Acts 7 verse 32

Acts 7 verse 32

Saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold.    (KJV)

I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” But becoming trembly, Moses did not dare to look.     (IB)

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Retranslation: I will show you! said The First Person, and It rendered Itself emphatically and visibly to Moses. I AM the Father of fathers; I AM Truth and joy; I AM the God who rules. The force of Its limitlessness terrified Moses who was used to limits everywhere, and Moses did not presume to fully comprehend. 

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I (am) 1473 ego, a primary pronoun of the first person; only expressed when emphatic:----I, me. For the other cases and the plural see 1691,1698, 1700, 2248, 2249, 2254, 2257, etc.

emphatic (Origins dict. p. 199, See FANCY, para. 10): L. phantasia, idea, (but esp.) apparition, adopted from Gr., where it means ‘appearance, imagination,’ from phatazein (stem phantaz-), to render visible, fig. to the mind, and elaboration of phainein, to show, stem phain-. Phaino, I show, is probably for *phaino, with IE (Indoeuropean) etymon *bhanio or *bhenio . . . a phonetic extension of IE root bha-, to shine: compare Sk (Sanskrit) bhati, it shines, is light, and, for ghan-, Skt bhanus light (of day, etc.).

emphatic (1828 Dict. def.): 

1. Forcible; strong; impressive; as an emphatic voice, tone or pronunciation; emphatical reasoning.
2. Requiring emphasis; as an emphatical word.
3. Uttered with emphasis. We remonstrated in emphatical terms.
4. Striking to the eye; as emphatic colors.

emphatically adv. (ibid.) 

1. With emphasis; strongly; forcibly; in a striking manner.
2. According to appearance.

emphasis (ibid.) In rhetoric, a particular stress of utterance, or force of voice, given to the words or parts of discourse, whose significance the speaker intends to impress specially upon his audience; or a distinctive utterance of words, specially significant, with a degree and kind of stress suited to convey their meaning in the best manner.

God 2316

fathers 3962

Abraham 11

Isaac 2464

Jacob 2384

becoming 1096 ginomai, a prolonged and middle form of a primary verb; to cause to be (“gen” -erate). i.e. (reflexive) to become (come into being), used with great latitude (literally, figuratively, intensively, etc.):-----arise, be assembled, be, become, befall, behave self, be brought (to pass), (be) come (to pass), continue, be divided, draw, be ended, fall, be finished, follow, be found, be fulfilled, God forbid, grow happen, have, be kept, be made, be married, be ordained to be, partake, pass, be performed, be published, require, seem, be showed, soon as it was, sound, be taken, be turned, use, wax, will, would, be wrought.

trembling 1790 entromos, from 1722 and 5156; terrified;----quake, trembled.

Moses 3475

durst/dare 5111 tolmao, from tolma (boldness; probably itself from the base of 5056 through the idea of extreme conduct); to venture (objectively or in act; while 2292 is rather subjective or in feeling); by implication to be courageous:----be bold, boldy, dare, durst.

5056 telos, from a primary tello (to set out for a definite point or goal); properly the point aimed at as a limit, i.e. (by implication) the conclusion of an act or state (termination) [literal, figurative or indefinite], result [immediate, ultimate or prophetic], purpose); specifically an impost or levy (as paid):----continual, custom, end, ending, finally, uttermost. Compare 5411.

teleology (Origins Dict. p. 957. See Element teleo-. From Gr. teleos (stem tele-, root tel-) complete, perfect, akin to telos (stem tel-), end, q.v. at telo-.)

teleology (1828 Dict. def.): [L. tele, end + logy, discourse.]

The science of final causes of things.

teleology appears three times in Miscellaneous Writings (74:10; 218:30; 219:1)

cause (1828 Dict. def.): [L. causa, . . . effecting power . . .  The primary sense is to urge, press, impel . . .  The root of this word coincides with that of castle, cast, etc., which express driving. A cause is that which moves, excites or impels to action or effect. . . . Cause, sake, and thing have the like radical sense.]

venture v.i. [From L. venio, ventus, venturus, to come.]

1. To dare; to have courage or presumption to do, undertake or say. A man ventures to climb a ladder; he ventures into battle; he ventures to assert things which he does not know.
2. To run a hazard or risk. Who freights a ship to venture on the seas. Dryden.

to venture at, on or upon:  to dare to engage in; to attempt without any certainty of success. It is rash to venture upon such a project.

not 3756 ou, Also (before a vowel) ouk and (before an aspirate) ouch, a primary word; the absolute negative [compare 3361] adverb; no or not:---long, nay, neither, never, no (man), none, not, cannot, nothing, special, un- (e.g. unworthy), when, without, yet, but. See also 3364, 3372.

observe 2657 katanoeo, from 2596 and 3539; to observe fully:-----behold, consider, discover, perceive.

3539 noeo, from 3563; to exercise the mind (observe), i.e. (figuratively) to comprehend, heed:-----consider, perceive, think, understand.

3563 nous, probably from the base of 1097; the intellect, i.e. mind (divine or human; in thought, feeling or will); by implication meaning:-----mind, understanding, Compare 5590.

NOTE about “NOUS”: In the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, after Jesus is crucified, the disciples gather around Mary. The following is excerpted from The Gospel of Mary Magdalene (translated) by Jean-Yves LeLoup, pages 111 through 121. Peter asks Mary:

“Tell us whatever you remember 

of any words he told you 

which we have not yet heard.

Mary said to them: 

‘I will now speak to you 

of that which has not been given to you to hear. 

I had a vision of the Teacher, 

and I said to him: 

‘Lord I see you now 

in this vision.‘ 

And he answered: 

‘You are blessed, for the sight of me does not disturb you. 

There where is the nous, lies the treasure.’” 

Then I said to him:

‘Lord, when someone meets you

in a Moment of vision,

is it through the soul [psyche] that they see,

or is it through the Spirit [Pneuma]?’

The Teacher answered:

‘It is neither through the soul nor the spirit,

but the nous between the two

which sees the vision, and it is this which . . . .’”

[Pages 11-14 of the Gospel are missing] 

“The canonical Gospels, even that of John, have left us unprepared for this kind of question. It is as if the disciples of those gospels were totally uninterested in epistemological or metaphysical questions. Being men of practical intelligence, they were concerned only with questions of how to live and act. It is as if they had no interest in probing the nature of their own knowledge and perception of the resurrected Christ.” (ibid. p. 117) 

“[The Gospels of Matthew and Luke] substitute the word heart and change the tense from present to future: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The usual meaning of kardia is the “general inner nature of a person.” To speak of nous rather than kardia has far deeper significance than merely a stylistic difference. We could even say that it suggests something specific about what Yeshua’s anthropology might have been.” (ibid., p. 115)

“In the Gospel of Mary, the nous does not represent the whole human being, nor even an element, such as heart or intellect, which will some day have to discover the treasure. For here there is no more division between the treasure that one must acquire little by little, and oneself. There is no difference between the treasure and that part of us that is the nous----the nous is the treasure, an inner element that the disciple has no need to acquire through some moral action, but something he already possesses by nature, and that must also be discovered.” (ibid., p. 116)

This is such a lovely translation, and Leloup’s “commentary” following his translation is not to be missed!