ing the separate words and phrases of the New Testament, is not thrown away, and issues in a larger result than the mere accumulation of curious lore. Even as nature fills in the space between the foreground and the background of her land- Scapes with countless details of form and color, light and shadow, so the rich details of New-Testament words, once ap- prehended, impart a depth of tone and a just relation and per- spective to the salient masses of doctrine, narrative, and proph- ecy. How much is habitually lost to the English student through the use of one and the same term in rendering two words which the writer selected with a clear recognition of a distinction between them. How often a picture or a bit of his- tory is hidden away in a word, of which a translation gives and can give no hint. How many distinctive characteristics of a writer are lost in a translation. How often, especially in the version of 1611, the marvellous play of the Greek tenses, and the nicely-calculated force of that potent little instrument, the article, are utterly overlooked. As the reader steps securely over the carefully-fitted pavement laid for him by modern revisers, he does not even guess at the rare and beautiful things lying beneath almost every separate block.
Can the reader who knows no Greek be put in possession of these treasures? Not of all; yet certainly of a goodly share of them. It has seemed to me that the following results might be reached:
1. Where a word has a history, he may learn it, and may be shown through what stages the word has attained its pres- ent meaning, and how its variations have successively grown out of each other. [Illustrations are furnished by such words as ‘‘ humility,” “ meekness,” ‘“ blessed.”
2. He may be shown, in part, at least, the peculiar form in which a thought comes to a Greek mind; or, in other words, he may form some acquaintance with Greek idioms. Thus, to take some very simple instances, he can easily see how, when
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he thinks of his food as set before him on the table, the Greek thinks of it as set destde him, and writes accordingly; or how his idea of sitting down to the table comes to the Greek as 7e- clining ; or he can understand how, when Luke says, “ we came the next day,” the idea of the next or second day comes to him in the form of an adjective qualifying we, so that he thinks of himself and his companions as second-day men. Sometimes, when two languages develop a difference of idiom in their classical usage, the classical idiom of the one reappears in the vulgar dialect of the other. The spirit of numerous Greek words or phrases, even in the New Testament, could be re- produced most faithfully by English expressions which have been banished from polite diction.
3. He can be shown the picture or the figure hidden away ina word. See, for example, the note on compel, Matt. v. 41.
4, He may learn something of Greek synonyms. He may be shown how two different Greek words, rendered by the same English word, represent different sides or phases of the sane idea, and why each word is used in its own place. Thus, the word “net” occurs in both Matt. iv. 18 and Matt. xiii. 47; but the Greek word is different in each verse, and either word would have been inappropriate in the place of the other.
5. He may be shown how two English words, having appar- ently no connection with each other, are often expressed by the same Greek word; and he may be put in possession of the connecting idea. He does not suspect that “bosom,” in Luke vi. 38, and “creek” or “bay,” in Acts xxvii. 39, are one and the same word; or that there is any connection between the “winding up” of Ananias’ body (Acts v. 6) and Paul’s assertion that the time is “ short” (1 Cor. vii. 29).