Still Broken: the Exodus Road

A note

Some people are consoled by this verse and others are wounded by it, often in the same room. The writer almost certainly did not anticipate that. It is left for readers to carry.（マカバイ記四 1:16）

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.

Put the translations side by side and the same verse arrives differently each time. One is soft, another is severe, and the original is a third thing that is neither. That difference is itself a way in.

17家即ち前にある拝殿は四十キユビトなり

列王紀上 6:17（文語訳（日本語））

Anticipating the objection

The first time I read this passage I understood nothing at all. I carried that incomprehension around for years, and then one afternoon it turned slightly, the way a key turns, and something opened. What follows is an attempt to describe the turn.（サムエル記上 22:2-5）

The first time I read this passage I understood nothing at all. I carried that incomprehension around for years, and then one afternoon it turned slightly, the way a key turns, and something opened. What follows is an attempt to describe the turn.（ヨハネの第三の手紙 1:7）

16そのとき、主を恐れる者は互に語った。主は耳を傾けてこれを聞かれた。そして主を恐れる者、およびその名を心に留めている者のために、主の前に一つの覚え書がしるされた。

17「万軍の主は言われる、彼らはわたしが手を下して事を行う日に、わたしの者となり、わたしの宝となる。また人が自分に仕える子をあわれむように、わたしは彼らをあわれむ。

18その時あなたがたは、再び義人と悪人、神に仕える者と、仕えない者との区別を知るようになる。

マラキ書 3:16-18（口語訳（日本語））

One word that snags

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.