24. TO COMFORT, ENCOURAGE
24. TO COMFORT, ENCOURAGE
The words and are both translated ‘to comfort,’ but there is a difference between them. The latter word (from and , ‘a word, speech’) in the four places in which it occurs (Joh 11:19; Joh 11:31; 1Th 2:11; 1Th 5:14) is translated ‘comfort’ in the A.V., and seems to be expressive of more tenderness than the former
(, ‘to call’), which it is difficult to render in any uniform way, is calling upon a person in order to stimulate him to something, it may be to comfort; but it often refers to other things – to exhortation in general, as in Rom 12:8; Tit 2:15; and in some passages may well be translated ‘encourage,’ as in Heb 3:13, “Encourage one another daily,” also in Heb 10:25. See 2Co 1:3-7 where the word, with the substantive formed from it, occurs several times with a more active force than ‘comfort.’ In Act 4:36 the name Barnabas, , should probably be ‘son of exhortation’ rather than ‘of consolation.’
An interesting instance of the two words occurring together is found in 1Th 2:11, we are “exhorted (.) and comforted (.)”