Of Uriah and Uzzah

I have not yet begun reading The Numeric Bible.  I am still reading the preface to it, but I am greatly anticipating reading the New Testament again with a new eye.  Just consider this little bit from the preface:

In Matthew’s Gospel, 1:6, Solomon is begotten “of her of Uriah.” The Authorized and Revised versions render it ‘of her that had been the wife of Uriah’, justly italicizing what is not in the original. Alford and the Baptist version (which the writer regrets to say is not as ‘improved’ as it deems itself to be) retain the phrase without italicizing. The Douai version italicizes only ‘the wife’. Now it is true that when Bathsheba was married to David, Uriah was already dead, and she thus only had been Uriah’s wife. But the Greek tells nothing of this her history. All it tells is that she was Uriah’s dame; but whether wife, daughter, or sister, is here at least left indefinite. Now it is a sound canon of translation, specially of God’s Book, not to mix interpretation with translation. One translator boldly describes the unnamed mother of Solomon as Uriah’s—widow, thus adding to SCRIPTURE, and also wholly missing the eloquence of a most effective bit of Scripture silence. For a reason for keeping Bathsheba in the background, whether as wife, or mother, is to emphasize all the more the terrible sin against URIAH. The offspring of Thamar, the Spirit is almost heard to say here, is bad enough; but her sin was at least not voluntary. Rahab’s is worse, she being harlot by profession. But David’s—the blackness of his sin can be made dark enough only by shutting off all from it, and concentrating the whole luridness on the one name URIAH. And it is into such scenes of sin that the Holy One descended from His glory for the sake of sinful man. . . . But if in is thrust the officious widow, or even wife, corresponding distraction is made from the here all-important Uriah, and forthwith havoc is made of one of the finest Scripture parables thus acted out by its very silence.

For the same reason the pετοικεσία Βαβυλώνος of Matthew 1:11, 12, 17, rendered by the Revisers Removal to Babylon, is a permissible interpretation, but not the right translation. As it stands, the phrase ‘the Babylon Removal’, apart from signifying the removal of Babylon itself (which, however, it cannot mean here) may also mean only the removal caused by Babylon. That this city, or even province, was the sole place of deportation may be, but is not necessarily the meaning here. The rendering ‘the Babylon Removal’ leaves the English exactly where the Greek leaves it.

So dangerous a thing it is to meddle ever so slightly with the words of—GOD. Uzzah at the Ark is still a warning.

These are the kinds of insights we can expect to glean when we approach God’s Word as he wrote it!  May we be blessed as we read his Word again with new eyes!

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