Pastor Don Milton B.A. Linguistics, University of Washington 1987
Copyright © 2005-2024 Don Milton All Rights Reserved
The meaning of every word found in the Bible is based on numerous factors:
Here are some important things to consider in determining the meaning of a word.
What does the concordance say it means.
Strong’s Concordance is the favorite for most of us doing Bible word studies. But using Strong’s Concordance effectively, requires practice and reverence. We mustn’t in an arm chair fashion seek to change the meaning of a word to prove new takes on old passages.
History: What was happening at the time the verse was written
At the time of Jesus, there were many laws passed. Knowing them reveals nuances in His Words as well as the words of the writers of the New Testament. One such law was the Jus Trium Liberorum, the term frequently used to describe what is more accurately called the Lex Papia Poppaea, A.D. 9. It granted special privileges to men with many children and punished celibacy by limiting the rights of single men. This accounts for Paul’s discussions on celibacy which should not be taken as encouraging celibacy but as defending the right of a man or woman to voluntarily choose marriage, instead of feeling compelled to marry by Roman decree. The Lex Papia Poppaea decreed punishments such as the loss of inheritance rights for those who remained single after having attained puberty, up to the age of fifty for women, and sixty for men. A man or woman was given one hundred days to get married upon finding out they were the beneficiary of an inheritance or they would forfeit the inheritance.1
Those who spoke the language
What do the people who speak the original language of the Bible say that the word means?
The context of the verse
What does the context of the verse in which the word is found show it to mean? Specifically, what verses preceded and followed the verse and what was the social context in which it was spoken. Who was the speaker or writer of the words, who were the listeners or readers?
Cultural bias must not become linguistic bias
What does your culture say it means? Throw that out! In order to understand what a word means in the original language you must throw out what your culture and tradition teach you and go strictly by the culture and tradition of the Bible. There is a grand error that can occur when you allow your culture to interject itself into your understanding of scripture. Your culture will cause you to redefine words in the Bible based on your culture’s interpretation of a verse. (read that – misinterpretation of a verse.) Do not allow that to happen or you will be defining God’s Holy Word by your cultural interpretation of the verse, instead of defining the meaning of the verse based on the original meaning of the words as understood in the culture in which it was spoken and to whom it was addressed.
Contrasting Verses – Case Study One
Nearly identical verses can shed light on a verse’s meaning, thereby shedding light on the meaning of words in the verses. Here’s an example:
Genesis 3: 16 …thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Genesis 4:7 …And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
We’ll begin with the second verse because its meaning is obvious, “sin lieth at the door and unto thee (Cain) shall be his (sin’s) desire. And thou (Cain) shalt rule over him (sin).”
Obviously, Cain failed. He did not rule over sin. So we see that God was not stating that Cain would rule over sin, in one particular case, but we see that Cain was instructed to always rule over sin.
Is woman such that man must rule her like man must rule sin?
To find out if the woman and sin operate in the same way to subvert man’s relationship with the Lord, we must look deeper into the case of Eve. The first question we might ask is whether the word translated as “desire” means something other than what it looks like on face value. It’s used in only one place other than in the case of Eve’s desire for Adam and Sin’s desire being for Cain, and that is in the epic love Song of Solomon 7:10
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me
So from what we see in these three passages, it is the case that sin operates like the desire of a woman for a man and a man for a woman. You might even say that in the verses concerning Cain it’s used as a metaphor, indicating the degree to which sin wants you. As much as a woman wants a man and a man wants a woman, that’s how much sin wants you, and then the Lord says to Cain, “and thou shalt rule over him.” (rule over sin) And then the metaphor becomes:
Rule the woman every bit as much as Cain must rule sin.
The beauty of God’s language is breath taking. God’s language in fact, is breath, He literally breathes out life.. And He encourages us to breathe His life into others with the Words we use, the gospel. So with God’s command that man must rule woman, He has made a serious statement. Take ruling your woman every bit as seriously as you take God’s command (through his admonition to Cain) that we rule sin and not let sin rule us.
God also commanded Adam to rule Eve before she sinned
We know this because Adam was punished “for hearkening unto the voice of” the woman. Adam eating the fruit was simply proof that he hearkened unto the woman.
And unto Adam he said, “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, ‘Thou shalt not eat of it.’ Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” Genesis 3:17
So Adam already knew that it was a sin to hearken unto the woman, and that he must rule the woman, not be ruled by her. God is just. He would not punish Adam for a crime of which Adam was unaware. So the woman being ruled by the man was not a punishment for her. It was the natural state of the man/woman relationship from the beginning. Eve’s punishment was that God would …greatly multiply her sorrow and her conception so that in sorrow she would bring forth children…” Genesis 3:16
The woman was to be ruled because Adam was formed first
The Apostle Paul clearly states this:
“But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.“ 1 Timothy 2:12-13
So the woman was to be ruled by the man because Adam was formed first, then Eve was formed from Adam.
Man ruling woman was NOT because Eve sinned
Deceived feminists (read that – woman haters) teach that man’s headship over women was the result of Eve’s sin and that born again women are released from that headship. This is deception. Again, Paul states the reason, because Adam was first formed, then Eve.
Now just like Cain was commanded to rule sin, and Adam was commanded to rule Eve, we are commanded to rule our woman/women. But Cain failed to rule sin and Adam failed to rule Eve. Man’s track record does not bode well for us, therefore we must approach this as the spiritual battle that it is, not only attempting to rule our wives, but succeeding in ruling our wives in obedience to the Lord’s command. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12
Neither the Lord, nor I, dislike women
Women are delightful. Every man should have at least one, at least. But to be within God’s will, we must rule them with the understanding that their desire for us includes our responsibility to rule them. We have also been hampered by ungodly laws that remove men’s rights and forsake the promise of protection that God’s law provides women. There are no more dowries, the value of a woman has been reduced to a post-braces smile and broken promises. We must lobby our representatives in government to right these wrongs against men and women. Men must not be silent about this. God is all powerful and we must prevail. “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” Ephesians 6:16
Synonyms, homonyms, old English terms, & multiple renderings
Are there synonyms, homonyms, or words with multiple meanings that are used in the same context as the word we’re researching— words that shed light on the meaning of the verse and thereby the meaning of the word?
Take the words “help meet.” To most Americans this means helpmate, to some it means helper to meet his needs, but the true meaning is “suitable helper.” At the time the King James was translated, the word meet meant suitable. And women are suitable indeed. The smallest woman can challenge the strongest and wisest man in the home. But she cannot win in her quest to control him if her man is a dangerous man. And by that, I mean, a man with nothing to lose. All men must do their best to be this kind of dangerous. To have no fear in life, for in an instant, if we die, we are with the Lord. And yet most wives are not planning to kills us, but Eve did hasten Adam’s spiritual death because of his failure to rule her. Knowing the unlikeliness of a woman killing her husband over his ruling her, how can a man fear his woman. Does he fear losing her or losing his money? There are millions of women who will marry a dangerous man. He’s attractive, even those who have nothing. Yet men fear their wives?! Are they crazy? In considering this, I remembered:
Adam was an incredible man, even after Eve deceived him
Can you imagine the primal roar that must have come from Adam’s mouth the second time Eve asked Adam to do something, after he’d made the mistake of following her the first time, and been punished? Consider Adam, the first man, huge, perfect, desirable to every woman that came from Eve, for many came from her, she was the mother of all living, the first and the most fertile. Then there were her grand daughters, likewise, firm, fertile, and beautiful. Then Eve’s great grand daughters, and so forth. There was a 130 year period between the creation of Adam and the arrival of his son Seth.
Contrasting Verses – Case Study Two
Genesis 4:25
“And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.”
We literally don’t know if this was Eve without making assumptions that are not presented in the text. Where does it specify Eve? One might say, since it says another seed for Adam’s wife instead of Abel, then that wife must have been Eve since Eve was Abel’s mother. Plus, the verse as translated sounds as if Adam had sex with Eve again because it says Adam knew his wife again. But we have to admit that it doesn’t mention Eve by name.
What does a direct translation literally say?
What the Hebrew literally says, in the order it would be spoken, word for word, in English, is as follows:
“And Adam made love with his wife a good while and she begat a son and she called his name Seth for God appointed to me another seed instead of Abel because Cain slew him.”
Now one could argue that this sentence is ambiguous. Listen how a slight emphasis on to me forces the conclusion that the woman was other than Eve.
“For God appointed, to me, another seed instead of Abel.”
Now I’m not saying that it was positively someone other than Eve, but you can see how it very well could have been, and if it were, then Adam had at least one wife in addition to Eve, whether it was after Eve’s death or not. But don’t forget, people lived a very long time back then. So even though it’s unlikely Eve would have given birth to a son at the age of a hundred and thirty years, because women’s eggs do have an expiration date, it’s also not likely that she would have been dead by that time. For much of this case study I’ve used the AFPMA, the Andersen Forbes Phrase Marker Analysis (of Hebrew).
Translation and the order in which events occur
We often don’t know the sequence of events. For example. We don’t know the lengths of the generations of our matrilineal ancestors through Cain as spoken of in the narrative about Jubal and Jabal. We know that Jubal is the ancestor of all those who made it through the flood via one of his female descendants and we know that Jabal is the ancestor of the Shemites through one of his female progeny marrying Noah. But we don’t know the lengths of their generations. We don’t know if Lamech, his case being the first example of self defense, stand your ground, and the castle doctrine, was born before or after Seth. The fact that the paragraph about Seth follows the paragraph about Lamech notwithstanding. Sequence of paragraphs is not a consistent indicator of events. We don’t even know if Abel was born 100 years before Seth or 30 years before Seth. Because of these missing pieces, we can’t be sure of the identity of Seth’s mother.
Now, let’s look at the phrase I’ve proposed as “a good while”
“And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.” Genesis 46:29
Notice the phrase a good while? That’s the exact same word that’s translated again in Genesis 4:25. Instead of translating it, “Adam made love to his wife again, it makes sense to translate it, Adam made love to his wife a good while. Siring Seth 130 years after Adam was created by God, it’s unlikely that only then does Adam make love to his wife again. But, a good while fits. After all, it sometimes takes a good while before a wife gets pregnant. But before we do that, let’s look at Genesis 46:29 and read a good while, as again.” What happens?
And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck again.
It sounds just like Joseph had wept on his father’s neck on some earlier occasion when you read it that way. The change of one word can change the way we understand verses. Do I think the translators of the verse concerning Seth’s birth set out to mislead us? No, I don’t think so. But it’s clear to me that when you read Genesis 4:25 the way the King James translator has written it, with the word again, it can trick your sensibilities. It can force the conclusion that it was Eve, who Adam made love to, when the Hebrew doesn’t specify anything of the sort. In fact, the sentence construction used in Genesis 4:2 when Eve certainly did bear a son again, namely, Abel, is an entirely different construction than the one used here. A good translator never forces a conclusion that isn’t forced in the original text. When you use a good while it could be Eve or it may not be but the conclusion isn’t forced. But when you use again it really does force a conclusion, or at least strongly implies the conclusion that Eve was the mother. That conclusion isn’t even slightly implied in the Hebrew. We also need to remember that just because two events are found within the same chapter, as I’ve already mentioned, doesn’t mean that they concern the same person, or in this case, the same wife.
Now, the words, the woman said are in italics in the KJV Bible. That’s because they’re not in the Hebrew. In addition, there is no Hebrew equivalent for the English title, wife. In Hebrew, that word translated as wife, is woman. So let’s be precise and read it as it was written, but in English.
“And Adam made love with his woman a good while, and she bore a son and she called his name Seth, for God appointed to me another seed instead of Abel because Cain slew him.”
So she could have been any woman. One could also argue that another woman was given the honor of giving birth to Seth since Eve gave birth to the man who murdered Abel. Plus, correcting wife to woman neutralizes our preconceived notion that there can be just one wife. The English word wife has one written all over it. So we know that when Adam was a hundred and thirty years old he had a son, Seth, and that if Eve were still living, she would also be a hundred and thirty. We also know that pastors continue to say that Sarah was the oldest mother in the Bible. That means that they either have to stop calling Sarah the oldest mother in the Bible or they’ve got to stop saying that Adam had just one woman. They’re mutually exclusive.
Translations must be realistic, not dogmatic
When we translate we must remember, Scripture must be treated reverently. But our own cultures must be seen as they are, impediments to understanding God’s Word. Just because we think a certain way doesn’t mean God thinks that way.
Isaiah 55:7-9
“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Footnotes
- A Systematic and Historical Exposition – ROMAN LAW – In the Order of a Code by W.A. Hunter EMBODYING THE INSTITUTES OF GAIUS AND THE INSTITUTES OF JUSTINIAN, TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY J. ASHTON CROSS, B.A. of Balliol College, Oxford, BARRISTER-AT-LAW, Fourth Edition 1803
Note: Pastor Don Milton received his B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Washington in 1987. He has studied 5 languages and regularly speaks a language that is not his own.
