COMMON VERSION.

Matt. ii. 16.

“Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.”

SAWYER’S VERSION.

Chap. ii. verse 4.

“Then Herod seeing that he was despised by the Magi, was exceedingly angry, and sent and destroyed all the children, in Bethlehem, and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the precise time which he had learned of the Magi.”

Here is a comparison of the two translations of a simple narrative text taken at random.  The essential changes (improvements?) made by Mr. Sawyer are in the words which we have Italicized.  Two of these changes, the substitution of “Magi” for “wise men,” and of “destroyed” for “slew,” we shall pass with the single observation, that the rendering of the common version is in both instances the more accurate and better expressed.  Mr. Sawyer substitutes “despised” for “mocked,” as the translation of [Greek:  henepaichthae].  Is this literal? or is it an improvement?  The Greek verb [Greek:  hemaiso] has the signification primarily to deride, to mock, to scoff at, and secondarily to delude, to deceive, to disappoint, but it has not the meaning to despise.  The word mock is used in our language in both these significations,—­in the secondary sense when it refers to men’s hopes or expectations,—­as, to mock one’s hopes, that is, to delude or disappoint one’s expectations.  In this sense, and in this alone, it is obviously used in this passage.  The wise men did not scoff at King Herod, but they did delude him; they mocked his expectation of their return, and went back to their own country without returning to report to him, because they had been “warned of God in a dream,” not because they despised the king.  To say, as Mr. Sawyer does, that they “despised” him, is neither warranted by the meaning of [Greek:  enepaichthae], nor is such a rendering accordant with the facts of the story or the connections of the thought.  It is a forced and far-fetched translation, and a change from the common version much for the worse.  The same word is of frequent occurrence in the Scriptures.  In the Septuagint, Jer. x. 14, it is used in the same sense as in Matt. ii. 16.  It is worthy of note that in no other instance does Mr. Sawyer render it by “despised.”  In Luke xviii. 32 and xxii. 63, and Matt. xx. 19, he translates it “mocked,” like the common version.  Mr. Sawyer should be more consistent, if he would have us put faith in his scholarly pretensions and literal accuracy.  The passage in which he indulges in this variation from his own rule is the one of all the list where such a translation is particularly fitting, and where neither force, clearness, nor precision is gained by the substitution.