"Enemy" as gloss for EXQROS (and Sin, Nun, Aleph)

From: Stevens, Charles C (Charles.Stevens@unisys.com)
Date: Mon Jan 03 2000 - 13:15:03 EST


I've been doing some digging on this particular word, and its context, and
its background in that context (Proverbs 25:21-22, in both LXX and MT,
e.g.).

It seems to me that the word "enemy" in English has come to carry a
significant implication of *reciprocal* hostility, not just one-sided -- in
a way, in English, it seems to me that one cannot become your *enemy*
without you yourself at the very least acknowledging that person's status as
your enemy, and most generally responding with at least some degree of
hostility or firm defensiveness.

Conversely, both EXQROS in Rom 12:20 and LXX Proverbs 25(29?).21 and the
Hebrew precedent in the MT seem to bear the specific connotation "hater",
and seem to me further to be primarily, and perhaps even exclusively,
unidirectional in that regard. "He that hateth" in the KJV is often used to
translate the same Hebrew root (e.g., Proverbs 28:16), though the LXX
usually seems to render the verb form of that root with MISW.

Taken in isolation, I don't see EXQROS as carrying much more "directional"
weight than "one that is hostile", acquiring a directional sense only from
context (as in Rom 12:20 hO EXQROS SOU); any "reciprocal" or "bidirectional"
sense it may have, if indeed it carries that sense at all, is significantly
weaker than that carried by the English word "enemy".

In the case of both Romans 12:20 and LXX Proverbs 25(29):20-21, I would
prefer "one that is hostile to you" or "one that hates you" to "your enemy"
as a more accurate (if more clumsy) Modern English translation (of both
Greek and Hebrew).

Am I way off base?

        -Chuck Stevens

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