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Why are the words “holy” or “truly” repeated multiple times in the Bible? Is this a feature of direct translation from Aramaic, which has its own grammatical peculiarities, or is there another reason?

“Truly, truly, I say to you…” — this is a rhetorical figure in the Aramaic language, used to strengthen semantic emphasis. It was incorporated without change into almost all translations of the Bible, because nearly all languages possess analogous rhetorical devices. In the Russian language, however, such a figure is rarely used in written text; yet it is widely used in spoken language. For instance, we might speak of a “blue-blue sea,” assure one another with the words “truth, truth,” and so forth.

The repetition of the word “holy,” found in biblical and liturgical texts, bears a certain symbolic meaning in addition to its rhetorical significance. Strictly speaking, we apply the word “holy” solely and exclusively to God (all other variations of its usage in the languages of Christian cultures are derivative). By repeating the word “holy” three times, we emphasize that we are referring specifically to an invocation of the Holy Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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