THE CANONS OF INTERPRETATION
WALLACE N. STEARNS, B.D., PH.D.
Fargo College, Fargo, N.D.
To one seeking the right interpretation of any writer, secular or sacred, a proper mode of procedure cannot fail to be of interest. How then shall one determine aright the sense of a text, as for example, a portion of Scripture? Five simple rules well observed will do the business.
1. Interpret lexically, that is, consult some standard lexicon. Such a book is for us laymen a last court of appeal. What scholarship has agreed upon as the meaning of a word, that must be its meaning for us. Words come and words go, and change with the passing of time. We must seek, then, the sense of the word as used at the time of the work or writer studied. We must, further, determine the classification of the document concerned, whether technical, scientific, or literature for art's sake. The reader of "The Traveler" may feel a trifle disturbed by the words:
But small the bliss that sense alone bestows,
And sensual bliss is all the nation [i.e., Italy] knows.
But sensual here is to be explained in the light of the preceding sense.
Equally puzzled are we by the words of the Psalmist to the effect that "The God of my mercy shall prevent me"; "Thou preventest him with blessings of goodness"; and the declaration of the apostle that "we shall not prevent them who are asleep."[1] But traced to the Latin root this word becomes sun-clear, i.e., "to meet" (Pss.), "to precede" (Th.). A similar though different history underlies the word penance. From Jerome to the Reformation the Vulgate was the Bible of the western church. From "penitence" to its Latin origin, poenitentia (poena) was only a step. It was when the German scholars tracked out the passages in dispute, that they found the original to be not poenitentia but metanoia (μετάνοια), and the new teaching found a foothold.
Rom. 8:29 has long been a battleground. Quite opposite sects have found refuge here, oftentimes finding themselves standing under the eaves to get out of the rain. Truth is, the word "know" (γιγνώσκειν) here signifies to take note of, "fix the regard upon," and the preposition (προ-) does no more than to refer a historic act to the divine counsel that preceded it.
Further, following the use of the Septuagint, in later Greek the distinction between simple and compound verbs is blurred and prepositions are piled up without particular effect.[2] Again, the angel that stood on land and sea declared that "time" should be no longer.[3] This suggests the end of the world, and accordingly, fear and terror have at more or less regular
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