PSALM 12:6&7 REVISITED
The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. (Psalm 12:6&7)
I have already written about Psalm 12 twice and referred to it a third time in a recent article, so a lot of detail is not necessary here, however, discussing the reference to it by John Ankerberg is in order since I do intend to deal with every single one of his attacks against the King James Bible.
Ankerberg, and his co-author John Weldon, state in the exceedingly silly book The Facts on The King James Bible Debate sates that “Ninety-five percent of Hebrew scholars agree the KJV has made an error here.” Their implication is that this verse that the perversion of versions like the NIV and the RSV are correct and that this verse does not tell us that God has preserved his word for us. The RSV is typical here: “6 The promises of the LORD are promises that are pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. 7 Do thou, O LORD, protect us, guard us ever from this generation.”
These men make an unbelievable number of deceptive and foolish statements, and this is one of the worst. Were all of the world’s Hebrew scholarsquestioned about this? I don’t remember being asked, and I doubt that any Hebrew scholar that I know was asked. If in the virtually impossible event that every Hebrew scholar in the world except me was polled, where is the evidence? How did they come up with 95%? Does Ankerberg cite his source for this ridiculous claim? Yes, he does. He cites himself! His footnote is for the transcript of his own amazingly biased TV program: “The John Ankerberg Show,” transcript, “Which English Translation of the Bible is the Best for Christians to Use Today?” 27.
(All future references given as “Transcript.”) See also White, King James Only Controversy, 6).” This is like quoting one of Ankerberg’s colleagues in the TV talk show business like Maury Povitch, Montel Williams, Oprah, or Jerry Springer to support a statement that 95% of all psychics say that Obama is going to win the presidency and then to quote his or her own television program as evidence. This level of scholarly ineptitude is astounding even from a charlatan like Ankerberg.
We should also note that the opinion of academic scholars, who are generally atheists, skeptics, or Jews who do not recognize the New Testament as Scripture, is not important. The unsaved world is usually wrong about most things that matter.
In any event, whoever says that the KJV is wrong here does not know Hebrew grammar and it would matter not if 95% of them parroted the mistake of the modern version editors.
This is an example of the use of a nûn epenthetic, in which the suffix -nu is affixed to a imperfect verb. In this form the -nu is not a first person plural pronoun, but a pronoun referring to the object of the verb, which in this case is God’s word. The modern versions recognize nûn epenthetic in almost all of its occurrences, but conveniently mistranslates this verse. It does not take a lot of imagination to figure out why.
Not only does the modern version translation show grammatical incompetence (or deception), but it shows incompetence with Hebrew poetic form. The psalms, as well as most later Hebrew poetry, is chiastic in nature. This means that the second part of a verse inverts, restates or refrains what is said in the first part. The first part of verse 7 quite clearly refers to the words of the Lord that are referred to in verse 6.
Even if the -nu was the pronouns “us”, the modern versions must insert an imaginary “us” in the first clause. What a house of cards these modern apostates create in order to deceive themselves and others into believing that God did not promise to preserve his word.
It is safe to assume that neither Ankerberg nor White have any idea what a nûn epenthetic is, and if they did it is equally safe to assume that they would hide this information from the targets of their con jobs. Their foolish and unscholarly treatment of the verse displays their incompetence in a manner that shocks even me.
John Hinton, Ph.D.
Bible Restoration Ministry
A ministry seeking the translating and reprinting of KJV equivalent
Bibles in all the languages of the world.