Deuteronomy. You shall keep my statutes, my
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  commandments, and my judgments. Right.
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  Why not just say my laws? It seems redundant.
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  Because of the loophole factor, the function here is
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  comprehensiveness. By stacking these overlapping
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  terms, statutes, commandments, judgments, ordinances, God is
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  closing every possible escape Rd.
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  He is boxing the hearer in. So you can't swarm out of it.
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  You cannot evade the command by saying, well, I kept the
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  statutes, but that thing you're pointing to, that's a judgement,
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  so it doesn't apply to me. God says no, it all applies, the
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  whole package. It is covering all the bases.
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  It demands total obligation. That's it.
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  And the 5th and final family. Let's have it.
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  Oppositional clarification. This is simply adding
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  identifiers to a noun. David the King or the river
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  Jordan or Paul an apostle. That one seems pretty
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  straightforward, just making sure we know who we're talking
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  about. It is, but it's still a form of
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  amplification. It anchors the person or places
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  identity in the narrative. It prevents confusion and
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  ensures we know precisely who and what we are dealing with.
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  It has gravity. David is a name.
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  David the King is an office. OK, so we have these five
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  families, intensification formulas, superlatives,
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  stacking, and clarification. Now I want to see them in
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  action. Let's move to Section 3, Case
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  studies in the Old Testament, and our source points us to
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  arguably the most significant command in human history.
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  Genesis 2, verse 17. The prohibition in the Garden of
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  Eden. The King James says, But of the
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  tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of
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  it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
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  die. Yes.
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  And the key phrase we're interested in is right at the
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  end. Thou shalt surely die.
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  In the original Hebrew, this is the phrase MO tamiu.
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  OK, rig down the grammar of MO Tami for us.
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  What's going on there? It's a special Hebrew
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  construction called an infinitive absolute.
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  You have the finite verb you shall die tamiu, and it is
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  immediately preceded and reinforced by the infinitive
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  form of the very same verb moot, which means dying or to die.
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  So literally word for word it says dying.
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  You shall die. Dying.
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  You shall die. I mean, that sounds terrifying.
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  It sounds much stronger than just You will die.
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  It is meant to be. The whole point of the
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  infinitive absolute is to add massive emphasis.
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  The meaning here signifies absolute, unavoidable certainty
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  and a terrifying severity. It is not just a prediction.
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  If you eat, this biological cessation will eventually occur.
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  No, it is a threat. It is a legal sanction.
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  It is God, the Judge, decreeing inevitably and with utmost
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  certainty you will die. And this is a command that
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  establishes the covenant of works, is it not?
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  It does. This is the legal framework of
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  the garden. Obey and live.
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  Disobey and die. And here is where these extra
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  words become absolutely vital for our theology.
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  If a translator looks at Mutami and says, well, that's just a
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  Hebrew idiom for death, and so they translated simply as you
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  will die. They have stripped the text of
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  its Thunder. Because you will die could sound
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  like a natural consequence. You know, like if you touch fire
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  you will get burned. Right.
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  It could sound like a description of cause and effect,
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  but dying you shall die is a judicial decree.
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  It's a sentencing. And now look at what happens in
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  the very next chapter, Genesis 3, verse four.
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  I hope it comes along. And what does he say to Eve?
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  He says you will not surely die. Precisely.
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  The Serpent's Lie is a direct surgical attack on that specific
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  emphatic construction. He takes the Matami and he
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  inserts a single word of negation right into the middle
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  of it. He says, in effect, you will not
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  dying, die. Oh wow, so if you translate
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  God's command weekly, if you take out the Shirley, then the
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  Serpent's lie doesn't make as much sense.
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  You missed the point of his attack.
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  You missed the specific target of the deception.
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  The serpent wasn't just denying the reality of death in some
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  vague sense. He was denying the certainty and
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  the severity of God's declared judgement.
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  He was attacking the emphasis. So if we as modern readers
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  remove the plan as them, we obscure the enemy's primary
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  tactic. That is a massive theological
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  implication hanging on a little bit of what looks like redundant
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  grammar. That's the whole point of our
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  deep dive today. The grammar carries the
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  theology. Let's look at a different kind
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  of example from the Old Testament.
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  One of those so-called boring ones.
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  The formula. He lifted up his eye and saw.
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  Yes, this is our second case study.
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  You see this with Abraham when he's going to Moriah.
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  You see it with a lot. Looking at the planes of Sodom,
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  he lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.
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  The modern critique is obvious. Just say he saw.
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  Why do I need to know about the movement of his eyelids?
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  It adds nothing to the plot. It sounds funny when you put it
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  that way, but think about the function.
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  This is what we called a movement formula.
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  Its job is to slow the narrative down.
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  It indicates a significant shift in perspective or a moment of
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  weighty realization. It's like a camera move in a
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  movie. Not a quick cut, but a slow pan
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  or a slow zoom in. That is a perfect analogy.
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  That's exactly it. When Abraham lifts up his eyes
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  to see Mount Moriah, the place where he believes he is going to
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  sacrifice his only son, the text is asking us to pause and feel
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  the weight of that sight. You're supposed to be in his
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  shoes for a second. Yes, if it just said he saw the
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  mountain, it's merely reporting data.
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  It's flat that, but he lifted up his eyes and saw invites us into
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  the patriarchs experience. It's pregnant with meaning.
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  It forces the modern hurried reader to match the spirits
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  cadence to slow down. It teaches us patience.
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  It says do not rush past this moment.
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  Something big is about to happen.
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  Look with him. I love that it's actually
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  pastoral. It's not just grammatical, it's
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  shaping our soul to pay attention to what God is doing.
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  Which is precisely what Scripture is supposed to do from
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  cover to cover. OK, this is great.
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  Let's move into the New Testament now.
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  Section 4 Case studies in Christology because our source
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  argues that these extra words are not just about literary
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  style in general. They specifically reveal who
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  Jesus is. This.
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  Is where it gets really beautiful.
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  Let's go to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew
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  chapter 5, verse 2. The text says.
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  And he opened his mouth and taught them so.
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  There it is again. He opened his mouth.
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  The pragmatist, the modern editor, would immediately cut
• 17:58
  that phrase. Obviously, he opened his mouth
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  to speak. He didn't speak through his
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  nose. It's superfluous.
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  Right, it seems totally unnecessary.
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  But this is a Semitic idiom. It's a Hebrewism in the ancient
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  Near East. You did not open your mouth for
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  casual chat about the weather. This phrase is a formal
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  liturgical curtain raising. It's signals that something
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  official is happening, something solemn.
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  Yes. It indicates that the words to
• 18:23
  follow are not just ad hoc advice or some good ideas.
• 18:26
  They are legislation. They are a proclamation.
• 18:30
  In this moment, Jesus is assuming the seed of Moses, and
• 18:34
  he is infinitely greater than Moses to deliver the
• 18:37
  constitution of the Kingdom of God.
• 18:38
  So the redundancy, the pleonasm, amplifies the dignity of the
• 18:42
  king. Precisely, it is a literary
• 18:44
  trumpet, the blast a signal to the reader.
• 18:46
  Sit down, be quiet. The king is speaking to reduce
• 18:50
  that majestic phrase to he began to teach.
• 18:52
  Flattens the entire moment into a mundane classroom setting.
• 18:55
  It really does. He began to teach.
• 18:57
  It sounds like he's looking at his watch and checking his
• 18:58
  notes. He opened his mouth.
• 19:00
  It sounds like an Oracle from heaven.
• 19:02
  And he is the Oracle. He is the Word made flesh.
• 19:05
  That leaves us nicely into the next case study, which is a
• 19:07
  signature of John's Gospel, the verily verily.
• 19:10
  Or Amen, Amen as it is in the Greek.
• 19:12
  We see this all over the place in John's Gospel.
• 19:15
  Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he
• 19:18
  cannot see the Kingdom of God. Now to see the force of this,
• 19:22
  you have to compare it to the Old Testament prophets.
• 19:25
  When Isaiah or Jeremiah had a message from God.
• 19:28
  How did they start? They always said thus says the
• 19:30
  Lord. Right.
• 19:31
  Their authority was derivative. They were messengers.
• 19:34
  Their whole posture was don't look at me, look at the one who
• 19:36
  sent me. These aren't my words.
• 19:38
  But Jesus, he never says, thus says the Lord.
• 19:41
  He says Amen, Amen, I say to you.
• 19:44
  He's quoting himself. The authority originates with
• 19:46
  him. He is.
• 19:47
  This is what our source calls self amplification.
• 19:50
  It signals an intrinsic non derivative authority.
• 19:53
  He's not just a messenger. He is the the message.
• 19:56
  He is the logos. So when he double S that Amen,
• 19:58
  that truly he is essentially swearing by himself, because as
• 20:02
  Hebrews says, there is no one greater to swear by.
• 20:04
  That is it exactly. The repetition of the Amen acts
• 20:08
  as a divine seal of certainty. And here's the warning our
• 20:12
  source gives. If we translate this phrase as
• 20:15
  simply I tell you the truth, which is how the NIV often does
• 20:18
  it, we seriously dim the Christological brightness.
• 20:22
  Why is that? I tell you the truth sounds
• 20:24
  pretty strong. It sounds like a human being
• 20:27
  trying to be convincing. It sounds like.
• 20:30
  Honestly guys, I'm not lying, please believe me.
• 20:32
  It almost sounds defensive. I see that.
• 20:35
  Amen. Amen sounds sovereign.
• 20:37
  It is the language of deity. It's not a plea, it's a
• 20:39
  pronouncement from the throne. That is a vital distinction.
• 20:43
  Let's look at one more from the life of Jesus case study five
• 20:45
  the passion. This one comes from Luke 22
• 20:47
  verse 15. This.
• 20:48
  Is at the Last Supper, just hours before his betrayal and
• 20:51
  arrest, Jesus says to his disciples with desire, I have
• 20:54
  desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
• 20:56
  With desire I have desired again, that is clunky English.
• 21:00
  We would never say that. We would say I really wanted to
• 21:01
  eat this meal. It is, and grammatically it's a
• 21:05
  construction called a cognadative.
• 21:08
  It's the Greek language of the New Testament, mimicking that
• 21:10
  Hebrew infinitive absolute that we saw back in Genesis.
• 21:14
  It's using the noun form desire to intensify the verb form I
• 21:18
  have desired. So it is the same grammatical
• 21:21
  structure as dying you shall die.
• 21:23
  Structurally, yes, it's meant to convey maximum intensity.
• 21:26
  But look at the context here. This isn't about judgement.
• 21:30
  It is about affection. It is about love.
• 21:32
  It reveals his heart in that moment, it.
• 21:34
  Reveals his burning passion. This phrase tells us that Jesus
• 21:38
  did not go to the cross with a kind of stoic resignation.
• 21:41
  He was not dragging his feet to Calvary.
• 21:43
  He desired with desire to eat that meal because he knew it was
• 21:46
  the inauguration of the New Covenant in his blood.
• 21:48
  He wanted to save his people. He was zealous for it.
• 21:51
  He was eager for it. The redundancy communicates the
• 21:53
  intensity of his love. And there is a powerful
• 21:55
  connection here between the law and the Gospel, isn't there in
• 21:58
  these grammatical forms? There is a beautiful perfect
• 22:02
  symmetry, the surely of the law in Genesis 2.1.
• 22:05
  Save in dying you shall surely die is met and overcome by the
• 22:09
  surely of Christ's desire to save.
• 22:11
  In Luke 22, the amplification of wrath is matched by the
• 22:14
  amplification of grace. That gives me chills.
• 22:17
  The grammar itself tells the story of redemption.
• 22:20
  It should. The extra words are the
• 22:21
  guarantee of our hope. Just as God used emphatic
• 22:24
  language to guarantee the curse for sin, He uses the same kind
• 22:28
  of emphatic language to guarantee the cure in Christ.
• 22:30
  And if we edit out the clunky grammar in both places, if we
• 22:34
  smooth them both down to You Will Die and I Want to Eat, we
• 22:37
  lose that whole symmetry. We lose the connection between
• 22:40
  the Garden of Eden and the Upper Room.
• 22:41
  We do, we lose the threat of redemption that is woven into
• 22:44
  the very syntax of the Bible. OK, so you have convinced me
• 22:47
  these words matter. They are not clutter.
• 22:49
  They're the whole point sometimes.
• 22:51
  But I am not a Hebrew or a Greek scholar.
• 22:53
  I'm just a guy reading my Bible in English in the morning.
• 22:55
  How do I do this? How do I distinguish between
• 22:58
  good redundancy and just translation weirdness?
• 23:02
  That's a great question, and it brings us to Section 5A,
• 23:05
  Methodology for Reading. Our sources outline a very
• 23:08
  practical decision tree for the everyday reader.
• 23:11
  A decision tree. OK, walk us through it.
• 23:13
  What's step one? Step one is simply locate the
• 23:16
  surplus. You have to notice it first.
• 23:19
  This means you have to slow down.
• 23:20
  You can't be skimming for the gist.
• 23:22
  When you see a repeated word or a formula like answered and said
• 23:26
  or a long list of synonyms, just pause.
• 23:28
  OK, I spot it, he answered and said that's my surplus.
• 23:31
  Now what? Step 2.
• 23:33
  Step 2. Triangulate.
• 23:35
  This is where having a couple of different translations is really
• 23:38
  helpful. Compare them if the formal, more
• 23:40
  literal versions like the ESV, the NASB or the KJV keep the
• 23:44
  phrase but the dynamic thought for thought versions like the
• 23:47
  NIV or the NOT drop it or rephrase it.
• 23:50
  That's a huge clue. A clue that it's in the original
• 23:52
  text. Exactly.
• 23:53
  If the KJV says answered and said, and the NIV just says
• 23:56
  answered, it's almost certain that the KJV is reflecting the
• 24:00
  structure of the original Hebrew or Greek.
• 24:02
  That tells you it's not just the English translator having a bad
• 24:04
  day, it is in the inspired source text.
• 24:07
  Got it. So compare translations.
• 24:09
  What's Step 3? Ask origin.
• 24:11
  OK, so you've established it's in the original language.
• 24:13
  Now, you ask, is this an idiom, a pattern of speech native to
• 24:17
  Hebrew, like opening the mouth? Or is it a translator's addition
• 24:22
  for clarity? Sometimes translators do add
• 24:25
  words just to make a sentence work in English.
• 24:28
  Those are helpful, but they have less authority.
• 24:30
  But if it's an idiom, it comes directly from the Spirit's
• 24:33
  inspiration. And finally, Step 4.
• 24:35
  Determine function. This is the big interpretive
• 24:37
  step. Now, you ask, what is this
• 24:39
  pleonasm doing here? Go back to our five families.
• 24:42
  Is it for emphasis and tone? Like truly, truly?
• 24:45
  Is it for pacing the narrative like he lifted up his eyes?
• 24:48
  Or is it for defining the scope, like stacking statutes and
• 24:52
  commandments to close loopholes? So we ask, why this word?
• 24:56
  Why here? Precisely.
• 24:58
  And this whole process, this decision tree, protects us from
• 25:01
  two major errors in reading. OK, what are the errors to
• 25:04
  avoid? The first is the error of
• 25:05
  reductionism. That's treating repetition as
• 25:07
  clutter to be deleted. We've talked about that a lot.
• 25:09
  That's the modern pragmatist error.
• 25:11
  Right, cutting out the fat. But the second error is just as
• 25:14
  dangerous. It's the error of over
• 25:16
  interpretation. This is treating every single
• 25:20
  repeated word as if it's a new or distinct piece of doctrinal
• 25:23
  information. Give me an example of that, what
• 25:25
  would that look? Like take the Seraphim crying
• 25:27
  holy holy holy in Isaiah 6, the over interpreter might come
• 25:31
  along and say the first holy is for God the Father, the second
• 25:35
  holy is for God the Son, and the third holy is for the Holy
• 25:38
  Spirit. People definitely do that, but
• 25:40
  you're saying that's not what it means.
• 25:41
  No, that is reading a later developed doctrine into the
• 25:45
  grammar. The function of the repetition
• 25:47
  there is not to teach the Trinity, but to express the
• 25:50
  superlative. It's the Hebrew way of saying
• 25:52
  holiest or maximum holiness. We shouldn't try to decode a
• 25:57
  secret message in the repetition.
• 25:59
  We should simply feel the overwhelming weight of God's
• 26:01
  perfect holiness. So the correct posture is to let
• 26:05
  the pleonasm govern your intonation before it governs
• 26:08
  your inference. Let it affect how you hear the
• 26:10
  text. That is a brilliant way to put
• 26:12
  it. Yes.
• 26:13
  Hear the volume before you look for hidden codes.
• 26:16
  Feel the weight before you start building a system.
• 26:18
  This has been a fascinating process, really examining the
• 26:21
  grammar of the Bible. But as we start to wrap up, I
• 26:24
  want to land the plane. Let's talk about Section 6
• 26:27
  application. How does this affect our head,
• 26:30
  our heart and our hands? Let's start with the head, our
• 26:33
  intellect, our thinking. This calls for what we could
• 26:37
  call the discipline of attentive reading.
• 26:40
  We must come to the text believing that every stroke of
• 26:42
  the pen, every repeated phrase, is deliberate and meaningful.
• 26:47
  It also changes our definition of clarity, doesn't it?
• 26:50
  It does. We often confuse clarity with
• 26:52
  simplicity. We think a clear Bible would be
• 26:54
  one that's easy to read in five seconds.
• 26:57
  But true clarity often requires weight.
• 26:59
  It requires emphasis. We need to realize that the
• 27:02
  doctrine of perspicuity, the clarity of Scripture, doesn't
• 27:05
  mean everything is simplistic. It means the central message of
• 27:08
  salvation is plain. But the text itself might be
• 27:11
  dense and textured, and that's a good thing.
• 27:13
  OK, what about the heart? Our affections, our emotions.
• 27:16
  This is assurance for the Weary St.
• 27:18
  And I think we have a lot of weary Saints listening right
• 27:20
  now. We do, and when God repeats
• 27:22
  Himself, it is so often for their sake.
• 27:25
  Think about Hebrews 13.5. The author quotes the Old
• 27:29
  Testament and says I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
• 27:33
  In the original Greek of that verse there are 5 negatives
• 27:35
  piled up. It's grammatical mess in
• 27:37
  English, but it's like saying I will never, no, never, not ever
• 27:40
  under any circumstances, no, never leave you or forsake you.
• 27:44
  That is a lot of nevers. And we need every single one of
• 27:46
  them because our anxiety is strong and our doubts are loud.
• 27:50
  The extra words are God underlining his love for us.
• 27:54
  He is shouting his promise over the noise of our fears.
• 27:56
  That's beautiful. And finally, the hands.
• 27:59
  Our practice, our liturgy, what we do.
• 28:01
  This effects our worship. The public reading of Scripture
• 28:04
  in church should not be rushed. The Lecter, the person reading
• 28:07
  the Bible, should read with the gravity the text demands.
• 28:09
  If the text says truly, truly, say it with weight.
• 28:12
  Don't just mumble the repetition.
• 28:14
  Make the congregation feel the emphasis.
• 28:15
  Lean into the pleonasm. Yes, and it affects our
• 28:19
  obedience. We could call it emphatic
• 28:21
  obedience. If God uses the infinitive
• 28:24
  absolute dying, you shall surely die.
• 28:26
  Our response should be absolute terror of sin and swift
• 28:30
  repentance. We should not offer partial,
• 28:32
  half hearted obedience to an emphatic God.
• 28:35
  And what about evangelism? How does this change how we
• 28:38
  share our faith? We must preach the surely of
• 28:41
  judgement and the surely of salvation.
• 28:43
  A gospel without emphasis is a gospel without power.
• 28:47
  We cannot be embarrassed by the severity of God's warnings or
• 28:50
  the intensity of His promises. We need to give the world the
• 28:53
  full weight of the text, not a streamlined, efficient,
• 28:56
  corporate friendly version of it.
• 28:57
  The full weight, yes. All of.
• 28:59
  It we have covered a lot of ground today.
• 29:01
  We have gone from grammar to the Garden of Eden, to the Cross and
• 29:05
  back to our own daily Bible reading habits.
• 29:07
  It's just a reminder that the Bible is a deep well.
• 29:10
  Even the little words, the so-called extra ones, are full
• 29:12
  of water for our souls. As we sign off, I want to leave
• 29:15
  you, the listener with this final thought.
• 29:18
  It is so easy to critique the Bible for not sounding like a
• 29:21
  modern e-mail or news ticker. It's easy to get impatient with
• 29:24
  it. But maybe the problem is not the
• 29:26
  text. Maybe the problem is us.
• 29:28
  Maybe we are just moving too fast.
• 29:30
  I think you're spot on. So the next time you see a
• 29:32
  redundant phrase in your Bible, a truly, truly or a he answered
• 29:37
  and said don't skip it, don't mentally edit it.
• 29:39
  Stop. Realize that is the spot where
• 29:42
  God is raising His voice to get your attention.
• 29:45
  That is the divine speed bump. And if we remove that
• 29:47
  inefficiency, we might just be removing the very thing our
• 29:50
  distracted hearts need most, the emphasis of God.
• 29:53
  Amen to that. Thanks for thinking with us.
• 29:55
  Don't make sense.