The word is rendered, 'to make known' sixteen times in the A.V.,

'certify' once, 'declare' four times, 'do to wit' once, 'give to understand'

once, and 'wot' once.  The last case is the passage in question; all others

without exception can have but one meaning -- 'to make known, tell or

declare'.  The fallacy that Paul did not know what to choose is therefore

exposed by a consideration not only of his own usage, but of the usage of the

word in the whole of the New Testament.  It is evident that he did know what

he would choose, otherwise, to say 'I do not tell' would be the empty

equivocation of a braggart, who covered his ignorance by assuming knowledge.

Under the word 'wot' in Dr. Bullinger's Critical Lexicon and Concordance is

written, 'gnorizo, to make known; declare, reveal'.

Following on the idea that Paul did not know what to choose, we are

told that he 'was pressed out of the two, by reason of a third'.  Here again

we must drop all theories, and take the facts of the Scripture as they stand.

The word, 'I am in a strait', means to press together, to hold, to constrain.

The A.V. renders the word as follows, 'constrain' once, 'keep in' once,

'press' once, 'stop' once, 'throng' once, 'man that holdeth' once, 'be in a

strait' once, 'be straightened' once, 'be taken with' three times, 'lie sick

of' once.  Again the concordance proves a stubborn thing -- quite impartial

and unmoved by the most desirable of theories.  Dr. Bullinger's Critical

Lexicon and Concordance says of sunecho, 'constrain, to hold or keep

together, confine, secure, hence constrain, hold fast'.  Let us observe the

Luke 22:63. 'The men that held Jesus mocked Him'.

Luke 8:45.  'The multitude throng Thee and press Thee'.

Luke 19:43. 'And keep thee in on every side'.

Acts 7:57.  'And stopped their ears'.

2 Cor. 5:14. 'For the love of Christ constraineth us'(i.e. shuts us in

to the one course indicated in verses 13 and 15).

Luke 12:50. 'But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I

straitened till it be accomplished!'.  (Until the Lord was

crucified and raised again from the dead, He was

'straitened', 'confined'.  His ministry was confined to

Israel.  He said, 'Tell no man until after the

Every passage demands the plain meaning, 'to hold fast', 'to keep

in','to stop'.

Following the words, 'I am in a strait', the A.V. reads, 'betwixt two'.

The word 'betwixt' is the rendering of the preposition ek.  If 'betwixt' does

not accord with the meaning of ek, to have rendered sunechomai ek, 'to press

out', certainly conflicts with the constant meaning, 'to keep in', 'to

throng', 'to hold fast'.  It is easy to demonstrate how false or meaningless

the translation 'betwixt' may become in some passages -- that, however, does

not settle the meaning of Philippians 1:23; it only settles the meaning in a

negative way for those particular passages.  John 3:25 says, 'there arose a

question between (ek) some of John's disciples and the Jews'.  Now while this

is the only passage where ek is translated 'between' in the A.V., and while

it would be easy to show how absurd is such a rendering as 'the resurrection

between the dead' or to say how could we be 'absent between the body?', yet

that would only prove that ek was capable of bearing more than one meaning,

and would by no means prove that 'between' did not convey the sense of the

original of John 3:25.