Διψυχος

by Ecumenius, which is to this effect: " "avno is a man of unsettled and fluctuating senti"ments, too solicitous about the present to attain the

future, too anxious about the future to secure the

present, who driven hither and thither in his judg"ment of things, is perpetually shifting the object, "who this moment would sacrifice all for eternity, "and the next would renounce any thing for this "transient life." The sense of the Apostle's expression may be therefore justly given in these words: A man unsteady in his opinions, is in all his actions

inconstant.

20. To the above example I shall add a few of the most common of all kinds of composition, a preposition and a verb in familiar use. My intention is chiefly to show, that a deviation in interpreting, small to appearance, even such as is apt to be overlooked by a reader deceived by the correspondence of the themes, is often sufficient to pervert the sense, either by rendering the expression totally unmeaning, or by giving it a wrong meaning. The verb opaw, to see, is common; ро in composition generally answers to the English inseparable preposition fore. The verb, therefore, роoрaw, or, in the middle voice лроорaouai, should mean analogically, one would imagine, I foresee. It is accordingly in one

8 Δίψυχον άνδρα, τον ανεπερείδον, τον αςηρίκτον λεγει, τον μητε προς τα μέλλοντα παγίως, μητε προς τα παροντα ασφαλως ήδρασμένον, αλλά τηδε κάκεισε αγομενον και περιφερομενον, και ποτε μεν των μελλόντων. ποτε δε των παροντων αντεχομενον.

place' so rendered, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, in Greek, προωρωμην τον Κυριον ενω πιον με δια παντος. The words are a quotation from the Psalms 10, and are literally copied from the Septuagint.

It will naturally occur to an attentive English reader, to inquire, What is the meaning of the word foresaw in this passage? Foresight has a reference to the future; whereas the Psalmist is speaking of things as present: for, though it is true that the words relate to the Messiah, who was many centuries posterior to David, they are not announced in the form of a prediction.. David, in speaking, personates the Messiah, of whom he was an eminent type, and ascribes as to himself what, in the sublimest sense, was applicable only to that illustrious descendant. It is as it were Christ who speaks. The Lord he represents as always before him, not as to be in some future period before him, adding he is, not he will be, on my right hand. In regard to the compound verb, it occurs only in one other passage of the New Testament, to be considered afterwards, and in no place of the Septuagint, except that above quoted. But, on examining more closely the import of the simple words, we discover that the Greek preposition may relate to place as well as to time, and that it is often merely what grammarians call intensive: that is, it does not alter the sense of the simple verb to which it is prefixed, it only renders the

? Acts, ii. 25.

19 xvi. 8.

13

12

expression more emphatical. Thus the verb лрооpaw is as literally rendered prospicio as prævideo, and has been, in this passage, more fitly rendered so by Beza. It may be objected that this explanation produces a pleonasm in the sentence, as it is immediately added, ɛvorov μ8, before me. But such pleonasms are not uncommon in scripture. Thus "To πνευμα υπερεντυγχανει ὑπερ ἡμων. *Οςις ωκοδομησε την οικίαν αυτό. * Φωνην ήκεσα κιθαρωδών κιναριζοντων εν ταις κιθαραις αυτών. The last four words in this verse are plainly implied in the participle. The phrase which occurs oftener than once, υποπόδιον των Todov avτ8, is chargeable with the like redundancy. Add to all this, that the Hebrew word here translated лроора by the Seventy, never signifies to foresee, but to place, to set. In this passage, being applied to the mind, it denotes the Psalmist's, or rather the Messiah's fixed attention on God as always with him.

The other passage in which this verb occurs is also in the Acts 1 Ησαν προεωρακότες Τροφιμον τον Εφεσίον εν τη πολει συν αυτώ. Here the connection, without other resource, shows sufficiently that the simple verb opaw means literally to see, and the preοραω position ро before, in respect of time, not of place, and yet that poopaw does not imply to foresee, but to see before. The difference lies here. The former is to see or perceive an event before it happen, the latter denotes only to see either person or thing

11 Rom. viii. 26.

13 Rev. xiv. 2.

12 Matth. vii. 24. 26.

14 xxi. 29.

before the present time, which alone can be the sense of this passage, and which is therefore rightly rendered by our translators, " They had seen before with him, in the city, Trophimus an Ephesian." To have said, " They had foreseen with him," would have totally marred the sense. But our translators have not always been equally attentive.

§ 21. I SHALL add an example, not unlike the former, in the verb лроуivwσxw, though the difficulty, with regard to it, arises as much from the signification of the simple verb, as from that of the preposition. Paul says ", Ουκ απώσατο ὁ Θεος τον λαον αυτό όν προεγνω, which our translators render, God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. The last clause in this version conveys to my mind no meaning whatever. To foreknow always signifies to know some event before it happen; but no event is here mentioned, so that we are at a loss to discover the object of the foreknowledge mentioned. Is it only the existence of the people? Even this is not explicitly said; but if this were the writer's intention, we should still be at a loss for the sense. There is no

thing in this circumstance, which distinguishes God's people from any other people, for the existence of all were equally foreknown by him: whereas here something peculiar is plainly intended, which is suggested as a reason to prevent our thinking that God would ever totally cast them away. Though no

15 Rom. xi. 2.

thing, to appearance, can answer more exactly than the English foreknew, does to the Greek лроeуvw, it, in reality, labours under a double defect. The first is the same which was observed in the preceding paragraph, in rendering the preposition; for there is the same difference between knowing before and foreknowing, that there is between seeing before and foreseeing. Our translators have, on some occasions, shown themselves sensible of the difference. Accordingly they render προγινώσκοντες ue avwder, which knew me from the beginning, not foreknew me. The example above quoted from the twenty-first chapter of the Acts, is a similar in

με

stance.

The prepositions in the two languages, though nearly, are not perfectly, correspondent, especially in composition. With us the inseparable preposition fore, prefixed to know, see, tell, and show, always relates to some event, which is known, seen, told, and shown before it happen whereas the Greek preposition pо does not necessarily relate to an event, and signifies no more than before this time. The difference in these idioms may be thus illustrated. A friend introducing a person with whom he supposes me unacquainted, says, This is such a man. I make answer, I knew him before. I should speak nonsense, if I said, I foreknew him. Yet in Greek I might say properly, προεγνων.

Another instance wherein our interpreters have shown an attention to this distinction, we have in the