Excellency

EXCELLENCY [ISBE]

EXCELLENCY - ek'-se-len-si (ga-on, ga'awah; huperbole): "Excellency" in the Old Testament is chiefly the translation of ga'on, "mounting," "swelling" (Ex 15:7; Job 37:4 the King James Version; Ps 47:4 the King James Version; Isa 13:19 the King James Version, etc.); [~ga'awah, rising, is thrice so rendered (Dt 33:26,29; Ps 68:34); se'eth, "rising" (twice) (Job 13:11 the King James Version; Ps 62:4 the King James Version); yether, "superabundance" (twice) (Gen 49:3 the King James Version; Job 4:21 the King James Version), and chadhar, "honor," "beauty," "majesty" (twice) (Isa 35:2); gobhah, "uplifted" (Job 40:10); yithron, "advantage" (Eccl 7:12); si', "elevation" (Job 20:6, the Revised Version (British and American) "height"). In the New Testament huperbole, "surpassing," "a casting beyond," occurs (2 Cor 4:7, "that the excellency of the power may be of God," the Revised Version (British and American) "exceeding greatness"); huperoche, "a holding over" or "beyond," is translated "excellency" (1 Cor 2:1), and to huperechon, "the pre-eminence" (Phil 3:8), "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ."

Instead of "excellency" the Revised Version (British and American) has "pride" (Isa 13:19; Ezek 24:21), "majesty" (Job 37:4 and the American Standard Revised Version 13:11; 31:23), the American Standard Revised Version has "pre-eminence" (Gen 49:3,4), "glory" (Ps 47:4), "dignity" (Ps 62:4); for "the fat of lambs" (Ps 37:20), the English Revised Version has "the excellency of the pastures," with margin, "the fat of lambs"; the American Standard Revised Version retains the King James Version rendering with the English Revised Version in the margin; instead of "Doth not their excellency which is in them go away?" (Job 4:21), the Revised Version (British and American) has "Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them?" margin, "Is not their excellency which is in them removed?"

W. L. Walker