Lexical interpretation and clarity

When I sit at my home den's computer which is exceedingly slow, I keep the Bible-of-books on the table to flip through until I have something on screen to click on. This morning perusing Job, the first of the poetical books, I viewed again unique vocabulary, some having archaic usage, that I had long forgotten.

My 1973 King James Version has no helpful margin notes. Thus, I had to rely upon my faithful Merriam-Webster's for understanding. CliffsNotes, SparkNotes, or other comprehensive study guides would have come in handy for my unlettered Bible knowledge.

In any case, I thought how strange and difficult it must be for students of EFL/ESL and even denominational persons or other scholars to gain understanding, unless they have a teacher or lest they do the same as I. Would there be necessity to put such unique terms in their repertoire? I think at best justification, it could serve as trivial pursuit.

First example: "Can the rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water?" The first question did not get by me as a result of my college botany course. I did know that rushes were marsh plants with round hollow stems often used to interweave mats or for chair bottoms. The second question was beyond me in spite of the botany course. I had no idea what a flag was and did not dare to guess.

Anyway, the rush belonging to the family Junaceae, the genus and species Juncus baekdusanensis discovered and described in the highland swamps of Mount Baekdu by Kim Mu-yeol, et al. also has a genus synonym of Agathpyon. (Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy 2014; 44 (4) 238-241).

Now, the flag I learned of from online sources. It is a completely different order. The genus and species, Acorus gramineus, is known as an indigenous medicinal plant and is found in South Korean wetlands and shallow waters as a perennial aquatic herb. (Ja-Hyun Lee et al. Kor. J. Hort. Sci. Technol. 29(3):232-239, 2011). Incidentally, there is a flag breeding program in Korea for “hanbang” traditional Korean medicine.

Second example: "Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat." Once again using online sources, I learned that mallows were classified in the family Malvaceae with numerous genera and was quite surprised my botany memory did not recall that okra, cotton, cacao, roselle, and durian are economic members. However, those mallows were not the reference for the quote from the book of Job. By my reading and reasoning, Job was from the land of Uz and it was most probably modern-day Syria or modern-day Jordan, but I will defer to the scholarly conjecture of experts. Thus, the edible mallows that flourish in those regions are Malva sylvestris (a.k.a. common mallow-young leaves and flowers edible and roasted seeds as coffee substitute) and Corchorus olitorius (a.k.a. jute or Jew's mallow-young leaves rich in vitamins and minerals used as leafy vegetables).

Anyhow, the unique Bible vocabulary that you come across may challenge you as you add to your personal lexicon, but it is nothing to rent your mantle over and drive you to sackcloth. Scientific binomial nomenclature may do that!

The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella “Beyond Harvard” and teaches English as a second language.