Mr. Ward,
How Doth
Biden Halt?
Posted by the Editor, Christian McShaffrey

Mark Ward’s “central example” of false friends in the Authorized Version is the word “halt” in 1 Kings 18:21, “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”
In that passage, the prophet asked the people how long they would falter or limp between two opinions, but Mr. Ward is convinced that modern readers will miss that meaning because the word “halt” is more commonly used to describe the action of stopping (e.g., the troops halted at the river’s edge).
Mr. Ward has been offering this as a key proof of his false friends theory since early 2018, but just last week the modern world proved him wrong with dozens of news outlets using the word “halting” to describe President Joe Biden’s debate performance. Examples include AP News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times of India, etc.
Anticipating that Mr. Ward might accuse the news outlets of being unwittingly deceived by this alleged false friend, the headlines and articles prove otherwise by employing synonyms like “stumbling” and “uneven” to describe the President’s performance. The phrase “tripping over his sentences” was even used.
We invite Mr. Ward to admit that while the word “halt” may be rare, it is has most definitely not fallen out of modern usage and is not, therefore, an unintelligible false friend in Authorized Version.
Brother McShaffrey,
A recent poll of KJV pastors asked them about this word. 91 of the 100 pastors misunderstood the word halt when it was read to them in the context of 1 Kings 18:21.
The context of “A halting Biden tries to confront…” is clear. “How long halt ye…” is misleading to modern readers. We use the word “limp” today in contexts like that. You wouldn’t say “halt” there and neither would I.
https://kjbstudyproject.com
I think you’re motivated to defend against what you perceive as a downgrade in modern translations. But please try to see that you’re insulting ordinary readers like me when you say that I should somehow intuitively understand an archaic sense of the world “halt” in a context where a contemporary sense works just as well.
Caleb,
Thank you taking the time to comment.
First of all, news headlines don’t provide context. They seize attention and hopefully elicit a click. Some well-paid editor signed off on “halt” and sent it to all the channels.
Secondly, why do you omit the contextual hint “between two opinions” while quoting 1 Kings 18:21? I have never stopped between two opinions, but I have certainly vacillated.
Thirdly, my only motive here was to point out the irony of mainstream news outlets using a word that people like you claim is unintelligible to modern readers.
Christian
Brother McShaffrey,
I don’t have an MDiv, so maybe that’s why I didn’t understand this word until after I was 30 years old and it was explained by Dr. Ward. But I don’t think so. Maybe I didn’t understand it because of my lack of diligence in Bible study. That’s more likely and was probably a significant factor. But language change also contributed; I think it was the main reason I misunderstood.
In response:
First, I hope the editor was well-paid. Print/web journalism is a tough business these days. But he didn’t sign off on the verb “halt”, he signed off on the adjective “halting”.
And I was referring to the immediate context within the headline itself: the surrounding words.
Second, I’ve never literally limped between two opinions either; it’s a metaphor. The writer of Kings chose a Hebrew word that meant “limp” and the KJV translators chose an English word that meant limp. But “halt” doesn’t mean “limp” anymore in contexts like 1 Kings 18:21.
Third, I do say that modern readers usually won’t get the meaning “limp/lame” from the word “halt” in 1 Kings 18:21. I offer entries in the OED and NOAD plus the results from a phone survey of 100 KJV pastors as evidence. You’ve offered news headlines where a different form of the word is used as different part of speech. My claim allows for comparable rare and/or technical uses of the word “halt” to remain in today’s English (the word is labeled “archaic” in the dictionaries I mentioned). But your evidence doesn’t even meet that standard.
We shouldn’t claim that modern readers need training in Greek, Hebrew, or 17th century English to read their Bibles. They should be able to understand the big doctrines and most of the relative minutia–like which metaphor (stop vs limp) Elijah used in his challenge on Mount Carmel–in contemporary English.
In I Corinthians 14 Paul tells us that we should speak plainly so that we can be understood. It’s uncharitable to put the burden caused by language change on normal readers where common-language equivalents are available.
Caleb,
I agree that people should not need special training to read the Bible, but I also don’t think you can speak so authoritatively when it comes to this verse.
The word posehim occurs in that exact form only once, but the root (pasach) has a rather broad semantic range:
Exodus 12:13,23,27 — “pass over” or “spare” — Jehovah certainly did not limp through Egypt!
2 Samuel 4:4 — “become lame” or “dislocate” — Interestingly, this could also mean “stop” (i.e., limbs that stop working).
2 Samuel 5:6 — “lame” — Again, people with defective limbs — Did they limp or were they fully paralyzed? We don’t know.
1 Kings 18:21,26 — Note that the “dance” is intentionally/ironically linked to the peoples’ “indecision” — Did the priests leap or limp?
Isaiah 31:5 — “pass over” or “spare” — A decidedly positive act of mercy.
This creates a pretty clear picture, I think. The people’s conviction had become so dislocated that they were unable and/or unwilling to make a decision.
They were (getting back to the original post), acting just like President Biden when he couldn’t figure out what to say next.
If you think “limp” is the best word to use, that’s fine, but even Dr. Wallace’s NET went with “paralyzed” instead in that verse. What if both options convey a legitimate aspect of the intended metaphor?
Christian
I agree that readers today will understand the overall meaning of the passage even if we don’t update the word “halt”. This is exactly what (almost always) happened in the survey I linked above.
But the KJV translators chose an equivalent to our word “limp” in their 17th century English rather than an equivalent to our word “halt”. More specifically, they preserved that choice from the 16th century Coverdale Bible.
The word “halt”, when used in contexts like 1 Kings 18:21, doesn’t mean “limp” anymore. So most of today’s readers of the KJV aren’t getting the meaning *of the word* that the KJV translators intended because English has changed since 1535/1611.
I think that the relatively minor impact this has on the meaning of the passage is part of what makes it a good example of a False Friend. I think it lowers the overall temperature of the debate.
Caleb,
I agree that the relative impact of all this is minor. That’s why I pushed back against “halt” being a prime example of a false friend. I have two questions:
1) Will you agree that the European languages of the 15th and 16th century used variations of the etymological root “halt” to describe hesitation, stopping, limping, and complete paralyzation?
2) Do you think the editors of the NET erred when they chose the word “paralyzed”? We know that they were not deceived by your alleged false friend because of the footnote.
Christian
1) Maybe this is the root (pun intended) of the issue. It’s not good practice to define a word primarily by its etymology. I don’t know about other European languages of the 15th/16th centuries, but the earliest citation for the word “halt” meaning “stop” in the OED is in the middle of the 17th century (1656). And in two of the first three citations, the writer included a definition in the passage as if he thought his readers may not yet understand how he’s using the word. Also, all the other uses of the word “halt” in the KJV seem to translate words that mean limp, lame, or stumble. So I don’t expect that KJV translators meant “stop” in this passage.
2) No problem with the NET here. In fact the translator’s note at that passage acknowledges that the Hebrew is literally “limp” and that the phrase is an idiom for indecision, which they translated dynamically. I find the NET is often on the less traditional side of the translation spectrum. That seems to be its niche and it can explain its choices in the copious footnotes. I find the practice of checking multiple modern translations helpful at this passage.
Caleb,
Who taught you that etymology was anything but essential to understanding the origins and evolution of words? A scholarly source would be appreciated here because I have never heard such a strange claim before.
Christian
Brother McShaffrey,
I don’t want to argue against a position you’re not taking, and you haven’t said why you think the English word “halt” meant “stop” in 1611. If you appeal to etymology contrary to usage examples, I think you’d be falling into what Carson calls the root fallacy. I was taught that usage ultimately defines a word by D. A. Carson, whose work was popularized, as it happens, by Dr. Ward.
“One of the most enduring of errors, the root fallacy presupposes that every word actually has a meaning bound up with its shape or its components. In this view, meaning is determined by etymology; that is, by the root or roots of a word.”
D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 2nd ed. (Carlisle, U.K.; Grand Rapids, MI: Paternoster; Baker Books, 1996), 28.
That’s not to say etymology isn’t useful; Carson notes that it’s a secondary tool, not a primary one. As such, it’s more necessary for defining hapax legomena than for more common words. Often etymology is useful for illustrating a word’s meaning, if not determining it, as Talbert notes.
https://seminary.bju.edu/theology-in-3d/fallacy-fallacy/
All that said, I don’t agree with your restatement of my position. The study of the origin and evolution of a word (diachronic) isn’t the same as defining its meaning in a particular place and time. Etymology is more essential for the former than the latter.
Caleb,
Despite the opinions of any notable marsh dwellers, and according to the anointing which I (also a ginger, by the way) have received, I think it might be best to bring this particular conversation to a halt (i.e., an immediate one, rather than that gradual affliction which causes an awkward gait). I suppose only time will tell whether you are faithful, brave, or just a dog. Then again, maybe your teacher will lock you up until you confess that etymology is indeed essential when discovering the true sense of a word. If that does happen, you should probably use your phone call to contact your father and ask him to use his influence to set you free.
Christian
Ha, nice!
Blessings,
Caleb
Caleb,
Etymology can certainly be fun… looking forward to our next exchange.
Godspeed,
Christian