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Certain; Certainly; Certainty

24 passages cited, from 1 classic reference work.

These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.

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The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.

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In the reference works

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 24 references

ser'-tin, ser'-tin-li, ser'tin-ti: The rendering of some Hebrew words and forms expressive of what is definitely settled or determined.

(1) Translation of the Hebrew nakhon, "to be established" or "fixed," as in De 13:14 (Hebrew 15); De 17:4; 1Sa 23:23 (of Ex 16:4, "a certain rate every day" the King James Version). In the New Testament it is the rendering of asphales, asphaleia, from "a" privative and sphallein, "to shake" or "move"; as in Lu 1:4, "the certainty of those things" = actual circumstances; Ac 21:34; 22:30; 25:26.

(2) The word "certain" is also employed in the Old Testament to bring out the force of the absolute infinitive form used with the finite verb to express emphasis or to strengthen the idea of the main verb (Kautzsch-Gesenius, Hebrew Grammar, translation Collins-Cowley, 357, 3). Such usage occurs in Ge 18:10; Jos 9:24; Le 5:19; 24:16; 1Sa 20:3 the King James Version; 1Ki 2:37; Jer 26:15; 36:29; 42:19,22; 44:17.

(3) The word "certain" is also made auxiliary to bring out the force of such expressions as the Hebrew yatsabh, "to be firm," as in Da 2:8; also in the New Testament, of the verb astatein as in 1Co 4:11, "have no certain dwelling-place."

(4) Mention might be made also of "certain" as the rendering of sundry words, as 'akh, in La 2:16; ki, in Ex 3:12; and ontos, in Lu 23:47, all being expressions for what is sure, beyond doubt.

W. N. Stearns

Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.

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