Thursday, June 23, 2011

Study in triplicate

Everyone has their own way of immersing themselves in scripture. Whatever works for you, go for it!

I like to copy out the passage that I am contemplating into a notebook, then write my thoughts. If it's the Bible I am reading, I look up the Greek/Hebrew as the case may be.

Last night, I went a step further. I may try this again if it continues to be enjoyable. I wrote out the KJV passage, from Psalms 119:78, speaking of the proud ones (zedom) who persecute a righteous man/woman.

Then I blew the dust off my Hungarian translation of the Bible (from missionary days), and wrote the passage again, this time in Hungarian. Hungarian being a beautiful, rhythmic language, it read like poetry, which was a pleasure. After that, I got out my Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and carefully wrote out the Hebrew original.

Writing the passage three times, in three different languages, caused me to think carefully about each word in the verse -- and it still remains in my head these many hours later.

As a last step in the learning process, I looked up the verse in Malachi in Tanakh, which I remembered speaks of the proud being burned as stubble. I was quickly able to confirm that "zedom" underlies that text as well.