“Unnecessary” Words in the Bible

Every Bethlehem student learns to read the New Testament in Greek. Furthermore, seminary students and some college students also learn to read the Old Testament in Hebrew. This requires an enormous investment of time; my Hebrew students are expected to spend 12 hours a week, 30 weeks a year, for two years to learn to read and study the Bible in Hebrew.

Is that the best use of their time? Think of the massive spiritual growth and equipping for ministry they would undergo if, instead of learning Hebrew, they spent those 720 hours memorizing the entire book of Psalms in English! Furthermore, Bible software is available that will let anyone study the Bible in Hebrew and Greek without knowing the vocabulary or being able to parse the verbs. So why not just teach students how to use the Bible software instead of learning to read the languages themselves?

Most Christians would indeed be more usefully educated if they spent those hundreds and hundreds of hours memorizing the Bible instead of learning to read it in the original languages. But for Christians who are called to focus their lives on studying and teaching the Bible, the time spent on the languages is abundantly worth it.

One reason for this is the “unnecessary” words in the Bible—words that do not add anything to the basic meaning of the text, and therefore are usually invisible in translations. One type of “unnecessary” word is a subject pronoun; the spelling of a Hebrew verb includes information about who is doing the action of the verb, so an explicit subject pronoun like “I” or “you” or “he” is usually unnecessary. English, however, requires an explicit subject in most sentences, so the subject pronoun “I” or “you” or “he” (etc.) is added in translation even if it is not there in the Hebrew. Thus an explicit subject pronoun is not only unnecessary in Hebrew, it is also invisible in translation – one cannot tell from translation if it was there or not.

This topic is on my mind because my fourth-semester Hebrew class encountered this (for the umpteenth time) again yesterday, this time in Deuteronomy 9:3. The ESV of that verse reads “He will destroy them and subdue them.” The NASB, NIV, CSB, and NET Bible are similar. But in the original Hebrew, the verbs “destroy” and “subdue” not only embed the subject “he” in the verb form itself as usual, but they also include unnecessary subject pronouns “he.” Furthermore, the word order draws additional attention to those unnecessary subject pronouns. Yet none of the translations show this; it would indeed be difficult to do so, since English requires an explicit subject pronoun to proceed the verb regardless of whether the Hebrew has the pronoun or not.

Why is this an issue in this text? Deuteronomy 9 begins, “Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’” (Deuteronomy 9:1–2). Forty years earlier, their parents refused to enter the Promised Land because they were afraid of fortified cities and giants – the sons of Anak (Numbers 13:28–14:4). Now, a generation later, those same fortified cities and giants are still in the land. Will the new generation repeat the sin of their parents, shrinking back from the Promised Land because they fear opponents who literally tower over them? Moses raises the issue in Deuteronomy 9 and then gives them reason to obey despite the fact that they are outclassed: “Know therefore today that he who goes over before you as a consuming fire is the Lord your God. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you” (Deuteronomy 9:3). Reading the English, one might infer, “the Israelites should not fear the giants because they will be destroyed by God.” But the focus of Moses’ exhortation is not on the fact that the giants will be destroyed; his response is a direct answer to the question at the end of verse 2: “who can stand before the sons of Anak?” Answer – The LORD your God. The first sentence of verse 3 makes that focus visible even in English translations. But the two “unnecessary” subject pronouns “he” in the Hebrew emphasize this focus in the second sentence in a way that is awkward to show in English translation. Perhaps one could use all caps or bold print: “HE HIMSELF will destroy them. HE HIMSELF will subdue them.”

Why does this matter? The focus of the Israelites’ faith is to be in a person—The Lord—not primarily in what he will do. And it is the same with us. Ultimately, our trust is to be in The Lord our God as a person, not fundamentally in what we hope He will do. If our trust is in what God will DO rather than in who He IS, how will we respond when God answers our prayers “No” or “Not yet”? Will we still trust and obey Him? Will we be like Job, who after losing everything still said, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15)? Will we be like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who said, “our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if he does not, … we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:17–18).

Reading Deuteronomy 9 in English or looking at it with Bible software, one can easily mis-focus on the actions instead of on the person. But if a pastor or other Bible teacher reads their Bible regularly in Hebrew, the “unnecessary” words in Hebrew will grab their attention so that they don’t miss the focus of the passage. They can then help their hearers see it for themselves in the easy-to-miss clues (like the first sentence of verse 3) in their English Bibles.

John Beckman, Ph.D.