SAME MEANING THROUGHOUT. Ordinarily an author will not use
Lord delivered his people from spiritual ills, i.e., from sin, but also from the resulting physical ailments.
b. There are also cases in which one special meaning of a word includes another, which does not conflict with the purpose and connection of the passage in which it is found. Under such circumstances, it is perfectly legitimate to unite the two. When John the Baptist says "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," he employs a word (airo) that means (1) to take up; and (2) to carry away. In this passage, the latter meaning clearly predominates, but it naturally includes the other. Jesus could not bear sin away without taking it upon himself.
c. Then again, an author occasionally employs a word in a pregnant sense, so as to indicate far more than it really expresses. This is done especially in the synecdoche, when a part is put for the whole. When the Saviour teaches his disciples to pray: "Give us this day our daily bread," the word "bread" undoubtedly stands for the necessaries of life in general. And when the Law says: "Thou shalt not kill," it forbids, according to the interpretation of Jesus, not merely murder, but anger, hatred and implacability as well.
The interpreter should be careful, however, not to combine various meanings of a word arbitrarily. He may encounter cases in which two or more significations of a word apparently fit the connection equally well, and be tempted to take the easy road of combining them. But this is not good exegesis. Muenscher holds that, in such cases, the meaning that exhibits the most full and fertile sense is to be preferred. It is better, however, to suspend judgment, until further study warrants a definite choice.
4. IF A WORD IS USED IN THE SAME CONNECTION MORE THAN ONCE, THE NATURAL ASSUMPTION IS THAT IT HAS THE SAME MEANING THROUGHOUT. Ordinarily an author will not use a word in two or three different senses in a single passage. This would, under ordinary circumstances, lead to confusion. Yet there