O Lord, God of truth, Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light on our path. You gave Your servant Jerome delight in his study of Holy Scripture. May those who continue to read, mark, and inwardly digest Your Word find in it the food of salvation and the fountain of life; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Jerome, Translator of Holy Scripture: Jerome was born in a little village on the Adriatic Sea around AD 345. At a young age, he went to study in Rome, where he was baptized. After extensive travels, he chose the life of a monk and spent five years in the Syrian Desert. There he learned Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament. After ordination at Antioch and visits to Rome and Constantinople, Jerome settled in Bethlehem. from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, he used his ability with languages to translate the Bible into Latin, the common language of his time. This translation, called the Vulgate, was the authoritative version of the Bible in the Western Church for more than 1,o00 years. Considered one of the great scholars of the Early Church, Jerome died on September 30, 420. He was originally interred at Bethlehem, but his remains were eventually taken to Rome. (From The Treasury of Daily Prayer, CPH)
Reflection: We make much ado about miracles in the Bible as well we probably should, but there are some miracles that go totally unnoticed, as in:
For out of Zion shall go the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Isaiah 2
and
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. Revelation 14: 6
From the least of the tribes and nations of earth comes forth the Word of God and specifically, the Word made flesh, “…to every nation and tribe and language and people.” He has made known to all His Law and Gospel. And there was a priest of Jesus Christ, one Jerome, translating the Bible into a language by which all of Europe for 1,000 years could listen to the Word of God. Vulgate Latin become the lingua franca, the common language of the Church. It was not God’s language for God’s language, His Word, His tongue are the mighty deeds in Jesus Christ, as it clear in Acts 2:7-9, but they heard it in their own “native language”. This is the Pentecost of translation begun in Jerusalem. It has not stopped. The Bible is the perennial best seller in the world. The Pentecost of His published Word was continued by Jerome and many others.
The Lord brought forth His Word out from Zion. This is the Lord’s great deed by which He civilized a world in, through and by His Word as we await for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. Jerome facilitated the greatest publishing event in the history of the world that had already begun: The Holy Bible.
It is a high vocation to be a Translator of Scripture. The Bible or portions thereof have been translated into some 2, 287 languages. This is a good day to pray for all translators, missionaries, seminarians and Biblical professors.
The King James Version renders Mark 13: 10: “And the gospel must first be published among all nations”, and Isaiah 52:7 that blessed are the feet which, “publisheth salvation”. The word “publish” is from same Latin root as our word “public”. The Lord makes public His Word. It is not merely a private thing but for the whole world and our nation. He calls His Church to continue this work till the consummation of all things so that many may call upon the Name of the Lord and be saved.
Concordia and Koinonia 
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