Literal Hope

(Mat 17:18 KJV)  And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.

As we were looking at this verse in our Wednesday night Bible study, I noticed that the King James was much more literal than the New American Standard.  When I compare them, the final phrase in the new American standard was,

    “...and the boy was cured at once.”

The footnote for the New American Standard said it literally should be translated the way the King James has it.  Interesting.  There are times when the literal is the best.

What I didn’t see until I compared them to note the difference was that the King James brings the hope for the future.  It points out that the boy was not only healed, but he was healed from that very hour.  This tells me that it was a permanent healing, not just a psychosomatic involvement.

So?  God offers us hope for the future.  He does things in the context of history.  He does things in the context of eternal life.