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** Bible nerd alert **

I'm eager not to forgot what I learned at Bible college, so in my morning 'devotions' this year I've been reading the books of the Bible that we covered, and glancing through my lecture notes as I do. I've been alternating between Ancient Greek and Hebrew subjects so as not to get too rusty at either. It's been great.

This week I went a bit off track and started reading through Proverbs. When I say 'reading' it's with heavy dependence on the Accordance Bible software (which a friend very kindly bought for me). Anyway, I heartily recommend Proverbs. Because each verse is self-contained it's not daunting; rather, it's a joy. I love Hebrew. I'm really very hopeless at it, but I still love it. It's so different from English, which is a beautiful thing in itself; plus it means that, even with very basic skills, you can notice all sorts of things that aren't easily translated.

The word "cover" (כסה pronounced "kha-sa") keeps cropping up in the early verses of chapter ten. Unlike English, this isn't bad form or the sign of a limited vocabularly - in Hebrew, repetition of words is a deliberate and significant literary device altering the reader to echoed ideas. Use of different words where you would expect to find the same is also highly significant.

So far I've observed that "cover" is used to refer to something negative - eg "The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked" (10:11). The word translated "overwhelms" is literally the Hebrew word "covers". It's hard to work out if it is the violence that is 'covering' the mouth, or if it is the mouth that is 'covering/concealing' violence (as in the HCSB translation)...

Either way, when you get to the next verse the positive use of the word "cover" is striking. The NIV has, "Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs", but a more literal translation would be something like, "Hatred uncovers dissension, but love covers over all wrongs". So I think the idea is that hatred unveils and brings to pass a whole heap of ugliness (rather like Pandora's Box), whereas love - rather than just being neutral - actively covers over these same wrongs. Word order is another significant feature of Hebrew, so the fact that "all wrongs" is found at the beginning of the second half of the sentence in the Hebrew draws the reader's attention to the extent and efficacy of this 'covering' - it's all wrongs that love covers over.

Anyway just thought you should know.