A Good Advice for Preachers

If you are a preacher, here is a good advice for you:

Read Jeremiah 23:30 first, then read this story.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Preaching, Sermon

“Him That Pisseth Against the Wall”

One of the most colorful verses in the Bible is found in 1 Kings 14:10 (KJV):

Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.

In the context of the verse, the expression “him that pisseth against the wall” means “a male.” However, the origin of the expression in ancient Israel is a matter of discussion.

How should preachers preach from this text? How to use the words of this text in proclaiming the gospel? I have to confess that I have never preached from this text and probably never will.

Here is how a preacher explains the expression “him that pisseth against the wall.”






Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tag: Preaching

Preaching from Nehemiah

The book of Nehemiah is a good biblical book from which pastors can preach on leadership. Nehemiah was a dynamic leader who was able to motivate the people of Israel to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Under his leadership, the people of the restored community were able to rebuilt the shattered walls in fifty-two days.

Albert F. Bean, Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri has prepared a series of preaching points from Nehemiah. The article containing the preaching points was published in the Midwestern Journal of Theology 4.1 (Fall 2005): 34-46 and is available for download by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Nehemiah, Preaching, Sermons

The Inconsistencies of the NIV - Part 2

In my post yesterday, I pointed out the inconsistency of the NIV in translating the word da‘at elohim in the book of the prophet Hosea. In that post I mentioned the problems preachers have when using the NIV in trying to arrive at a proper understanding of the biblical text.

Today I want to study another inconsistency found in the NIV that, to me at least, obfuscates the original meaning of the biblical text and sends a confusing message to a reader who cannot read the biblical text in its original language.

Again, in my comparison, I will use three other translations. I will compare the NIV with the NRSV, the ESV, and the TNIV. I could have used other translations, but my focus is on the NIV.

I use the NIV as the model for comparison since many people in my congregation have chosen to use the NIV because of the simplified language it uses to convey the biblical message. To readers whose first language is not English, the NIV is easy to understand. However, because of the inconsistency of the NIV, at times, the message the NIV presents is not as clear as it should be.

Another example of inconsistency in the NIV’s translation of Hosea is found in the use of the word hesed. The following is a translation of hesed in Hosea 4:1:

Hosea 4:1 (NIV): “Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: ‘There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.’”

In this verse, the NIV translates the word hesed as love. The word hesed is difficult to translate in English because the word has a wealth of meanings in Hebrew. The correct understanding of hesed is attained only in a study of the context of where the word is used. However, as H. J. Zobel has shown in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, 5:47, “the one who receives an act of hesed responds with a similar act of hesed, or at least that the one who demonstrates hesed is justified in expecting an equivalent act in return.”

In a study of the word hesed in Isaiah, “Rereading Isaiah 40:6,” I wrote:

The word hesed is related to the covenant God established with Israel at Sinai. The word hesed refers to the commitment that binds two parties to a relationship.

In his book, The Word Hesed in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), Gordon Clark says that hesed is an "action performed, in the context of a deep and enduring commitment between two persons or parties" (p. 267). Since faithfulness to a relationship is a character of God, God also expects his people to be as committed to the relationship as he is.

When the word is applied to God, it refers to his faithfulness to the relationship. Thus, the word is best translated "faithfulness," "unfailing love," "loyalty." When the word is applied to human beings, it refers to the loyalty and commitment that people should bring to that relationship. In this case, a good translation of hesed should be "commitment," "loyalty." A strong relationship is built on commitment. Israel should be as loyal and committed to the covenant as God was.

In Hosea 4:1, the NRSV translates hesed as “loyalty;” the ESV as “steadfast love,” and the TNIV as “love.” Love or steadfast love is a good translation, but “loyalty” is a better translation.

On the other hand, the NIV translates the same word, hesed, as “mercy” in Hosea 6:6:

Hosea 6:6 (NIV): “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”

In this verse the translations differ:

NRSV: “For I desire steadfast love.”
ESV: “For I desire steadfast love.”
TNIV: “For I desire mercy.”

In my opinion, the HCSB has a better translation: “For I desire loyalty.”

The word “mercy” does not convey in English what the biblical author was trying to communicate to his audience. In English, the word “mercy” means a compassionate treatment of a person, to be kind or forgiving to someone.

This is not what the biblical writer was trying to convey to his readers. If the NIV had been consistent and used “love” here as it used it in 4:1, the message would be the same. However, the inconsistency of the NIV leaves the reader at a loss because they will believe that what the Lord requires from his people is that they be compassionate to fellow Israelites when in reality God was requiring the people’s loyalty to the relationship established by the covenant.

In Hosea 12:6 the NIV translates hesed as “love” and in Hosea 10:12, the NIV translates hesed as “unfailing love.” At least “unfailing love” in the NIV is better than “kindness” in the ASV, “piety” in the NAB, and “goodness” in the TNK.

There are several lessons to be learned here for pastors who do not know Hebrew. The first lesson is: consult more than one translation when studying the biblical text. Check several translations and compare how the biblical text is translated. Second, consult good exegetical commentaries. Since translations differ, commentaries will also differ. A good exegetical commentary will provide a brief study to the meaning of important theological words in the text.

The third and final lesson is that it is never too late to study biblical languages. No one needs to be a scholar in Hebrew or Greek, but a basic knowledge of the language will help pastors know how to consult an interlinear translation of the biblical text or check the meaning of specific words in a Hebrew or Greek lexicon.

When it comes to biblical translations, the saying remains true: “trust, but verify.”

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Hesed, Hosea, NIV, Preaching, Translation

The Inconsistencies of the NIV - Part 1

Preaching is not easy. Preaching from the Old Testament is very difficult. The reason many pastors do not preach often from the Old Testament is because they are not familiar with the society and culture of the people who populate the pages of the Bible. Many pastors also are not familiar with the original languages of the biblical text. The art of preaching requires from the preacher a meticulous study of the biblical text.

Since many pastors do not know Hebrew, they depend on an English translation to provide in their language what the original writers were trying to communicate in theirs. And here is where the problems begin. At times, an idea in the biblical text cannot be easily transferred into English. Thus, the reader may not understand all the nuances of a text as the original writer intended.

The worse case scenario is when translators of the biblical text mistranslate the text or fail to convey the correct meaning of the biblical text in their translations. In this case, the pastor who depends on one English translation may fail to understand the real message the original writer was trying to convey to his audience.

I was confronted with this problem again when I was preparing a sermon on Hosea to preach to my congregation a few Sundays ago. Most people in my congregation use the NIV. Since we have many people whose first language is not English, the NIV was chosen to be used in church because the language used in the translation is easy to understand.

The problem with the NIV is that it is not consistent in translating words from Hebrew to English. Most people in the pew will never notice the problems in the NIV because they use only one translation. Most pastors will not notice the problem either unless they read the biblical text in several different translations and compare them or if they use an interlinear Hebrew-English to look at how Hebrew words are used in the translation of the text.

The following is one example taken from the book of Hosea. I will use the NIV first, and then compare the NIV translation with three other translations.

Hosea 4:1 (NIV): “Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: ‘There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.’”

Here the NIV translates the Hebrew words da‘at elohim as “acknowledgment of God.” The Hebrew word da‘at means “knowledge.” The expression da‘at elohim is an expression used to describe the special relationship between God and Israel that comes out of the covenant relationship. When Hosea said that Israel did not have knowledge of God, the prophet was declaring that Israel had failed to abide by the demands of their covenantal relationship with God.

In English, the word use by the NIV, “acknowledgment,” means “to admit the truth or fact of,” and “a formal declaration of an act.” The NIV translation seems to imply that Israel was declaring that there was no God in the land. The NIV translation is confusing because it does not clearly convey the intent of the original writer.

Both the NRSV and the ESV have “knowledge of God.” Only the NIV and TNIV have “acknowledgment.”

In Hosea 4:6, the NIV reads: “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. "Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests.” Here the NIV translates the same word, da‘at, as “knowledge.” This translation is correct, because what the people lacked and what the people rejected was “knowledge,” not “acknowledgment.”

The NRSV and the ESV translate the word da‘at here as “knowledge” and so does the TNIV. However, both the NIV and the TNIV translated da‘at as “acknowledge” in Hosea 6:6 and as “approval” in Hosea 8:4.

This inconsistency of the NIV is troublesome because the average reader may not understand the usage of the same Hebrew words with different meanings in English. The average reader is certain to miss the emphasis the prophet was trying to convey by his use of da‘at and thus, they fail to grasp the magnitude of the sins of Israel.

Tomorrow I will show another example from Hosea of the inconsistency of the NIV in translating the biblical text.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Hosea, NIV, Preaching, Translation