Nurture (Hastings' Dictionary)

The verb to nurture occurs occa- sionally in Sirach as the translation of παιδεύω (Sir 183 21% 298 31° 40%). It is also found in 2Es 813 ‘Thou . . nurturedst it in thy law’ (erudisti eum in lege tua). The subst. is found in Wis 3" and Eph 6* as the tr. of παιδεία, as well as in Sir 9910 ‘want of nurture,’ Gr. ἀπαι- Sevela.

Now both in LXX and NT παιδεία and παιδεύω describe, not ‘nurture’ in the modern use of that word, but training, especially such training or discipline as involves restraint and even chastisement. Chastise and chastening or chastisement are often the best translation, as in He 195. 1.10. In Lk 9316. the verb is used of the scourging of a malefactor : it is rendered ‘chastise’ in EV, nthe 16th cent.

‘ nurture’ was an excellent equivalent for παιδεύω and παιδεία, as it contained the idea of training by means of chastisement or tribulation. Thus Dt 85 Tind. ‘ As a man nurtereth his sonne, even so the Lorde thy God nurtereth the’ (AV and RV ‘chasteneth’) ; Dt 2118 Tind. ‘ Yf any man have a sonne that is stuburne and dis- obedient that he will not herken unto the voyce of his father and voyce of his mother, and they have taught him nurture’; He 12” Tind.

‘And they verely for a feaue dayes nurtred us after their awne pleasure’; 1 K 12" Cov. ‘ My father correcte you with scourges, but I Hee nourtoure you with scorpions’; Ps 94° Cov. ‘He that nurtureth the Heithen, and teacheth a man knowledge, shal not he punysh ?’ (see Driver’s note on this passage in Paral. Psalter, p. 477). Rutherford is fond of the word and illustrates its meaning in his day admir- ably: thus, Letters, No. xeviii.

‘I get my meat from Christ with nurture, for seven times a-day I am lifted up and casten down’; No. Ixx. ‘ You have had your own large share of troubles, and a double portion ; but it saith your Father counteth Mr a bastard; full-begotten bairns are nur- tured.’ Shaks. uses the word twice, and in both places in the sense of the result of training: Tempest, Iv. i. 189— ‘A born devil, on whose nature Nurture can never stick’; As You Like It, τι. vii.

97— * Yet am I inland bred And know some nurture.’ This is the meaning in Sir 31} and 40”, where AV has ‘well-nurtured,’ RV ‘ well-mannered’ and ‘ well-instructed’: the Gr. is πεπαιδευμένος. J. HASTINGS.