Late Night the Exodus Road

abadi_margaret2026/1/4

An attempt to read a famous passage all the way through without lifting it out of context.

Comparing translations

Pull a single verse out of its paragraph and you can make it say almost anything. This particular verse has been made to say a great deal. Which is precisely why it deserves to be read with what stands on either side of it.

Leaving the question open

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.（コリント人への第二の手紙 7:10）

Finally, back to the text. No amount of commentary competes with the texture of the sentences themselves. Read it out loud once before you read anything else about it.

Following the context

There are obvious objections, and I don't hold this reading with much confidence. What I would defend is narrower: that the text leaves room for it.

17彼はついにその心をことごとく打ち明けて女に言った、「わたしの頭にはかみそりを当てたことがありません。わたしは生れた時から神にささげられたナジルびとだからです。もし髪をそり落されたなら、わたしの力は去って弱くなり、ほかの人のようになるでしょう」。
士師記 16:17（口語訳（日本語））

The text itself

（知られざる福音書（エゲルトン・パピルス2）第2章）

How you render this one word determines the meaning of the whole paragraph. A translator has to decide, and the decision is already an interpretation. Readers deserve to know that a decision was made.（エレミヤの手紙 1:50）

参照先を確認できませんでした: {{truth 4:10}}

The text itself

10それでは、どういう場合にそう認められたのか。割礼を受けてからか、それとも受ける前か。割礼を受けてからではなく、無割礼の時であった。
ローマ人への手紙 4:10（口語訳（日本語））

Comparing translations

Let me set the terms. This is not an argument about doctrinal correctness. It is one reader's account of what the text can be made to yield. I am going to leave the ending open on purpose.

The text itself

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.

16後者は、わたしが福音を弁明するために立てられていることを知り、愛の心でキリストを伝え、
17前者は、わたしの入獄の苦しみに更に患難を加えようと思って、純真な心からではなく、党派心からそうしている。
18すると、どうなのか。見えからであるにしても、真実からであるにしても、要するに、伝えられているのはキリストなのだから、わたしはそれを喜んでいるし、また喜ぶであろう。
ピリピ人への手紙 1:16-18（口語訳（日本語））

Comparing translations

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.（テモテへの第一の手紙 3:9）

参照先を確認できませんでした: {{mary 1:1-5}}

Reading the non-canonical material alongside this shows how wide the shared vocabulary of the period really was. Looking only at what was eventually collected hides that width entirely.（ストレンジャーの書 5:36）

参照先を確認できませんでした: {{secret-james 12:3}}

Another way to read it

A short detour. There is a passage elsewhere with the same shape though no direct connection, and setting them next to each other makes the writers' different concerns visible.

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.

There are obvious objections, and I don't hold this reading with much confidence. What I would defend is narrower: that the text leaves room for it.（哀歌 2:14-15）

Here is the conclusion, which is not an answer. I have decided to read this as a promise rather than a command, for the plain reason that I can live inside the first reading and not the second. Whether that is a legitimate reason I genuinely do not know.

In its own century

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.（ヨエル書 3:7-8）

18すなわちケルビムと、しゅろとが彫刻してあった。ケルブとケルブとの間に、しゅろがあり、おのおののケルブには、二つの顔があり、
19こなたには、しゅろに向かって、人の顔があり、かなたには、しゅろに向かって、若じしの顔があり、宮の周囲は、すべてこのように彫刻してあった。
20床から戸の上まで、ケルビムと、しゅろとが、壁に彫刻してあった。
21拝殿の柱は四角であった。聖所の前には、木の祭壇に似たものがあった。
22その高さは三キュビト、長さは二キュビト、幅は二キュビトで、すみと、台と、壁とは、ともに木である。彼はわたしに言った、「これは主の前にある机である」
エゼキエル書 41:18-22（口語訳（日本語））