In John chapters 13 through 17, Christ is speaking to his apostles in Jerusalem at their evening meal, their Last Supper. It is the night of His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He expounds on many topics. Particularly in chapter 14 He addresses the fear and troubles in the hearts of His followers, and eases their discomfort with words recorded in verse 18: "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."
At first I considered that the use of "comfortless" and "come" may be a sort of polyptoton, where a word is repeated, but in a different form. However, after having researched the etymology of these two words, that seems untrue. The word "come" comes simply from the Germanic and Old English word "cuman", which, indeed, means "to come, approach, or land." The word "comfortless" comes from the late Latin term "confortare", meaning "strengthen" or "give support." This means Christ's use of the two similarly sounding terms so close together could be seen as a use of the figure of speech paranomasia. Though this term is more often associated with puns, it could fit such a use as this.
The terms "comfortless" and "come" translated by William Tyndale aid in Christ's efforts to dissuade our fears of His mortal departure from His apostles and followers. His negative "will not" is soothingly complemented by his positive "I will", with the phonetically similar phrases "comfortless" and "come" helping connect them.
(Note: While researching the origin of "comfortless" and "come" I discovered the Greek lexicon for this verse and found that "comfortless" in Greek is "orphanos", which means to be bereft of parents, a teacher, or guardian. "Come" is translated from "erchomai", which simply means to come, yet some of the metaphoric translations include "to come into being" or "to show itself, find place or influence." I just thought the underlying meaning in these Greek words on their own can add significance to this verse, perhaps both rhetorically as well as spiritually.)
I think your etymological analysis of these two words' association was definitely worthwhile. Although your findings disproved your hypothesis that the two words come from the same root, I appreciate your candor in expressing what you did find. Very enlightening. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteI noticed the same thing as Michael. I think that it's a very common problem among English speakers to see things based on our language and assume that they are seeing original intent. Kudos on seeing past that and finding the truer meaning!
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