DOING WORD STUDIES

Introduction

It is important to remember that words do not exist in isolation, and that there is not some authoritative "dictionary" that has decreed the meanings of words (in any language) in abstraction. Rather, meanings of words are assigned according to how they are used. Dictionaries are compendia of usages. To paraphrase the standard realtor's adage, in ascertaining the meanings of words, the three most important criteria are "context, context, context." Context, then, is the primary determinant of meaning.

Therefore, a word like lead has no clear meaning until it is placed into a context:

1. This pencil's lead is broken.
2. The detective followed a lead that led to the criminal.
3. The quarterback learned how to lead the receiver.
4. That card player likes to lead with the ace of spades.
5. He fastened the lead on his dog's collar.
6. The child got lead poisoning.
7. The Lord will lead me to make the right decision.
8. Doing that may lead to something more serious.
9. The sheriff filled the outlaw with lead.

A close study of these examples will show that nos. 1, 6, and 9 are related to each other, referring to the metal called lead, while the rest are nouns or verbs related to an act of showing the way, "to lead." However, the definitions of the latter have developed in various directions, so that "showing the way" is only marginally a part of the meaning for many of these.

The two major categories of lead that we have identified represent two different histories of the word. This is the province of etymology, which studies the origin and development of words. This is useful in word studies only to a very limited degree and only under carefully controlled circumstances (see below, on "The Place of Etymology").

Another example is the word ball:

1. He threw the ball through the basket.
2. The ball wobbled in flight, but it was caught for a touchdown.
3. They danced happily at the ball.
4. They had a ball at the party.
5. Lucille Ball is a well-loved comedian.
6. My typewriter ball is giving me trouble.
7. The prisoner's ball-and-chain impeded his progress.

To be sure, when we have examined the range of meanings of a word, we should be able to isolate an element (or elements) common to almost all the meanings, if not all. This would be the core of a word's meaning, but we must remember that it does not constitute the semantic range of the word.

A caution must be sounded here: in any given context, the entire range of meaning of a word may not be imported! That is, a given word may have a number of different meanings in many different contexts, but, in any specific context, that word will have only one meaning.

The semantic range of a word is that range of meanings encompassed by all of that word's uses. The semantic field of a word refers to all the words that are related to a given word. For example, boy's semantic field would include such words as male, lad, youth, young man, child, baby, man, servant, hired worker, son, father, mother, girl, and more. Some of these words are closer in meaning to boy than others, but all are part of boy's semantic field, by virtue of their overlap in meaning or by virtue of other associations (such as the kinship terms, son, father, mother, etc., or the term girl, which is part of a common word pair juxtaposing the two: boy-girl). A schematic way of representing a semantic field is given below. In this diagram, the shaded area represents boy, and the overlapping circles represent the other words. The meanings of these other words overlap the meaning of boy to a lesser or greater degree, but, taken together, they give us a much more accurate picture of boy than if they were not considered.

The Place of Etymology

A word's etymology is its origin and development, i.e., its history. Much attention to word study in Biblical studies has been devoted to the etymology of a word, and in some situations, this can be helpful. This is especially so when a word occurs only rarely in the Bible, but occurs commonly texts outside of the Bible. These extra-Biblical uses can help shed light on the Biblical meanings. Also, as we have seen in our example of lead above, the etymology of a word sometimes confirms the analysis of a word in its different contexts.

However, there are many pitfalls in etymological approaches to word studies, and students should be very careful in using etymology in word studies. Etymology should be the last element considered in a word study, if at all. Several examples in English will illustrate the pitfalls.

The word understand consists of two easily recognizable components, and yet a study of the words under and stand will not yield a meaningful grasp of the word understand.

Similarly, English awful comes from awe and full, i.e., "full of awe." The word's history is meaningful in a phrase such as "the awful presence of God": here, the idea is that God's presence is of such a nature that it calls forth a response of awe when it is experienced. However, awful usually does not have this meaning in English usage. Rather, it means "terrible, horrible," as in "The train wreck was an awful catastrophe." To appeal to the etymology of awful in this case would result in little understanding of what happened.

The words adult and adultery appear on the surface to have a similar etymology, but they do not. They come from two different Latin roots, the one meaning "to come into maturity" and the other meaning "to falsify."

Examples of words whose history indicates one thing at first but another in later development abound. Our word sinister means "threatening, wicked, evil," but it comes from a Latin root meaning "left-hand side," i.e., the unlucky side. Any study of this word in contemporary English usage making a point of its history will misrepresent its meaning.

Etymology is often misused in Biblical studies when names are concerned. On the one hand, many Biblical names have meanings that are integrally related to the places and people that they name. "Abraham," "Moses," and "Immanuel," are only three names (out of many) whose meanings are important to the story in which they are found and which the Bible makes of point of noting. Place names such as "Bethel," "Gilgal," or the Valley of Achor" likewise have meanings rooted in the stories told about them, and the Bible explicitly points out the connections. However, in the vast majority of cases, the Bible does not make a point at all about the meaning of personal or place names, and we go far beyond the intent of a text when we emphasize the meanings of names in cases where the Bible does not.

I will illustrate this from my own name. My first name, "David," comes from a Hebrew word meaning "beloved." However, the meaning of my name was not a primary consideration in my parent's naming me: I was named for my father, David Howard, Sr.; connections with the Biblical character were secondary, and any connotation of "beloved" was a far distant third. In the Bible, "David" is not called "beloved" in any case, and no point is made of this etymological connection. Thus, to attempt to understand who I am in terms of the etymology of my name ("beloved") will be a misguided exercise. Or, my surname, "Howard," is etymologically related to Hayward, referring to the warden in charge of the hay fields in the Middle Ages, i.e., the "hay ward(en)." However, a biographical sketch of me that attempted to include such etymological information in accounting for who I am today would be an absurdity. Yet, many Biblical scholars have engaged in such exercises with Biblical names.

Unfortunately, many Biblical scholars have not understood etymology properly, and they have fallen prey to illegitimate assignment of meaning, based on etymologies. James Barr is a Biblical scholar who has rightly exposed the abuses of word studies in Biblical studies. His The Semantics of Biblical Language is a devastating critique of the misuse of etymology among many Biblical theologians and in the pages of R. Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, and his Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament criticizes much of Old Testament scholarship for similar abuses.

Semantic Change

Words do not retain their meanings frozen and fixed in time. Rather, they often acquire different meanings over time. An example from current culture is the word gay. Historically, it has meant "happy, lighthearted, joyous," and it still retains that meaning in some writing and conversation. However, it is most often used today as a synonym for homosexual, particularly male homosexual.

An example from English Biblical usage is the word peculiar. In the KJV, Christians are designated "a peculiar people" in 1 Peter 2:9 and Titus 2:14. In contemporary usage, peculiar usually means "odd" or "strange" (i.e., it has relatively negative connotations), but in older English it meant "unique, special, distinctive" (i.e., it had much more positive connotations), and this is how Paul and Peter were using the term, i.e., Christians are a very special people to God (they are quoting from the OT passage where God speaks of Israel as his own peculiar or special treasure: Exod 19:5). Modern versions render the NT's wording here as "a people for [God's] own possession" (NASB) or "a people that are his very own" and "a people belonging to God" (NIV). Even the New King James Version has "His own special people." The word peculiar comes from a Latin word peculium, meaning "private property," so the older English meaning is closer to its etymological roots. However, the history of its usage illustrates how etymology cannot necessarily be relied upon to show contemporary meaning.

In working with Hebrew and Greek words, the same phenomenon may be encountered with certain words. Usually, Hebrew and Greek lexicons and wordbooks will sort the meanings of the words according to different usages in different time periods. What a word meant in Moses' time may not have been what it meant in Jeremiah's time, so students should take care in their use of word studies as they attempt to determine the meanings of words in particular contexts and historical time periods.

Ascertaining a Word's Meaning

How do we ascertain a word's meaning? Following are five steps to be taken, in order of priority and of descending importance:

1. Look to the word's immediate context.
2. Observe how the word is used by the same author, in parallel passages (if available) and in non-parallel ones.
3. Investigate how the word is used by authors from the same period.
4. Discover how the word is used in earlier periods.
5. Consider the word's etymology.

Identifying Key Words

How can one identify key words in a passage? There is no single formula, but the following are all valid methods for doing so.

1. Frequently occurring words
2. Important theological terms
3. Words occurring in key sentences
4. Words emphasized grammatically.

Bibliography for Word Study

NOTE: The works listed here will give students good introductions to doing word studies. The works marked with a astrisk(*) are important theoretical works. Those marked with double asterisks (**) include step-by-step guides for doing word studies.

David M. Howard, Jr.
1/99

BIBLE STUDY TOOLS

Concordances

Concordances are the backbone of any word study. These will show how many times a word occurs in the Bible, how often in certain books, and much more. The English concordances will all have a means of identifying which Hebrew words lie behind the English words. Hebrew concordances allow more direct access to words under study. Electronic concordances render the task of searching for words much faster and more convenient.

English Concordances (Exhaustive)

The standard, most popular older concordance is Strong's, based on the King James Version, which has a numbering system that lets users access Hebrew words without knowing any Hebrew. Many Bible study tools are keyed to the Strong's numbering system. Another popular concordance based on the KJV is Young's, but it has not had many tools keyed to it.

Many good English concordances now exist for all the major Bible versions, as well, and they are filled with helpful features for Bible study, including pointing users into the original languages.

Electronic concordances have become very popular in the last decade, and open vast new possibilities for Bible study. One can search phrases as well as words, and search for combinations of words, something that cannot be done using the standard paper concordances.

Hebrew Concordances

Electronic Concordances

Many exist today. Students should consult magazines such as Christian Computing for reviews, and almost any Christian publication (e.g., Christianity Today) for advertisements.

Hebrew Lexicons and Theological Wordbooks

Bible Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

Tenney, M. C., ed., Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, 5 vols. (Zondervan, 1975).

Bromiley, G. W., ed., International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Eerdmans, 1979-88)

Freedman, D. N., ed., Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols. (Doubleday, 1992).

Marshall, I. H. et al., eds., New Bible Dictionary, 3^rd ed. (InterVarsity, 1996).

Exegetical and Critical Commentary Series

Evangelical

• Tyndale Old Testament Commentary
• Expositor's Bible Commentary
• NIV Application Commentary
• New American Commentary
• New International Commentary on the Old Testament
• Word Biblical Commentary
• *Keil and Delitzsch (OT only)

  Non-Evangelical

• Interpretation
• Old Testament Library
• New Century Bible Commentary
• Anchor Bible
• Hermeneia
• International Critical Commentary

How to identify key words in a passage? (See Kaiser, ch. 6, pp. 140-46 here.)

(1) By repetition. Frequently repeated content words obviously are important to the author at that point. An exhaustive concordance can help one find every occurrence of the word in the passage, as well as the density of that word in surrounding passages and in the rest of the book.

Examples: (a) the frequency of kol "all" in 1 Kings 4, which helps to establish Solomon's reputation. (b) The frequency of bara' "to create in Gen. 1:27 (3x here). (c) The frequency of forms of brk "to bless" in Gen. 12:1-3 (5x). (d) The frequency of verbs of motion in Ruth 1: $ub "to return" (12x), halak "to go, walk" (9x), bo' "to come." These emphasize the import of Ruth's decision to go away from her homeland to the land of her in-laws, the land of their God.

(2) By recognizing key theological words. (See esp. Kaiser: 128 here, for a list of some of these.) This only comes by experience. However, one should make it a goal to study one or two key theological terms every time one is working with a text in any depth. Sometimes full-blown word-studies are in order.

(3) By consulting one's syntactical diagram. In general, words that appear in the theme statements of paragraphs will have some measure of importance, worthy of some note.

Examples: (a) [See syntactical diagram here.] In 1 Sam. 8:1-9, certainly forms of $pt "to judge" in vv. 1-8 are important, since they occur in the theme sentences of the first and second paragraphs. Also, the root $pt is important in terms of what Kaiser calls "antecedent theology." The word melek "king" is also important, for similar reasons.

(4) By grammatical forms and constructions. There is a richness in Hebrew of ways of emphasizing or deemphasizing words. Emphasis may be accomplished formally by use of emphatic imperatives, cohortatives, intensifying stems (Piel, Hiphil, even Hithpael). It may also be accomplished syntactically by such constructions as infinitive absolute plus imperfect, reversing normal word order, chiastic patterns, use of intensive words (indeed, certainly, behold, etc.), or any breaking of an expected pattern (Alter). De-emphasis may also be accomplished formally, mainly by use of passives. It may be accomplished syntactically by shunting of words or thoughts into subordinate clauses or by brevity of expression.

Examples: (a) Gen. 12:1-3: the cohortatives here. (b) 1 Sam. 8:5, 6: the emphatic imperatives in the demands for a king. (c) Josh. 1:7: "be strong and very courageous." In conjunction with the unmodified phrase in vv. 6 and 9, this intensified phrase in v. 7 calls our attention to the content of what immediately follows: the keeping of the Law.

THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS (Kaiser, ch. 6)

This is a valuable emphasis in Kaiser. His discussion in this chapter has basically been covered or anticipated above. It consists in becoming familiar with the main theological themes of Scripture, built upon the key theological terms. He speaks of "antecedent Scripture," an important concept in unpacking the meaning of a passage. Certainly our task of interpretation mst look to later Scriptures to see the development of the ideas in our texts. However, for identifying the meaning in the passage itself, one must place oneself in the author's place, who would not have had access to the later developments.

Kaiser helpfuly recommends keeping a theology of the OT (and of NT) handy, and well-used. Use indexes to find and trace key words. Also use a theological word-book.

David M. Howard, Jr.
9/99