Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 30:119 (Jul 1873)
Article: The Meaning Of נָשָׂא
Author: William Henry Cobb

BSac 30:119 (July 1873) p. 422

The Meaning Of נָשָׂא

Rev. William Henry Cobb

Chiltonville, Mass1

On any Christian theory of inspiration, regard must be paid to the words of the sacred record. Though few at the present day would care to defend the old mechanical view, yet the least we can say is that under a divine illumination the writers of the Bible selected their language; and when we find particular words and phrases often recurring, we are authorized to believe that they reveal the mind of the Spirit. We must candidly and patiently inquire: What saith the Scripture? or we shall gain no reliable knowledge of its doctrines. Exegesis is only a preliminary science, it is true. It hews from the quarry the stones with which theology is to build. But the bane of theology has been its hasty architects, who have had their predetermined spaces to fill, and have been ready to accept of any stones that would fill them. Let exegesis decide what the Bible has to say, before the makers of systems tell us what it ought to say.

If this position is correct in general, it is all the more obvious when applied to those truths for which we are ultimately dependent on the Bible; chief among which stands the doctrine of the atonement. When we say that the discussion of the atonement is, in the last analysis, a ques-

BSac 30:119 (July 1873) p. 423

tion of words, we do not disparage, but rather exalt it; for in some just sense those words came from God.

The argument from the Old Testament hinges mainly upon certain verbs, some of the principal of which are חָשַׁב, סָבָל, נָשָׂא, כָּפַר. By far the most frequently used is נָשָא. With its derivatives it occurs eight hundred and ninety-five times, or about once to every chapter.2 This use is distributed very evenly among the different books. The word must be studied carefully in the original, on account of the great diversity of terms by which our version translates it; fifty-seven words and phrases being used for the Kal form alone.

It is necessary to proceed, also, with a reverent desire to find the exact truth, and with a judicial freedom from solicitude about results. As has been well said by a recent writer,3 in alluding to the vicarious and sacrificial language of the Bible: “The usus loquendi of the words can be determined only by a careful analysis and comparison of all the passages in which they...