Dictionaries :: Describe

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Describe:

de-skrib':This verb, now obsolete, in the sense used in Jos 18:4,6,8,9 and Jud 8:14, is a translation of kathabh, usually rendered "to write" or "inscribe." But in the above passages it has the Old English meaning of dividing into parts or into lots, as for example: "Walk through the land, and describe it according to their inheritance" (Jos 18:4); that is, describe in writing the location and size of the several parcels of land thus portioned out. In Jud 8:14 "described" should be translated "wrote down a list of." "Describe" occurs twice in the King James Version of the New Testament (Ro 4:6, 10:5), where lego, and grapho, are both rendered "describeth." the Revised Version (British and American) corrects both, and substitutes "pronounceth" in the first and "writeth" in the second passage.

Description =" list" (1 Esdras 5:39).

Written by W. W. Davies

Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words

Describe:

"to write," is rendered "describeth" in Rom 10:5, AV, "For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the Law...;" this the RV corrects to "For Moses writeth that the man that doeth the righteousness which is of the Law... "
See WRITE.

Describe:

"to say," is rendered "describeth" in Rom 4:6, AV, "David describeth the blessedness...;" this the RV corrects to, "David pronounceth blessing upon... " This might be regarded as the meaning, if David is considered as the human agent acting for God as the real pronouncer of blessing. Otherwise the verb lego is to be taken in its ordinary sense of "telling or relating;" especially as the blessedness (makarismos) is not an act, but a state of felicity resulting from God's act of justification.