Mark Twain made the comment that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Humorous though it is, this remark has a lot of truth to it. Nowhere else does exactness in shades of meaning figure more importantly as it does in the Bible, a book that reveals profound eternal truths in clear and concise terms. Synonyms of the New Testament is a very helpful book in understanding those Bible words.
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Trench tends to wax wordy at times and, depending on the edition the reader has, often quotes at length from Latin, Greek, German and other authors in their original language. He assumes that the reader has a workable command of the scholarly languages of the serious Bible student. This was in fact the case in the previous century of Trench's time but it makes rough going for the modern reader who may even have a hard time with Trench's writing in English. Here is an example from his section on synonyms for fear (section 10):
"Yet after all, these distinctions whereby they sought to escape the embarrassments of their ethical position, the admission for instance that the wise man might feel 'suspiciones quasdam etiam irae affectuum,' but not the 'affectus' themselves (Seneca, De Ira, i 16; cf. Plutarch, De Virt. Mor. 9), were nothing worth; they had admitted the thing, and were now only fighting about words, with which to cover and conceal the virtual abandonment of their position, being onomatomachoi, as a Peripatetic adversary lays to their charge.
Trench's style is very evident in the passage above. His train of thought is not always easy to follow. (Of course, I didn't make things any easier by not explaining the context of the above section!)
Yet it is this very methodical "word-plowing" that makes him especially helpful in understanding the synonyms of the inspired Word. With patience and determination, the reader of Synonyms comes away with a much better insight and appreciation of, say, the exactness and precision of the several terms for "sin".
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