I learned a new word, “astonied”, from an old source, the New King James version of the Bible, reading Ezra 9:1-9. Astonied is an archaic form meaning the same as astonished.
What isn’t clear to me is why he was astonished. We see sin all around us, why would he expect otherwise? Not saying it’s good, just a part of our reality. Perhaps I’ve just gotten too cynical.
Still it’s fun and in a strange way satisfying when I run across a word I don’t know and have to go look it up. Gives a sense of how language evolved, and by extension our thought processes and culture.
I know there are many newer translations that avoid the use of anything archaic but that would take the fun out of it, besides I think often they get less close to the intended meaning, sometimes altering it quite radically.
And I know if I really wanted archaic I could go to the old King James version but that is difficult reading for me.
Ezra 9:1-9 King James Version (KJV)
9 Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.
2 For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass.
3 And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied.
4 Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat astonied until the evening sacrifice.
5 And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my heaviness; and having rent my garment and my mantle, I fell upon my knees, and spread out my hands unto the Lord my God,
6 And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.
7 Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day.
8 And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.
9 For we were bondmen; yet our God hath not forsaken us in our bondage, but hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the desolations thereof, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.