Cold Comfort

The most time-consuming part of translating a reading is comparing the King James Version of the verses listed in the reading's Index to the verses in other translations of the Bible on sites such as biblegateway.com, but there’s always one wooly verse – at least -- in each reading that research makes sharp.

Take Isaiah 28:10, for instance:


For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little


It’s cited in 262-2, 12A. A 50-year old married woman, an active member in ARE, asked Mr. Cayce,

12. (Q) [379]: Is there a message for me as to how I can best cooperate with this group?

To which EC replied:

(A) The answer to your question is there for you to discover, if you will make the effort. Act on what you grasp during each meeting and engagement, for it is line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little that your understanding builds, like the yeast that raises the whole loaf. In so doing may those blessings that may come to others through your actions be your best contribution in and with this group.


The reason EC included that citation seemed clear to me. When I looked into the parallel verses, I expected to find similar words of gentle encouragement. Instead I found:

 

10 For it is blah-blah upon blah-blah,
blah-blah upon blah-blah,
gah-gah upon gah-gah,
gah-gah upon gah-gah,
a little here, a little there.

-- Lexham English Bible


10 He speaks to us as though we were babies:
“Saw lasaw saw lasaw
Qaw laqaw qaw laqaw
Ze’er sham ze’er sham.”

 -- Easy-to-Read Version



[Footnote:Isaiah 28:10 In this context, the Hebrew expressions tsaw-tsaw and qaw-qaw are likely meant to sound like baby talk, but they could mean “command upon command” and “rule upon rule”]



9-10 “Is that so? And who do you think you are to teach us?
Who are you to lord it over us?
We’re not babies in diapers
to be talked down to by such as you—
‘Da, da, da, da,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
That’s a good little girl,
that’s a good little boy.’”

-- The Message


10 Here is how he teaches.
Do this and do that.
Do that and do this.
Obey this rule and obey that rule.
Obey that rule and obey this rule.
Learn a little here and learn a little there.”

-- New International Reader’s Version


10 He tells us everything over and over—
one line at a time,
one line at a time,
a little here,
and a little there!”

-- New Living Translation


10 You don’t even listen—
all you hear is senseless sound
after senseless sound.

-- Contemporary English Version


10 They speak utter nonsense.

-- God’s Word Translation



What?!!! I was flabbergasted! A little hurt, even. Who is speaking in this verse? I asked myself. What point of view is EC taking? In the context of the reading, what is EC’s view of his questioner, and of the group? Is he calling us stupid? I went to the Commentaries section of the website for relief.

Albert Barnes cleared up the meaning of the verse, anyway. He was a Yankee Presbyterian minister and Princeton graduate who died in 1870. Among other things, he said of Isaiah 28:10:



It may be observed here that God's method of imparting religious truth has often appeared to a scoffing world to be undignified and foolish. Sinners suppose that he does not sufficiently respect their understanding, and pay a tribute to the dignity of their nature. The truths of God, and his modes of inculcating them, are said to be adapted to the understandings of childhood and of age; to imbecility of years, or to times when the mind is enfeebled by disease.

-- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible



Less clear to me is Cayce’s use of the verse. To give him full credit, I’ll say that he did mean to encourage Mrs. [379], and all in the group who took cooperation to heart. Knowing that, down the road, Mr. Cayce pulls no punches in admonishing un-cooperative members of the group, dubbing them “backward – even indolent,” I’ll go out on a limb and say that he knew that some in the group were trouble, and that he was signaling them to get straight, if they knew the Bible as well as he did; and who among them did? Deducing from later readings, the lesson went over their heads.

A Search For God is a very human document. And the Bible is a very human chronicle.