FOREMINENT - His mouth is
πρωτεύω, I hold the first (chief) place, I am the head
“He also is the Head of [His] body, the church; seeing He is the Beginning, the Firstborn from among the dead, so that He alone in everything and in every respect might occupy the chief place [stand first and be preeminent].” Colossians 1:18 AMPC
x Heb “outstanding.” The participle דָּגוּל (dagul) functions as a predicate adjective: “My beloved is…outstanding among ten thousand.” The verb דָּגַל(dagal) is relatively rare, being derived from the noun דֶּגֶל (degel, “banner”) which often refers to a military standard which, when lifted up, was conspicuous for all to see (Num 2:3-4; 10:14-15).
The verb דָּגַל only occurs three other times, all referring to raising military banners for all to see
(Ps 20:6; Song 6:4, 10).
“Now I am sure that the Lord will deliver his chosen king; he will intervene for him from his holy heavenly temple, and display his mighty ability to deliver.” Psalms 20:6 NET
Song 5:10 uses the term figuratively (hypocatastasis) to denote “outstanding” (HALOT 213 s.v. דֶּגֶל). This sense is closely related to the cognate Akkadian verb dagalu “to look, contemplate” and the noun diglu “eyesight, view (what is looked at).” Like a banner lifted high, he attracted the attention of all who looked at him.
y Heb “from, among.” The preposition מִן (min) prefixed to רְבָבָה (revavah, “ten thousand”) is taken in a comparative, locative sense: “outstanding among ten thousand” (e.g., KJV, RSV, NASB, NIV, NJPS).
z Heb “among ten thousand.” The numeral “ten thousand” is the highest number used in comparisons in Hebrew poetry (1 Sam 18:7-8; 21:12; 29:5; Ps 91:7). It is not used to mark out a specific number, but to denote an indefinite number of persons of the largest possible proportions (Gen 24:60; Num 10:36; Deut 33:2; Ps 3:7). Her point is simply this: no other man could possibly compare to him in appearance, even if he were in a group of an infinite number of men.
The term "eminent domain" was taken from the legal treatise De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace), written by the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius in 1625, which used the term dominium eminens (Latin for "supreme ownership") and described the power as follows:
The property of subjects is under the eminent domain of the state, so that the state or those who act for it may use and even alienate and destroy such property, not only in the case of extreme necessity, in which even private persons have a right over the property of others, but for ends of public utility, to which ends those who founded civil society must be supposed to have intended that private ends should give way.
M-W defines “eminence” as “a position of prominence or superiority.” It defines “preeminent” as “having paramount rank, dignity, or importance.” (The “-ence” endings are nouns, while the “-ent” endings are adjectives. We’re interchanging the forms for illustrative purposes.)
In other words, “preeminence” is a more, er, eminent eminence.
The Oxford English Dictionary, which offers only the hyphenated “pre-eminence,” traces the word to about 1225, and says it is borrowed from Latin and French words meaning “privilege” and “superiority” in rank or birth, and “excellence.”
The “pre” prefix usually means “before,” whether preceding in time or space. But in “preeminence,” it means “before” in the sense of “ahead of,” as in “before all others in her class.”
“Preeminence” has another claim to superiority: it predates “eminent” by two hundred years. The first OED citation for “eminent” in the sense of “remarkable in degree” is from 1420. So “preeminence” was not an intensifier of “eminence”; rather, “eminence” was a demotion from “preeminence.”
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