[B-Greek] Trench Synonyms and ENTEUXIS

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Sun Feb 16 12:47:59 EST 2003


>  The book I have is Richard Chenevix Trench, /Synonymns of the
> New Testament/, Ninth Edition, Improved, London, Macmillan and Co, 1880.

Richard Trench often makes comments on how best to translate certain words,
and for that reason alone I find the book stimulating. Like Kittel he may be
putting too much emphasis on lexical semantics and not enough on context,
but it is still a valuable book.

As I am reading through it, I often want to check how we have translated a
particular word in the dynamic Danish version we are working on.

Today I came across ENTEUXIS and the corresponding verb ENTUGCANW (p. 189f).
Trench says that the translations "intercession" and "intercede" are
unsatisfactory. He says it is rather a bold petition or a strong appeal.
Would you agree with Trench?

The verb occurs in Acts 25:24 as a strong appeal, not directed to God. The
other four times it is directed to God. In Rom 11:2 it also fits with the
sense of pleading with God. The last three places it is followed by hUPER
hAGIWN/hHMWN/AUTWN (Rom 8:27,34, Heb 7:25). Here it makes sense to me that
the verb in itself has the sense of pleading and it is the following hUPER
that adds the sense of intercessory pleading. Several of the newer
translations (GNB, NLT, REB) use "plead" rather than "intercede" in Rom
8:27,34 and Heb 7:25. And even more use "plead" in Rom 11:2.
The noun occurs in 1 Tim 2:1 (where NLT has "plead") and in 1 Tim 4:5 with a
somewhat special sense.

Any comments?

Iver Larsen



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