In Jeremiah, God sends a sword among the nations that causes a reaction like vomiting and drunkenness. In Revelation, we see the sword coming from the mouth of the Word of God. The writer of Hebrews says:

The word of God is alive and active. It cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword, piercing so deeply that it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it discriminates among the purposes and thoughts of the heart. Nothing in creation can hide from him; everything lies bare and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render account. (Heb 4:12-13)

Paraphrasing Jesus in Matthew 10:34, the word of God is not a sword of peace. The reaction of those who have been pierced and cut by the word of God is like the nations to the cup of the wine of wrath: laid bare, they reject his message like vomit and become crazed in opposition to it.

And who is pierced by the word? All of us. All of us must drink in order to be awakened to the extent of our depravity. Once crazed, we can choose to drink the dregs of the wine of wrath, ensuring our eternal destruction, or to drink of the blood of Christ, ensuring our eternal salvation.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 (TNIV)

The specific passage my client is focused on is in verse 19: “he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” However, he doesn’t care for the word “reconciliation” (Greek: katallagē) and wanted to know if there were any other alternatives. The general meaning of katallagē is associated with the action of money changers, who exchange currency in foreign denominations for an equal value of currency in the local denomination.

My client would prefer a translation that places more emphasis on the meaning of the root, allassō, which means “to change” or “to transform”, e.g. God has given us the ministry of delivering a message of change — cf. Romans 12.2: “be transformed”. Unfortunately for my client, there appears to be near unanimity among English translations that “reconciliation” is the correct term for katallagē. The one exception was God’s Word translation:

He has restored our relationship with him through Christ, and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships. In other words, God was using Christ to restore his relationship with humanity. He didn’t hold people’s faults against them, and he has given us this message of restored relationships to tell others.

If I may extend the metaphor of the money changers, our translations seem to be saying that while we are in our old (sinful) denomination or currency, we are unusable by God in his Kingdom – but once we are exchanged at the rate of grace, we are transformed into God’s currency to be spent in the world as part of his new creation. We have value and can be used to add value to the Kingdom by delivering the message of our transformation. Not to be buried in the ground, but invested so that our testimony might produce returns of increasing worth (cf. Matthew 25.14-18).

And who is our money changer and purveyor of grace? None but Jesus Christ.

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” John 2.13-17 (TNIV)

It is not men who determine the worth and value of our lives, but Christ. Placing our lives in the hands of men is truly trusting our lives to “a den of robbers” (cf. Matt. 21:13, Jer. 7:11). It is no wonder then, that outside of Christ, we find little meaning, value or worth in life. This is the message that God has given us to deliver to the world — a message of true change, of being exchanged, a message of restoration and reconciliation to the Kingdom of God.

Through lack of these some people have gone astray into a wilderness of words.

The key phrase “a wilderness of words” is a translation of the Greek mataiologia, which is literally translated as “empty talk” (cf. “fruitless discussion” in the NASB and “vain jangling” in the KJV). The essence is that words or discussion are void of meaning. In the original post, I limited my consideration to this verse, with a nod to the only other appearance of this unique Greek word in Titus 1:10 (“empty talker”).

At this time, I want to skip forward to the very end of Paul’s letter, where he concludes with some final exhortations to Timothy. Again, from the REB, 1 Timothy 6.20-21:

Timothy, keep safe what has been entrusted to you. Turn a deaf ear to empty and irreligious chatter, and the contradictions of ‘knowledge’ so-called, for by laying claim to it some have strayed far from the faith. Grace be with you all!

Note the recurrence of “stray” (Gk. astocheo) in conjunction with getting off-track in faith. However, I’m most interested in the phrase translated “empty and irreligious chatter”. The Greek is bebēlos kenophōnia — translated in the KJV as “profane and vain babblings”.

The latter Greek word, kenophōnia, is derived from kenos (“empty, vain, devoid of truth”) and phone (“a sound, a voice, speech”) and has a general meaning of “empty discussion, discussion of vain and useless matters”, which seems very similar to the definition of mataiologia outlined above.

Breaking down mataiologia again: the root adjective mataios means “devoid of force, truth, success, result” and “useless, of no purpose”, while legos means “to say, to speak”, especially in a teaching or instructional manner with the meaning of what is being spoken emphasized.

Note that both mataios and kenos carry a meaning of “devoid of force/truth”. In a general sense, the meaning of these two words, mataiologia and kenophōnia, seem close enough that it makes you wonder why Paul used different words. However, in considering legos and phone, perhaps we see that we’re viewing two sides of the same coin. The former refers to the meaning of what is being spoken, the latter to the sound of what is being spoken.

If so, Paul seems to be saying that not only have some people lost the meaning of the Law (cf. 1 Timothy 1:7), but that even the words they then use in ignorance lack effect or resonance and should be avoided at all cost.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:5)

Specifically:

• Compare “all your heart” — e.g. your mind and intellect — to the selfish “lust of the eyes”;
• Compare “all your soul” — e.g. your entire emotional and spiritual being — to the “pride” of possessions, wealth, lifestyle and achievement;
• Compare “all your strength” — e.g. your physical being — with “the lust of the flesh” and its appetite for physical pleasure.

Continuing the discussion of Matthew’s appropriation of OT scripture as prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we turn to these exegetical questions found in yesterday comic section of the newspaper. The passage in question come from Matthew 2.16-18 (REB):

When Herod realized that the astrologers had tricked him he flew into a rage, and gave orders for the massacre of all the boys aged two years or under, in Bethelem and throughout the whole district, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the astrologers. So the words spoken through Jeremiah the prophet were fulfilled: “A voice was heard in Rama, sobbing in bitter grief; it was Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they were no more.”

The fulfilled passage in question is from Jeremiah 31.15 and in its original context has nothing to do with Jesus, Herod or the slaughter of young children. William Barclay describes the situation as this:

Jeremiah was picturing the people of Jerusalem being led away in exile. In their sad way to an alien land they pass Ramah, and Ramah was the place where Rachel lay buried (1 Samuel 10:2); and Jeremiah pictures Rachel weeping, even in the tomb, for the fate that had befallen the people.

Remember that Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin; Ramah was located in the area allotted to Benjamin, just north of Jerusalem. The NET Bible has this further note:

Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

Whether Rachel was weeping for Jerusalem (Barclay) or the northern kingdom tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (NET) is evidently disputable, though the latter seems more appropriate. Regardless, we do now have the specific “who”, “where” and “why” that Linus seeks.

We often caution about taking a verse-by-verse view of scripture – applying individual passages to whatever we want by interpreting them outside of context – yet at first blush it seems that this is what Matthew is doing here and elsewhere in this second chapter of his gospel (cf. Matthew 2:15 and Hosea 11:1, Matthew 2:23 and Isaiah 11:1) when he uses the literal words themselves to communicate, outside of original context or metaphorical meaning. Or is there something else here? In comments to my previous post on Matthew, Damian noted that:

Regarding Matthew’s use of the OT, I’m of the school that tends to assume that an OT quote implies the relevance of the entire passage that quote is within. In Matthew, especially early Matthew, this approach works quite well, and so I don’t think he misappropriates prophecy at all.

So we return to Jeremiah and tackle the larger picture. Chapters 30 and 31 fall under a general categorization of promises and hopes for the restoration of Israel and Judah. So while Rachel is weeping in 31.15, the overall trajectory of the passage is positive; keep reading in Jeremiah 31.16-17 (REB):

These are words of the Lord to her [Rachel]:
Cease your weeping,
shed no more tears;
for there will be a reward for your toil,
and they will return from the enemy’s land.
There will be hope for your posterity;
your children will return within their own borders.

In the face of bitter lamentation and exile from wrongdoing, there is the ultimate promise of hope and consolation:

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I shall establish a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. [...] I shall set my law within them, writing it on their hearts; I shall be their God, and they will be my people. No longer need they teach one another, neighbour or brother, to know the Lord; all of them, high and low alike, will know me, says the Lord, for I shall forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I shall call to mind no more. (Jeremiah 31.31, 33-34 — REB)

Again, these verses were originally specific to the exiled Israelites, but Matthew is surely calling to mind the promises of the covenant for all people, Jew and Gentile alike. That is, Herod has slaughtered the children of Bethlehem and there is much weeping, but like the exiled kingdoms, the Christ has survived and will return (out of Egypt) to establish a new covenant with all people and for all time. If we view Matthew’s scripture quotations in this light, then we perhaps understand that he is telling the gospel story as a massive typological argument, using huge blocks of Hebrew scripture to underpin the good news message of Jesus Christ as the annointed Messiah and fulfillment of all scripture.

The December issue has an article on “The Real King Herod” of Biblical lore and his influence and positive contributions to the architectural layout of Israel. The article, written by Tom Mueller, is centered around Israeli archaeologist Ehud Netzer’s discovery of Herod’s tomb. Embedded in the first paragraph is this quote:

Yet today he is best known as the sly and murderous monarch of Matthew’s Gospel, who slaughtered every male infant in Bethlehem in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the newborn Jesus, the prophesied King of the Jews. During the Middle Ages he became the image of the Antichrist: Illuminated manuscripts and Gothic gargoyles show him tearing his beard in mad fury and brandishing his sword at the luckless infants, with Satan whispering in his ear. Herod is almost certainly innocent of this crime, of which there is no report apart from Matthew’s account.

Scholars have long tried to line up the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, accounting for the differences and unique items reported. However, how do we approach this claim, that one of the unique items – Matthew’s report of Herod’s killing of the infants and presumably the subsequent flight of Joseph, Mary and Jesus to Egypt – is “almost certainly” false?

In matters of OT concordance, I’ve been using the maxim that the gospels were written after Jesus’ resurrection and subsequent time teaching the disciples and followers “in the whole of scripture the things that referred to himself.” (Luke 24:27) If the gospel accounts were vetted as accurate by the apostolic eyewitnesses within the first century church (cf. Luke 1:1-4), then the accounts we still have today must have their roots in this post-resurrection teaching. However, this presupposes that the events actually happened… or else Jesus was making stuff up!

Now, thanks to a comment from Esteban in a previous post, I’ve become familiar with the case of Bob Gundry, an expelled member of the Evangelical Theological Society. Gundry was expelled from ETS in 1983 for publishing an account of Matthew that claimed that “the four Evangelists, especially Matthew and Luke, have adapted the deeds and words of Jesus to fit the life and experiences of their readers” and that ” in the ‘infancy narratives’ (Matt. 1, 2) and elsewhere Matthew uses a Jewish literary genre called midrash. Like many preachers today, the writer of a midrash embroidered historical events with nonhistorical additions.” (Source) In particular, Gundry claims that Matthew changed the role played by the Jewish shepherds to that of Gentile astrologers in order to better bookend their arrival at Jesus’ birth with Jesus’ final commission that the apostles go to the nations/Gentiles at the ends of the earth.

I’ve not read Gundry myself, so I don’t know the extent of his claims that are based on the scholarly technique known as “redaction criticism.” But I recently speculated that the flight to Egypt might similarly be an allegorical or typological addition to the narrative, especially as Matthew concerns himself with messianic fulfillment of OT prophecy. Which of course then lays bare the question of what prophecy means and how it is fulfilled.

In matters of liberal scholarship, I tend to reference William Barclay. However, that bastion of liberal evangelicalism and skeptic of Jesus’ divinity makes this note:

There is not the slightest need to think that the story of the coming of the Magi to the cradle of Christ is only a lovely legend. It is exactly the kind of thing that could easily have happened in that ancient world. When Jesus Christ came the world was in an eagerness of expectation. Men were waiting for God and the desire for God was in their hearts. They had discovered that they could not build the golden age without God. It was to a waiting world that Jesus came; and, when he came, the ends of the earth were gathered at his cradle. It was the first sign and symbol of the world conquest of Christ. (Matthew, Vol. 1, p. 27)

Barclay goes on to state that Matthew’s use of the quote from Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15 is

typical of Matthew’s use of the Old Testament. He is prepared to use as a prophecy about Jesus any text at all which can be made verbally to fit, even although originally it had nothing to do with the question in hand, and was never meant to have anything to do with it. [...] When we read a passage like this we must remember that, though it seems strange and unconvincing to us, it would appeal to those Jews for whom Matthew was writing. (Matthew, Vol. 1, p. 36)

So on one hand, Barclay accepts the historical accuracy of the Magi’s visit, but also notes Matthew’s tendancy to appropriate prophecy as needed in order “to convince the Jews that Jesus was the promised Annointed One of God”. There is a balance of veracity and verisimilitude – the question is does the balance between the two really matter?

What?! Judged on works? Isn’t accepting Christ by faith enough for admittance into heaven and the joys of paradise? I’m going to suggest that the first part, admittance into “heaven”, or the New Heavens/Earth if you will, is based on faith, but that the joys and reward we find there are based on something different, namely our works done “in Christ”.

Our starting point is 1 Peter 1.17-19:

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

When we read about the Father’s judgment, we tend to jump to Revelation 20.11-15:

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. [...] All whose names were not found written in the book of life were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the separation of the sheep and goats, the eternal division of those who accepted the message and authority of Jesus Christ from those who did not. Once the sheep have been set aside, I’m suggesting that there is an additional “judgment”, based on these passages from Paul:

Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:18-19)

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive what is due them for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (2 Cor 5.10)

Each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved-even though only as one escaping through the flames. (1 Cor 3.10b-15)

That is, once we have been admitted to heaven as sheep in the Father’s judgment, we then face Christ’s judgment for our eternal reward, e.g. the treasure stored up for us based on our conduct and actions “in the body”. This is what I believe John is referring to in Revelation 20:10, where he notes that “the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”

If admittance to heaven is based solely on our proclamation of faith, then nothing else we have done matters in the first judgment of the sheep and goats. Instead, works are only after we have been saved and admitted to heaven.

In a sense, there *is* a properity gospel, but it’s not the one preached by Osteen et al. It is, instead, one of eternal prosperity: work out the fact of your salvation with good deeds, in fear and trembling, and you not only improve the lot of those around you, but you build up the reward for yourself in the life to come. Those who enjoy riches now to their own pleasure may pass through the fire, but they will lose everything and will be the poorest people in Heaven, while those who forsake pleasure in the body for the work of the Kingdom will be rewarded and elevated to the highest status.

3.1: Serpent: an ancient extrabiblical story tells how a serpent stole the plant which would have given immortality to human beings. It was believed that when the snake shed its skin, it was rejuvenated. Cunning: there is a pun in the Heb. words for cunning and naked (v.7). Had made: a phrase deliberately used to show that the serpent was only one among God’s many creatures. The idea of the serpent as a primeval adversary of God, indeed, the Devil, arose much later (see Wisd. 2.24); so too the fixing of blame on the woman arose at a much later time (Ecclus. 25.24).

A virtually identical footnote appears in the NEB Study Bible, though with “crafty” instead of “cunning”, as that earlier translation has it. The verses in question are:

The serpent, which was the most cunning of all the creatures the Lord God had made, asked the woman, ‘Is it true that God has forbidden you to eat from any tree in the garden?’ (3:1)

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they stitched fig-leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (3:7)

Leon Kass’ book, “The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis“, contains the following note on this text:

The word “cunning,” in Hebrew ‘arum, echoes and puns on ‘arumim, “naked,” [...] The root sense of ‘erum, “naked,” is “smooth”: someone who is naked is hairless, clothesless, smooth of skin. But as the pun suggests, someone who is clever is also smooth, a facile thinker and talker whose surface speech is beguiling and flawless, hiding well his rough ulteriour purposes. (p.82)

With this in mind, we might think about how a “Literary Equivalent” English translation might convey a sense of this linguistic relationship in the original Hebrew:

The serpent was the smoothest operator of all the creatures the Lord God had made. He asked the woman, ‘Is it true that God has forbidden you to eat from any tree in the garden?’ (3:1)

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that their naked skin was smooth; so they stitched fig-leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (3:7)

Now obviously “smooth operator” is a very constrained idiom or phrase to use in terms of its historical relevance and one must fight the temptation to begin humming Sade’s song of the same name, but the desired effect is there, drawing the connection between the cunning deceitfulness of the serpent and the nascent self-awareness of the sinful man and woman.

One suspects that for the OT writers, it was not so much that Satan was thrown out of Heaven by God, but that Satan was an agent of God, the one willing to do the dirty work of tempting and enticing humans. The Zechariah passage depicts Satan as standing at the right hand of Joshua the high priest, waiting to accuse him before the angel of the Lord (Jesus?) Clearly Satan seems to have had God-granted authority to affect human action and then accuse them in the courtrooms of Heaven.

We then come to Luke 10.18-20, which records Jesus’ reply to his disciples’ reports of success as witnesses to the Kingdom of Heaven:

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Which parallels Revelation 12.7-9:

And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down-that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

But what’s of interest to me is what’s is recorded in the next verse in the Revelation passage:

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.

John goes on to record that when Satan saw that “he had been thrown down to the earth” (Rev. 12.13), he “went off to make war against [...] those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.” (Rev. 12.17)

Satan, the accuser, has had his access to Heaven’s courtroom revoked! He was cast out of Heaven and lost his authority over humankind when Jesus became a mortal man and established the beachheads of the Kingdom of Heaven. Where before he was free to roam through the earth and go back and forth to Heaven, presenting himself to God whenever he had evidence to accuse humans with, now he is permanently stuck on earth as “the prince of this world”, an impotent potentate without access to Heaven.

Satan has lost his place in the grand courtroom of the Sovereign God. This means that we do not have an Accuser, a Lawyer, a Prosecutor who is constantly seeking to convict us for every misdeed and unrighteous act. We have a temptor who seeks to deceive us and lead us astray from the Kingdom of Heaven, but we are not living in a present state of being accused and convicted of those temptations.

In an earlier post on a modern representation of Satan as the spirit of negation rather than of creation, I included a quote by Ligon Duncan, who sees “a simultaneously increasing opposition to the kingdom [of Heaven] growing alongside an ever advancing and expanding kingdom [of Heaven].” That is, as the Kingdom of Heaven grows and expands from its initial beachhead in the humanity of Jesus Christ, Satan’s kingdom here on earth must also advance and expand. The kingdom of earth feeds on the fruit of the Kingdom of Heaven, poisoning wherever it can gain a hold, but always dependent on a renewing Creation for the substance of its negation. The kingdom of earth is truly impotent.

There will come a time when we are judged as to which kingdom we belong to, but we have the assurance that our sentencing will be by the Just Judge, not a Double-dyed Deceiver, and that we have the Great Defender available, Jesus Christ himself.

* * * * *

HT: Brent Kercheville

I am continuing my survey of Bible Translation books, now reading Donald Kraus’ volume, Choosing a Bible For Worship, Teaching, Study, Preaching, and Prayer. Kraus is Executive Editor for Bibles at Oxford University Press and presents a fairly even-handed review of translation philosophies, from strict interlinear to cultural paraphrase, though most of his time is spent in the space between the NASB and The Message.

I wanted to note one passage from the book: his consideration of the opening verses of John. Kraus considers the RSV, NIV, NJB, NLT, Moffat, TEV, CEV, The Message and Phillips translations for this passage. After discussing the various treatments of the Greek logos, he turns to “the verb katalambano (katelaben in the text – a past tense).”

This verb means “to take (as in the hand) in such a way as to hold firmly or fully.” By extension it means “to understand, comprehend.” [...] In the final phrase of this extract, “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not katelaben it,” there is a classic translator’s dilemma. The writer probably meant both “hold so as to extinguish” and “understand the nature of” — the darkness has not extinguished the light, and the darkness has not understood the real nature of the light. In English, however, it is not possible to convey both of these meanings at once, and therefore it is necessary to choose.

For reference, here are a handful of translations of the verse in question, John 1.5:

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (NIV)

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (NASB; cf. KJV)

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. (NLT)

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (ESV; cf. TNIV, HCSB)

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never mastered it. (REB)

Is Kraus correct in that there is an inherent dual meaning or ambiguity in the original Greek that cannot be represented in English? Perhaps not. In the same discussion as above, Krauss notes that “a similar overlapping meaning occurs in English with the verb ‘grasp’, which can mean both ‘hold physically’ and ‘understand’.” If we lean toward the REB’s choice of “master” instead of “extinguish” or “overcome”, then we might allow that the semantic range of “grasp” includes having control or holding firmly. Certainly the traditonal sense of “understand” or “comprehend” is included in “grasping an idea or thought.”

With that in mind, perhaps another way of translating this verse is:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has been unable to fully grasp it.

I suppose the ultimate question is, when faced with a scenario of ambiguous dual meaning, is it better to translate to a word that naturally communicates the full sense of one of the meanings, but not the other (and presumably footnote the alternate meaning), or translate to a word that communicates some of the semantic range of both meanings? And if the latter, can we add a modifier, like “fully” above, that strengthens  meaning while still retaining the ambiguity?