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Ezekiel 32:16-19 - Making sense of the words - Day 272

Good morning fellow Bible scholars,

Have you ever been in a situation where people use a lot of jargon that has meaning to them but not to an outsider.  Sometimes Christians can do this.  We look at our Bible and assume that it has always had the appearance that it has today.  When I first selected these verses, I thought I understood what "this is the lament" referred to.  But when trying to figure it out, I saw that the word grouping implied something that wasn't there.  Hope these thoughts are helpful.

Blessings,

Jeff

This is a case where the grouping of verses can be misleading.  In the English Standard Version 16-19 appear as a paragraph.  Applying standard literary method, this would make 17-19 the lament that is to be chanted.

However, when I looked at ESV study bible notes, v16 refers to the previous verses and 17-32 are the seventh and final oracle against Egypt.

This made me think that some thoughts about my limited knowledge of Bible translation might be helpful.

First, the use of verse numbers as we have them today started in 1551. Wikipedia says: The first Bible in English to use both chapters and verses was the Geneva Bible published shortly afterwards in 1560. These verse divisions soon gained acceptance as a standard way to notate verses, and have since been used in nearly all English Bibles and the vast majority of those in other languages.

Second, translators have added words to make the actual Hebrew or Greek words into sentences or phrases.  If you use an electronic Bible, the actual words are in a slightly different shade.  If you have a version with Strong's numbers, these are the words that Strong's dictionary are linked to.  For example

This is a lamentation that shall be chanted Ezekiel 32:16

Lamentation and chanted are the only Hebrew words.  If translators just gave us those words, we would have to figure out what was really meant.  To the original reader, the "additional words" would come naturally.

So when we say that scripture is God breathed, we are talking about the actual Hebrew and Greek words without chapter and verse and the "additional words" provided by translators.

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