Over the last two months I have been reading through the Bible using the Legacy Standard translation (LSB for short). This new translation builds upon the work of the NASB and aims to be an overly literal Bible translation. The purpose for this literalness is to allow the readers to see intertextual connections that are sometimes lost in translation.
On the joy and need for overly literal translations.
I am thankful for the LSB’s (mostly) consistent literal-ness. An overly literal translation will make some passages sound odd and confusing. Take for example Exodus 4:10-17. In that passage Moses complains that he has a “hard mouth and a hard tongue”, and thus should not be Yahweh’s spokesman. The phrase “hard mouth” sounds very odd to our ears. So, translations usually smooth the phrase out to say something like “I am slow of speech and of tongue” (ESV). But smoothing out the literal translation of “hard mouth and hard tongue” removes a layer of intertextual interpretation. Moses has a hard mouth, just as Pharaoh has a hard heart. God will accommodate Moses’s hard mouth and make him into a mighty prophet, and yet He will further harden Pharaoh’s heart and make him into an example of destruction. That interconnection has to show us something about the kindness and severity of God. So, Yahweh promises to be with Moses’ mouth, and in His condescending grace, Yahweh also grants Moses to have Aaron as a second mouth. “I will be with your mouth and with his mouth”.
I love the literalness. Here’s where I hope in the updates to the LSB they add even more consistency. In Deuteronomy 1:26, Moses recounts how the Israelites were unwilling to enter the promised land because of the report of the spies. Deuteronomy 1:26 reads, “Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of Yahweh your God” (LSB). However, a more consistently literal translation would have been, “Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the mouth of Yahweh your God.” It was not merely the command of God that the people rebelled against; they rebelled against God’s mouth. What does it mean to rebel against God’s mouth? Again, we see an intertextual connection. In Exodus, God promised to be with Moses’ hard mouth and to make Moses and Aaron the spokesmen, i.e. Yahweh’s mouth, for the sons of Israel. In Deuteronomy we read that the sons of Israel rebelled against God’s mouth; that is, God’s chosen spokesmen – Moses and Aaron. Rebelling against the Lord’s commands is always linked to rebelling against the mouth of the Lord’s chosen messengers. His messengers are His mouthpieces. Think – the apostles and prophets. Christians who do not apply themselves to following the Scriptures, in which are recorded for us the word of God by God’s appointed messengers, His “mouth”, are likewise rebelling against Yahweh.
Thankfully, we have a God who has also spoken these words from His mouth, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Come, let us hear the word of the Lord!
Sound Teaching, Sound Living 