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Bible Dictionaries
Halting
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or HALTING.—A deficiency in gait, when one is not able to walk without limping. The word refers to the imperfection in the art of walking, rather than to the deficiency, injury, or weakness of the limb or limbs which is the cause. This differentiation is illustrated by a passage from Brand (1789): ‘He hath a halt in walking occasioned by a lameness in one of his legs’; also Tennyson (Guinevere): ‘If a man were halt or hunch’d’; Bunyan (Pilg. Prog. pt. ii.): ‘Mr. Ready to Halt,’ cf. Psalms 38:17; Shaks., Timon, Ac. iv. Sc. i.: ‘Thou cold sciatica, cripple our senators, that their limbes may halt as lamely as their manners’ (an illustration also of the metaphorical use of the word ‘halt’ similar to that of ‘lame’); so Richard iii., Acts 1. Sc. i.—
‘Sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.’
‘Halt’ is the translation of χωλός in Matthew 18:8, Mark 9:45, Luke 14:21, John 5:3; but the translators of neither Authorized Version nor Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 maintain a close distinction between the lame and the halt. The halting are included in the general healings wrought by Jesus among the multitude, and many of them would doubtless be of a character to yield readily to the method of our Lord, acting as He did on the line of existing therapeutic forces, even while going far beyond our present knowledge and experience of these forces.
T. H. Wright.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Halting'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/h/halting.html. 1906-1918.
