Sunday School Times Luke 12:15 And he said to them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness… To beware of covetousness is a lesson that has always been specially needed in the East. The grasping for more is fearful. It is usually considered the only worthy object in life. The ordinary Oriental simply cannot comprehend how a European can travel for pleasure, or spend money for archaeological investigation, or in any of the pursuits we think higher than that of money. Yet, on the other hand, the declaration that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" is one that is taught the great mass of the Orientals by a hard experience. Abundance they cannot know. Conceding that "the things which he possesseth" are necessary for his life in this world, whether higher or lower, the life is not in their superfluity. An Oriental is rich who is not in danger of immediate want, who knows where he can get all his meals for to-morrow. Though the Greek of this clause seems difficult to many, it seems to the writer difficult only in its capability of rendering into English; especially because one who wishes to turn it into good English must choose at the start which of two allowable idiomatic forms he must choose. But Oriental conditions throw upon it a beautiful light: "For not in their superfluity to any one is his life (does his life come) from his possessions"; or, not in having superfluity does a man have his life out of his goods. It may be admitted that the grammatical government of one word is not altogether certain; but there are many cases, nearly or quite parallel, in classic Greek, where the author, for greater piquancy, has purposely left the construction of a word thus in suspense, to be governed by either of two others; the canon of the iron-bound grammarians, that every word in a given sentence has a fixed construction, to the contrary notwithstanding. (Sunday School Times.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. |
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