Topic
Gangrene
2 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 They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently.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.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- 2 Timothy 2:17ISBE
And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
- James 5:3ISBE
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 2 references
gan'-gren (gaggraina, pronounced gan-graina; the King James Version canker):
The name was used by the old Greek physicians for an eating ulcer which corrodes the soft parts and, according to Galen, often ends in mortification. Paul compares the corrupting influence of profane babbling or levity, in connection with subjects which ought to be treated with reverence to this disease (2Ti 2:17). The old English word "canker" is used by 16th-and 17th-century authors as the name of a caterpillar which eats into a bud. In this sense it occurs 18 times in Shakespeare (e.g. Midsummer Night's Dream, II, ii, 3). The canker-worm mentioned 6 times by Joe and Nahum is probably the young stage of Acridium peregrinum, a species of locust. Cankered in Jas 5:3 the King James Version means "rusted" (Greek katiotai), and is so rendered in the Revised Version (British and American). In Susanna verse 52 Coverdale uses the phrase, "O thou old cankered carle," in Daniel's address to the elder, where English Versions of the Bible has "waxen old in wickedness." The word is still used in the Scottish dialect and applied to persons who are cross-grained and disagreeable.
Alexander Macalister
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.