Bible Dictionary Entry. The word, abate, came to English from French. Literally, abate means to beat down or batter. It can also mean to come down. It refers most often to the lessening of the strength of an action in some way or another.
Many a misguided believer or critic who opposes the death penalty will quote the well known sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13) as the basis for their argument.
Men have been “handling the word of God deceitfully” (2Corinthians 4:2) ever since the devil first taught Eve how. From Cain to Balaam, from Jehudi to the scribes and Pharisees, from the Dark Age theologians to present-day scholars, the living words of the Almighty God have been prime targets for man’s corrupting hand. The attacks on the Word of God are threefold: addition, subtraction, and substitution. From Adam’s day to the computer age, the strategies have remained the same. There is nothing new under the sun.
Many people use the New King James Version today. It is admittedly not as bad as those versions that completely depart from the Masoretic and Received Texts of the Hebrew and Greek Testaments. However, it still has the modern liberal approach to translation. This approach is as much the problem with new bibles as is the text they use for translation. Even versions that claim not to use the modernistic approach are very effected by this philosophy.
