More Against the Days

[Ya Sam]

from

http://www.calvin.edu/weblogs/language/comments/against/


Against ‘Against’: One Hymn’s Indecent Preposition

But I know Whom I have believèd,
And am persuaded that He is able
To keep that which I’ve committed
Unto Him against that day.

-I Know Whom I Have Believed

In the hundred or so times I’ve sung this hymn, I’ve wondered how you can 
“commit” something “against” a day. Does this preposition indicate that God 
is keeping/protecting the commitment against the threat of judgment day? Or 
is “against” an old-fashioned preposition approximating “until”? And is it 
the keeping that’s against that day, or the commitment?

A comparison of different versions of 2 Timothy 1:12--from which the hymn is 
taken--supports the “until” interpretation:


Posted by Nathan Bierma on 05/26 at 02:23 PM
I wonder if “against that day” was even in use by English speakers when the 
hymn was written. I’m looking more closely these days at many of the hymns 
we sing. I’m finding that many have phrases which have little, if any, 
meaning for many people today. Of course, the same is true for wordings in 
some English Bibles, even ones produced recently. I simply cannot understand 
why some people prefer to write using vocabulary and grammar from a previous 
stage of the English language. I *thought* that the purpose of hymns and 
Bible translations was to communicate truth about God to people in their own 
language. Sigh! For more of my preaching on this topic, go to my blog.

I wonder if any English professors teach their English Comp classes to write 
in English from a previous stage of our language?

Posted by Wayne Leman  on  05/26  at  07:54 PM
It seems to me that, in the OED, definition A.13 could work well, and so 
could A.19.  Here’s 13.a: In resistance to, in defence or protection from.; 
and here’s 19: esp. with some idea of preparation: In view of; in 
anticipation of, in preparation for, in time for.

Both definitions were in use in the mid 19th century, and many hymns 
preferred to use older language instead of contemporary idioms.

Posted by James Vanden Bosch  on  05/27  at  01:32 PM
It seems to me that, in the OED, definition A.13 could work well, and so 
could A.19.  Here’s 13.a: In resistance to, in defence or protection from.; 
and here’s 19: esp. with some idea of preparation: In view of; in 
anticipation of, in preparation for, in time for.

Both definitions were in use in the mid 19th century, and many hymns 
preferred to use older language instead of contemporary idioms.

Ah, yes, Prof. Vanden Bosch (of Presidential fame! Can I touch you, 
virtually?!)

Well, I’m glad that you mention the time frame in which those definitions 
were in use. Many people forget that definitions in dictionaries are in use 
relative to some particular time frame or even relative to some social 
group. I’ve seen members of English Bible version teams justify their use of 
obsolete language by referring to English dictionaries and pointing out that 
the word is in the dictionary.

Oh for a thousand tongues to speak about using current English for current 
speakers! I think it is also wonderful to study older literature, but never 
to forget that it is older literature.

Posted by Wayne Leman  on  05/27  at  03:17 PM
Note the final line of today’s poem from the Writer’s Almanac:

Poem: “The Enigma We Answer by Living” by Alison Hawthorne Deming from 
Genius Loci. © Penguin Poets. Reprinted with permission.

The Enigma We Answer by Living

Einstein didn’t speak as a child
waiting till a sentence formed and
emerged full-blown from his head.

I do the thing, he later wrote, which
nature drives me to do. Does a fish
know the water in which he swims?

This came up in conversation
with a man I met by chance,
friend of a friend of a friend,

who passed through town carrying
three specimen boxes of insects
he’d collected in the Grand Canyon—

one for mosquitoes, one for honeybees,
one for butterflies and skippers,
each lined up in a row, pinned and labeled,

tiny morphologic differences
revealing how adaptation
happened over time. The deeper down

he hiked, the older the rock
and the younger
the strategy for living in that place.

And in my dining room the universe
found its way into this man
bent on cataloguing each innovation,

though he knows it will all disappear—
the labels, the skippers, the canyon.
We agreed then, the old friends and the new,

that it’s wrong to think people are a thing apart
from the whole, as if we’d sprung
from an idea out in space, rather than emerging

from the sequenced larval mess of creation
that binds us with the others,
all playing the endgame of a beautiful planet

that’s made us want to name
each thing and try to tell
its story against the vanishing.

Posted by James Vanden Bosch  on  06/01  at  08:35 AM
And I forgot to mention that the poem appears in a book published this 
year--a complicating factor, although it is poetic language.

Jim

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