not apt to get into the beauty of them or to have any great understanding of the real meaning. And of course, these poetic features are carried over into English and unfortunately many of the translators have failed to recognize and understand some of these principles. As a result they have made translations which while verbally, they may be quite accurate, do not give a proper idea of the interrelation of the parts. One big reason for that is the fact that in Hebrew you have one common conjunction. The letter is the common conjunction which we would waw But it is much broader than our Though our say means ‘and’. English ‘and’. English is much broader than most other would think. We looked for ‘and’ say, “I Him and He was not we might say that. It would be more accurate for us to there,” looked for Him but He was not in English sometimes say, “I there.” Our ‘and’ carries the meaning of Now in Hebrew the which in half the cases, at waw ‘but’. least, is best translated by in many cases can be represented by or ‘and’, ‘but’ ‘yet’ or or I came across one verse in Daniel in which it was ‘moreover’ ‘then’. translated four different ways in the course of one work in the King James Version. It simply is a broader word than our English though our English “and”, is a broader word than the average speaker of English recognizes even “and” though he does use it in the broader way, which is part of the language. So the poetic language is one cause of difficulty. The Local Situation [13:59] A second is the local situation. The prophets were not men who sat in an ivory tower somewhere and looked up at the sky and wrote down visions that they saw (occasionally they did have visions like this). But as a rule, they were out among the people, dealing with situations of their time. And God was giving them messages and related to these situations. And then out of the many messages that God gave His people that had vital relation to the situations of their time, God selected certain ones to be written down in the books that were to have great meaning for people of all subsequent times. But all of these messages have certain
not apt to get into the beauty of them or to have any great understanding of the real meaning. And of course, these poetic features are carried over into English and unfortunately many of the translators have failed to recognize and understand some of these principles. As a result they have made translations which while verbally, they may be quite accurate, do not give a proper idea of the interrelation of the parts. One big reason for that is the fact that in Hebrew you have one common conjunction. The letter waw is the common conjunction which we would say means ‘and’. But it is much broader than our English ‘and’. Though our English ‘and’ is much broader than most other would think. We say, “I looked for Him and He was not there,” we might say that. It would be more accurate for us to say, “I looked for Him but He was not there.” Our ‘and’ in English sometimes carries the meaning of ‘but’. Now in Hebrew the waw which in half the cases, at least, is best translated by ‘and’, in many cases can be represented by ‘but’ or ‘yet’ or ‘moreover’ or ‘then’. I came across one verse in Daniel in which it was translated four different ways in the course of one work in the King James Version. It simply is a broader word than our English “and”, though our English “and” is a broader word than the average speaker of English recognizes even though he does use it in the broader way, which is part of the language. So the poetic language is one cause of difficulty. The Local Situation [13:59] A second is the local situation. The prophets were not men who sat in an ivory tower somewhere and looked up at the sky and wrote down visions that they saw (occasionally they did have visions like this). But as a rule, they were out among the people, dealing with situations of their time. And God was giving them messages and related to these situations. And then out of the many messages that God gave His people that had vital relation to the situations of their time, God selected certain ones to be written down in the books that were to have great meaning for people of all subsequent times. But all of these messages have certain