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BRUIT. This means a report spread abroad, a rumour or tidings. "All they that hear
the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee" (Nahum 3: 19), that is the news spread
around concerning the Divine judgment on the king of Assyria. Jeremiah says
concerning Judah, "Behold, the noise of the bruit is come", that is the rumour of the
coming devastation of Judah.
BUNCH. This has nothing to do with a collection of anything as it is used today. It
is an obsolete term for a hump on a camel's back or of a deformed person. "They will
carry . . . . . their treasures upon the bunches of camels" (Isa. 30: 6), means they will
carry their treasures on the camels' humps or backs. In Shakespeare's King Richard III
the humpbacked Richard is called `that poisonous bunch-backed toad' (Acts 1, Scene 3).
BY AND BY. This is another instance where a phrase has completely changed its
meaning in England since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At that time it meant
immediately, as also did the words `anon' and `presently'. These words gradually lost
this sense and came to mean `after a while', or at some indefinite time in the future.
In the account of John the Baptist's beheading recorded in Mark's Gospel, it is odd to
read of Salome's haste in coming before the King and in contrast her apparently leisurely
request that John's head be given here `by and by' (6: 25, 27). But the word she used
meant `immediately', `instantly'. She was not prepared to wait.
In the parable of the sower (Matt. 13: 21) the Lord says of the stony ground hearer
`for when tribulation or persecution ariseth . . . . . by and by he is offended'. The A.V.
archaism here suggests `at some time later on' he is offended. But the Lord said
"immediately he is offended"; which is very different and as the phrase is used today it
completely misses the sense.
Another important reference is Luke 21: 8, 9 where the Lord Jesus is dealing with
the solemn times leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem (70A.D.), and then later in
the chapter in connection with His Second Advent He said:
"But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified; for these things
must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by",
in which case, in modern English, it would mean the fulfillment will not be later on, but
at once. But this is the opposite of what the Lord was teaching. What He actually said
was "the end will not be at once, or immediately" which only shows the care that must be
exercised when using the A.V. by itself.
BY COURSE. In I Cor. 14: 27, the A.V. reads:
"If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and
that by course."