Week 9 Deuteronomy 2-3
I noticed it five times in the first three chapters (six times actually…but I don’t think the last one counts). Bracketed passages.
I wondered if the brackets were just a feature that my reading-bible decided to use. But I checked a couple of other versions and they bracketed the passages too.
I use brackets in a sentence to explain or clarify or add something. But these passages are different. I wouldn’t bracket them. These are more like marginal additions. Footnotes.
So for instance chapter two & three are talking about Israel’s conquest of King Sihon and King Og. Then after talking about Og it says this (in a bracketed note): incidentally, King Og of Bashan was the last of the giant Rephaites. His iron bed was more than thirteen feet long and six feet wide. It can still be seen in the Ammonite city of Rabbah.
As side-notes go this one is pretty interesting. I got a tape measure and stretched it out to 13-feet on the rec-room floor. Og was a big guy.
But aside from natural curiosity I think the bracket offers lower-value content. And all the brackets seem to have lower-value content. All of them give me some added factual informational tidbit. But if I didn’t have them? Well…no huge loss.
So I wonder why the bracketed notes are included. Wonder what the writer had in mind. Wonder how they benefitted his audience.
Note: quote from Deuteronomy 3:11 (NLT). Other brackets are at 2:10-12 2:20-23 3:9 3:13-14 3:19