O, the agony of living in a conceptually, if not literally, illiterate age! We so often miss the beauty of language well said or well written because we skim only the wiki.

I recently watched a YouTube video by comedian John Branyan telling the story of the “Three Little Pigs” in Shakespearean English. Overall, quite funny, but mostly notably he commented in the introduction that William Shakespeare (in the late 1500’s) had a working vocabulary of 54,000 words, while Americans today only use about 3,000 words!

How he arrived at those figures was not critically assessed. But based on a sense of our common use and disuse of words in modern English, coupled with a significant absence of eloquence the likes of which we only sample during a short study of Shakespeare’s plays in school, Branyan’s observation must be well in the ballpark.

If the modern English working vocabulary were merely doubled or tripled, think how many interesting ways our thoughts could be expressed!

Ode to William and the Bible

It has been but four centuries past when in the year of our Lord 1611 the remarkable King James translation of the Bible first saw the light of the dawning day. The Bard of Avon known as William Shakespeare died a mere half decade later.

Conclusion: the age of Shakespeare was also the age of King James English. And the beauty of Shakespeare’s poetic lines are much akin to the spiritual eloquence of the King James translation of the Bible.

An example of three “J’s”

“It is joy to the just to do judgment: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity” (Proverbs 21:15, KJV).

Joy, Just, Judgment. This use of the same starting sound of successive words is called alliteration. We enjoy hearing it in advertising or titles now as much as then. Granted, it isn’t in the original words of the passage in Hebrew (which carries its own rhythms), but it accurately translates the meaning of those words.

We’re familiar with “joy.” “Just” means good, righteous, or truly fair—we might use “fair” in the same way, today. “Judgment” carries most of the same legal meaning it did then and can also simply mean justice or right.

In other words, this divine proverb expresses a great truth. God’s way works wonderfully well—so well that it’s a marvelous joy for truly good people to do the right thing!

Just think, reading the Bible and savoring the way the words were translated from the original Hebrew in the Old Testament or Greek in the New Testament is as joyful as it is instructive. You can enjoy reading God’s Word. There are real people in that Book! Read about them and read their words that God inspired and you will not only be smarter, but more fluent in the language of righteousness as well!

Reading the Bible is vital to vertical thinking.

Read on, dear friends, read on!