Word Studies in Hermeneutics

Since the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek it is necessary to consult the original languages when studying Scripture. While most English translations do an excellent job of giving the laity a work in their own tongue, it often falls short of really conveying the special nuances found in the original words and syntax.

Take Jesus' address to the Pharisees in Mark 7:11-13, for example.

But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)—then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

While the ESV uses the word 'Corban' the NLT and the NET rightly translate the phrase, "a gift for God." But what exactly does this mean? This is where doing a good word study could help. Word studies, like any other part of hermeneutics, is a process. You don't simply look up a definition of a word in a Strong's concordance and then fly with it.

Words have context and part of that context needs to be examined in light of the culture. For our example above most of the meaning lies within the cultural context.

According to the New International Greek Testament Commentary (NICOT) Corban was,

scribal tradition had found a way of relieving a son of the responsibility of ‘honouring’ father or mother, not in the area of disrespectful speech but at the more practical level of financial support (which was assumed to be inherent in the ‘honour’ required by the commandment), by means of the qorbān provision. No doubt this provision, once introduced, would then be justified by the scriptural principle of not breaking an oath or vow (Nu. 30:2; Dt. 23:21–23), without enquiring whether the vow had been an appropriate one in the first place. (Mark, p. 286)

In short, the son would dedicated whatever means he had to take care of his parents to God through the temple. In doing this he shirked the responsibility to take care of them during their elderly years, thus disobeying the God's original commandment to honor his father and mother. Jesus rebuked them for this action. 

The cultural context was critical in the importance of understanding the concept of Corban. This isn't always the case, but the context of all aspects of a word, and especially the syntax, needs to be considered in order to perform proper word studies. The aim of this post is to inform you how to conduct word studies. Like every other part of hermeneutics word studies also have steps. We're going to go through these steps together and hopefully by the end you will have a firm grasp on how to do word studies. 

Before we start there are some necessary materials that you will need handy or have access to. I strongly recommend some kind of Bible software. The two most popular free softwares are E-Sword and the Word. Both are excellent. In my opinion, the Word is superior, so I would recommend that one over E-Sword. If your system can't handle the space needed to install these then I would recommend the following online study software:

• Bible Gateway
• Study Light
• Blue Letter Bible
• Bible Hub
• Bible Study Tools
• Biblia.com (sign up for other free resources)

All of these sites should have most of what you need to do a word study. There is one more thing that I highly recommend: critical commentaries. These will only be available through software. E-Sword and the Word have a number of them that can be downloaded for free and run within the software itself. Critical commentaries focus on the language and would be most helpful in word studies. 

Now that the preliminaries are out of the way let's get started with our sample word study. I'll be using Logos Bible software. The free version can be downloaded here. 

James 1:2 will be our example text

 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,

We will be focusing on the word 'count.' Your preferred translation may use the word 'consider.' To make this easier to follow I'll take it in steps.

1. Step 1 – find the basic definition of the word. At this point we only need to establish a simple definition. A basic definition consists of how the word might be translated into different English words. Below is a screenshot from Logos with the basic definition of our word.


As can be seen our word has multiple ways it can be translated. It is even translated as 'leaders' in a few places.


2. Step 2 – Examine how the word is translated in every occurrence. This can give us a better sense of the word in its different contexts. Since context is always the key to discovering what a word means then we must be careful and take our time on this step.
   
   
   
   
   There are twenty-eight occurrences in which our word is found. We need to examine all of them before we move forward. Again, I encourage you to take your time with this step.
3. Step 3 –  Determine how many times the word is used by the author of the passage you are studying.
   
   
   
   James only uses the word one time. However, we should note two things: The Greek word is translated as 'count' (it may be 'consider' or 'reckon' in your translation) nine out of the twenty-eight times. This is nearly a third of all times this word appears. A second observation is that the word is used by Paul five times, all occurring in the book of Philippians and three times by Peter, all in the book of 2Peter. This can be very helpful in gaining more insight. This will be our next step.
4. Step 4 – Consider the broader context of the word. If your passage's only use of the word doesn't yield much then it's time to look at other contexts. This should be done anyway, if possible, but especially when use is limited to a particular author and you need a little more information. Let's look at how this word is used throughout the entire New Testament. We'll start with a pie chart to map out the word and then consider the passages where the Greek word is translated the same as our word in James 1:2.
   
   
   

   

   Pie Chart of Lemma usage in the New Testament

   
   
   
   
   Doing a quick search on the lemma of the passage in in the New Testament shows that the book of Philippians, Acts, Hebrews, and 2Peter use the word most frequently. We are only concerned about the times the word is translated as 'consider' so Acts and Hebrews can be left out. A close surveying of how the word is used when translated 'count' in Philippians and 2 Peter gives us some insight. The word seems to indicate an evaluation of a situation or to regard or disregard something.

   

   Translated as 'count' in Philippians & 2Peter

   
   We seem to be nailing down how James is using this word to his audience. But there is one more crucial step that we need to do before making a final interpretation. This step comes in three parts, which we will label as 5a, 5b, and 5c
   
   5a. The first part of this step is to understand how the word is used in its immediate context. From all the information we've gathered thus fare we can determine that the word is to think carefully and evaluate a person's given circumstances during a trial of faith brought on by God.
   
   5b. Now we should consider the tense of the verb. Using our software we can quickly ascertain that this is an aorist imperative. We know an imperative issues a command but we want to know if there is any significance to the aorist tense being attached to it. 
   
   NOTE: the tense of a verb should NEVER be the deciding factor on how it is translated. Always consider the context of the word.
   
   Often times verbs will have a different nuance outside of their regular moods, namely the indicative mood. Doing a search in our Greek grammars gives us some information on the aorist imperative.

   

   Interpreting Commands in the New Testament

   
   Note carefully the underlined and bold text. Other grammars reinforce these same notions. Since the imperative is a non-indicative form we need to consider that the command as something as specific or something as a single event without reference to time or frequency (Element of New Testament Greek, p.49)
5. c The very last part of the word study before application will be to consider any special syntax. If you don't have access to Bible software the previous step may be the last step unless you are familiar with the languages. Using Bible software, such as Logos, we can search for any specific grammatical or syntax nuances. This is performed by highlighting a phrase and right clicking. 

   

   Grammatical Construction search using Logos 7

   
   
   The only thing that comes up is an obligatory directive. Clicking on the Speech Acts Dataset will yield a brief definition.

   

   Definition of Obligatory Directive 

   
   The definition is simply a desire or wish that the author wishes his audience to perform. 

Now that we have gathered all relevant information about our word it's time to boil it all down to our context in James. We know from a previous step that the word in context means to evaluate or think about a situation. This was determined by surveying all the ways that the New Testament translates and uses the same Greek word in other contexts. 

We also know that the word is a command and obligatory directive. This is not a command to simply do something but to do something specific; in James' context it is to consider (or evaluate) trials as joy. We know this is an imperative but because it is an aorist, a non indicative mood, it is to be regarded as having no time value. However, the context of James 1 gives us that timeframe. It is "whenever we meet trials of various kinds." The context also gives us the purpose of those trials. They are brought about to make us mature and complete Christians in our walk with God.

Putting it altogether we see that whenever God brings trials in our lives we are to be joyful as we evaluate that trial and consider what the outcome is to be. In other words, we are to look beyond the circumstances of our current situation and understand with fullness that the end result will bring us into maturity so that we will not lack any spiritual endurance to our faith. 

This is a comforting thought knowing that which happens to us is not happenstance but designed by God Himself to complete in us what is needed in our faith. 

I hope this post has been an encouragement to you to perform your own word studies. As you can see, it can yield much fruit in its application.