One of my great pleasures over the last few years has been to meet a remarkable young man by the name of Adam Cesar who currently resides in South Africa. Adam, originally from Amherst, NY has taken a job teaching school and is looking for opportunity to serve the Lord. His Father in law had been a missionary there for many years before dying in a tragic accident some years ago. Adam and his wife Hannah have hopes of building on such foundation as is left.
He sent me this email of his study of the Afrikaans Bible. I have heard it said that every translation of the Word of God into another tongue of the world has its own revelations and beauty. It appears that Adam is discovering some of them.
What follows is his letter:
I thought you all would appreciate this being language guys and word guys. I have been looking through the Afrikaans Bible here in SA and it is actually VERY good. All of the key verses that have been corrupted or removed in the modern editions are still intact... So that is a blessing. t appears to be a VERY close rendering to the KJB. The only bum verse that I could find so far was Isaiah 14:12 where "Lucifer" is removed and replaced with "morningstar"...
Anyway, there were 3 neat things that I did discover that kind of helped further my understanding of some English words that I thought you men would appreciate.
1. In Afrikaans, the word for "Revelation" is "Openbaring." I thought that was a good added description for revelation. God's revelation is "baring open" something that was previously covered or hidden!
2. In Afrikaans, the word for "truth" is "waarheid" (that is the "old" spelling of the word, the more modern spelling of the word is "waarhede."). The word is a compound word comprised of "waar" and "heid" (or "hede"). "Waar" means "true"; while "hede" means "Oh my!" implying something that is VERY SHOCKING! I thought that is a neat description of God's truth... it is both true and SHOCKING!mmm
3. Lastly, and maybe the most interesting, is the Afrikaans word for "Verily." It is "Voorwaar." This also is a compound word made up of "voor" and "waar". "Waar" as I previously stated means "true". But the interesting thing is that "Voor" means "beforehand." So thus, in Afrikaans, the word "verily" ("voorwaar") literally means telling something that is true BEFORE it comes to pass. So this gives a little extra revelation to the word verily that I have never heard or gotten from English. When I searched the references for "verily" in the KJB this is not true 100% of the time. But I would say that about 90% of the time the word "Verily" is used (especially by our Lord Jesus), it is a prophetic word that is revealing some truth that WILL come to pass. Often it is revealing something BEFOREHAND so that when it does come to pass, the one who heard the "Verily" will know that the truth was spoken.
I thought those things were interesting and they blessed my spirit. Hope they bless yours. I hope the Lord continues to give you all the spirit of wisdom and "openbaring" in the knowledge of him!