I believe I have been reading enough texts in Early Modern English that I think I am now able to discern the difference in the meaning of the word want between how it was used then and now. One of things that has always bothered me was Psalm 23: The Lord is my Shephered, I shall not want. American English is not my native tongue. I had difficulty understanding the verse because want, as it means in the modern sense, is the desire or having the desire to possess something one does not have. This may or may not be out of necessity, but usually of the latter. To me, the verse then, did not make any sense. It was even contradictory on itself - the faithful not wanting the Lord when He is his Shepherd? Huh? I have been reading Jonathan Edwards sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and it is only now that I am able to grasp that maybe, want meant lack instead of desire. The verse could be then interpreted that since God is the faithfuls Shepherd, he does not lack (anything). I checked and this seems to be the general interpretation of the verse. In Sinners, Edwards writes that There is no Want of Power in God to cast wicked Men into Hell at any Moment. He expounds on how sinners are at Gods mercy and that it is only through His will that the wicked havent gone to Hell yet. Using that as a context clue, the former sentence reads, There is no lack of Power in God... So there, want in the 17th c. is lack, and want, as we know it in modern times, is desire.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 00:16:33 +0000
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