"So That" Is Not a False Friend in the KJV

Let me begin this article by explaining why I am going through these “false friends” in this order. I am not just choosing the “false friends” that are the easiest to refute. I was asked to review the “false friends” that Ward mentioned in his debate with Dan Haifley before moving on to the rest of Ward’s claims. This seemed reasonable to me since I expected Ward to have brought out his best examples for the occasion. I thought that this approach would allow me to deal with the most difficult and challenging words first before moving on to Ward’s weaker examples. Unfortunately, it appears that Ward did not use his best examples in the debate. (At least, I hope for the sake of his followers that those were not his best examples, that those are not the examples that have convinced so many young pastors to latch on to Mark Ward’s teachings.)

In any case, I did not choose to put the phrase so that next to the phrase by and by in the list of Mark Ward’s “false friends.” Ward mentioned them both in his debate, and I am only following his lead. I’m not just picking the low-hanging fruit to make Ward look bad.
 
Having said that, let me point out that Mark Ward himself admits that he has no actual evidence for his claims regarding the phrase so that. In his video about this phrase, Ward claims that it used to include the meaning of “if only,” but he says that this meaning is obsolete, and the phrase should no longer be used in verses like I Kings 8:25 where the two possible meanings of so that produce vastly different understandings of the verse.
 
Here is the text of I Kings 8:25:
 
Therefore now, LORD God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father that thou promisedst him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel; so that thy children take heed to their way, that they walk before me as thou hast walked before me.
 
According to Ward, modern readers cannot help but interpret the phrase so that in this verse to mean “in order that.” It should be interpreted as “provided that,” but Ward claims that this sense of the phrase is no longer used today.
 
So vs. So That
 
Now, Ward consistently refers to the phrase so that as a single entity, but it’s really not. When we word the two different senses of this phrase as “in order that” and “provided that,” we can see that the primary difference between the two is the way that so is interpreted. The word that doesn’t have any effect on the meaning of the phrase. Even if we use Ward’s preferred interpretation of “if only,” there is still no difference in the meaning of the word that except that it is understood instead of being actually stated. Once we realize that the issue is with the word so and not with the phrase so that, the solution to this verse becomes much simpler. We all know that the word so can be used as a conditional. We use it that way every time we say “so long as.” If Ward had realized that this verse is just using so as a conditional in the same way that it is used in the phrase so long as, he may not have labeled it as a “false friend” at all.
 
Mark Ward vs. Superman
 
About six minutes into his video, Ward made the claim that “it would take a superhumanly good reader to notice” that so that in I Kings 8:25 actually means “only if” or “provided that.” I appreciate Ward attempting to butter me up in this way, but it’s really not necessary. I didn’t need to use any superpowers to realize that the word so in this verse should be understood as a conditional. And I’m not unique in that. I told my wife about this particular “false friend,” and before I could explain why Ward is wrong, she said, “That’s just silly. Everyone knows that so has two different meanings. My authors use it that way all the time.” And she’s right of course. Just about everyone who reads English understands that so can be used as a conditional.
 
The conditional nature of so in this verse should be obvious to anyone who paid attention in English class. The main clause “there shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel” is in the future tense, but the subordinate clause “so that thy children take heed to their way” is not in the future tense. This is a standard indicator of a conditional clause. If the verse meant what Ward says modern readers think it means, then the subordinate clause would have been written as “so that thy children will take heed to their way.” The fact that the verb take is in the present tense instead of the future tense is an easy indicator to even non-superhuman readers that so is conditional in this sentence.
 
Mark Ward vs. the OED
 
Ward practically worships the Oxford English Dictionary. He gushes with praise for it in his videos, and he even refers to it as “My precious.” Oh, wait. That was the other guy. Ward refers to the OED as “My beloved OED.”
 
I suspect that this love affair started out as a form of passive aggressive intimidation. Ward described the OED in his book as “the preeminently massive, exhaustive, authoritative (and expensive) resource on the English language,” and he often claims in his videos that the OED is prohibitively expensive. His terminology and condescending patronization when he speaks of the OED reminds me of the way that domestic abuse victims describe narcissistic husbands. Ward uses his descriptions of the OED to convince his viewers that they are neither wealthy enough nor intelligent enough to use it for themselves, but he is willing to sacrifice his own time, money, and energy to study it for them and tell them what it says. This establishes him as the arbiter of truth while also hypocritically exalting him as a loving caregiver.
 
Ward is playing a very dangerous game here, and as someone who has seen the damage that narcissism leaves in its wake, I have a hard time displaying any degree of civility toward men who adopt these mannerisms.
 
One of the most challenging aspects of narcissism is maintaining the lie when the truth stubbornly exposes itself. When this happens, the narcissist must convince his victims to believe him more than they believe even their own eyes and ears. If their wills are sufficiently pliable, he can cover up any stubborn truths by assuring his victims that things would look different to them if they were able to see the whole picture like he can.
 
We can see Ward doing this very thing in his video about the phrase so that. About ten minutes into the video, Ward begins talking about the definition of so that in the OED. (It’s actually a definition of so, and the OED puts that in parentheses next to so because the two often, but not always, appear together when so is used to introduce a conditional clause.) But Ward has a problem. His “beloved OED” doesn’t say that this use of so is archaic or obsolete. The truth about this word has exposed itself, and Ward covers it up by appealing to his own authority and his ability to see the whole picture. Consider what Ward said to cover up the fact that his “beloved OED” disagrees with him.
 
I would argue that we don’t use this sense of the phrase so that anymore. It doesn’t show up in any of the three contemporary dictionaries I checked. I couldn’t find it in the News On The Web corpus, though I admit I wearied of that task quickly as I saw that over and over again so that meant “in order that.” I will also admit that the OED does not mark this sense of so that as archaic or obsolete, but the last use it records comes from 1859, and I took my nerdiness to extreme levels this time by going and checking the first edition of OED from back in 1913, one-hundred and seven years ago. The entry for this sense is essentially unchanged in the most recent edition, and the entry actually notes this. A few citation dates were corrected in the OED edition I have now, but all the citations are exactly the same. None is added, none is missing. I would argue that the OED lexicographers, when they next get around to revising this sense of the phrase so that, will need to mark it as obsolete.
 
Let’s break this apart and look at each claim separately before addressing the whole.
 

• No one uses the phrase anymore.
  

 
Ward begins by asserting on his own authority that “we don’t use this sense of the phrase so that anymore.” I’ve pointed out previously that Ward has no credibility whatsoever as an authority on English literature, and we can see that again here. Ward has no literary foundation on which to base this claim. He just asserts it as a fact and expects his viewers to be gullible enough to believe it.
 
Plus, this claim is just plain false. Lots of people still use the phrase so that to mean “provided that.” This use is nowhere near as common as using so that to mean “in order that,” but it’s still used far too often to be considered obsolete. It’s fairly common in speculative fiction, but it’s used this way in other genres as well. Here’s an example from the same year that Ward published his video:
 
And so in Plato: the role of anger, love, shame, philia, pity, envy is obviously an important matter for the educator and the legislator so that they prove to be a “just” anger (if it is even possible), a “right” love, without denying that they are necessary levers.
- Laura Candiotto, Olivier Renaut, Emotions in Plato, 2020
 
By the way, this example demonstrates how difficult it is to find short excerpts where so that unequivocally means “provided that.” Just as with I Kings 8:25, most of the examples that I include in this article could be read with so that meaning “in order that,” and they would make sense if read in isolation, but the greater context shows that the correct sense is “provided that.” In the case of our example, the greater context is an explanation of how emotional descriptions in the writings of Plato do not fit the standard “platonic dualist framework” contrasting the body and the soul. The authors are attempting to demonstrate that Plato did not view emotions as merely “irrational bodily drives” which were beneath the contemplation of educators and legislators. According to these authors, Plato had a much more complex view of emotions and treated them as rational expressions if they were moral or just. Considering the context reveals which definition of so that was intended by the authors in our example just like the theological context of I Kings 8:25 shows modern readers which definition of so that should be used in that verse.
 

• It’s not in contemporary dictionaries.
  

 
Ward next claims that the sense of the phrase so that which was used in I Kings 8:25 “doesn’t show up in any of the three contemporary dictionaries I checked.” There’s a very simple explanation for why Ward was unable to find this definition of so that in modern dictionaries. He was searching for the wrong thing.
 
Earlier in the video, Ward described his attempt to look up so that in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. He said, “Merriam-Webster says that so that now means what that means in sense 2a(1).” Ward then looked up sense 2a(1) of the word that and attributed this sense to the phrase so that, but we’ve already seen that the operative word in the phrase is so and not that, and Ward clearly knew this since the OED entry he used was under the word so. What happens if we look up the word so instead of that in the Merriam-Webster dictionary?

And there it is plain as day. The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives “provided that” as a possible definition of so when it is used as a conjunction. Of course, when Ward reads this article, his first thought will be to point out that this definition is marked as “archaic” and claim that modern readers can’t understand this sense of so for that reason. However, when we read how the Merriam-Webster dictionary assigns the archaic label, we can see that it doesn’t mean what Ward thinks it means.
 
According to the “Explanatory Notes” at the beginning of their dictionary, Merriam-Webster assigns the archaic label when “a word or sense once in common use is found today only sporadically or in special contexts.” They give thee and thou as examples and explain that words labeled archaic are words that “we may still hear today, but that convey the tone of a bygone or more formal era.” The “Notes” then specifically state that “these words are still used and recognized.” Thus, the archaic label in Merriam-Webster is not sufficient to prove that a word is a “false friend.”

• It’s not in the NOW corpus.
  

 
The next part of Ward’s attempt to cover the truth is his claim that he “couldn’t find it in the News On The Web corpus.” Ward didn’t provide any details for this claim. He only said that he “wearied of that task quickly” because he found so many entries where so that meant “in order that.” I am very curious about the terms that Ward used to search for so that in the NOW corpus, because anyone who just searches for “so that” will get this result:

In other words, it is not possible to search the NOW corpus for the phrase so that. You have to add something else to it and search for a longer phrase like “so that they remain.” I wearied of searching the NOW corpus for this phrase as well, but in my case, I didn’t grow weary from reading all the results. I grew weary of all the error messages telling me that my search terms were too broad. I don’t know what Ward searched for, but I suspect that he only searched for so that and gave up after getting the first error message.
 
In my case, I continued to work on the corpus search terms until I narrowed them enough to start getting results. Here are a few examples from the NOW corpus of so that being used to mean “provided that:”

“‘I can tolerate anything so that my daughter can study here,’ he said.”
https://www.jpost.com/International/Meet-the-ambassador-of-Myanmar-U-Maung-Maung-Lynn-515826
 
“‘I have to start work quickly. I will have to do anything so that I can look after the baby,’ she said.”
https://www.news24.com/News24/straight-to-work-for-atlantis-matrics-20160106
 
“They ask me to operate on them and inject them — anything so that they can keep wearing high heels.”
https://www.todayonline.com/daily-focus/science/rocket-scientists-making-more-comfortable-high-heel

 “In my state of rejection, I would have held onto anything so that I didn’t feel as bad as that boy wanted me to feel.”
https://www.image.ie/editorial/what-you-need-to-hear-versus-what-you-want-to-hear-154163
 
“A contract clause building tool; anything so that I don’t have to go through this clause matrix one by one.”
https://www.govloop.com/community/blog/12-days-of-christmas-contracting-officer-edition/
 
“I really do not want to go back and am ready to give anything so that I don’t have to fly”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/03/world/europe/norilsk-arctic.html
 

• It hasn’t been used since 1859.

 
It was only after his third excuse that Ward briefly mentioned the truth that the sense of the word so to mean “provided that” is not labeled as archaic or obsolete in the OED, and he immediately followed that admission with his next attempt to gloss over this inconvenient fact. He quickly pointed out that the OED’s last example of this sense for so was from 1859. Ward mentions this as if the final entry in the dictionary corresponds with the last time so was ever used in this sense, but this is just another example of Ward not understanding how dictionaries work.
 
The quotations provided in dictionaries like the OED are chosen because the editors believe them to be clear representations of the definitions under which they are listed. Ward mentions that the 1859 quotation was included in the 1913 edition of the OED, but there were later examples available to them. For example, Bram Stoker used the word so in this sense in his 1897 book Dracula. He wrote, “Friend John, where are the skeleton keys? If so that we can open the door, we need not break house by the window.” Stoker’s book was well known to the editors of the OED. Between the various editions and supplements, the OED quotes Stoker’s classic 132 times, including this quotation found in the first edition:

There was no reason for the editors not to include the quotation of Stoker’s use of so that in Dracula, and they would have if their goal had been to document the latest use of so that in the sense of “provided that.” They knew of this use and chose not to include it in the dictionary because documenting the final use of a given word is not one of the functions of a dictionary. There are many other uses of so that to mean “provided that” which can be found in the literature between 1859 and 1913. Here are just two examples:
 
“What, then, does it matter what or where we be, so that we be what and where God would have us?”
- Religious Tract Society, The Sunday at Home, 1873
 
“The very highest of our technical authorities have pointed out how the desire of purchasers to have cheap work – no matter what it may be in quality, so that it be cheap – and the readiness with which some makers minister to this desire by supplying it, is literally sapping the foundation of our productive strength.”
- Ward, Lock and co., The Industrial Self-Instructor and Technical Journal, vol. 1, 1888
 
If the goal had been to quote the last usage of this sense prior to the publication of the dictionary, the editors certainly would not have chosen a quotation from 1859. Ward simply fails to understand how the dictionary works.

• It should be marked obsolete.

 
Ward’s narcissistic-style cover-up would not be complete without an appeal to his own authority, and he makes that appeal in grand fashion. Ward claims, “I would argue that the OED lexicographers, when they next get around to revising this sense of the phrase so that, will need to mark it as obsolete.” Ward is appealing to his own authority in this statement. He has no actual evidence to support this claim, and he makes no argument for it. He just asserts it on his own authority as if he’s some kind of expert in the field of English literature. The main problem with Ward’s statement is that he has no expertise whatsoever in the field of literature. He has no idea if his claim is true or not. All he knows is that he needs people to believe it is true in order to keep them in line behind him.
 
As it turns out, Ward’s prediction is very likely to be wrong. The third edition of the OED is being published in stages, and one of the entries already updated includes a quotation from 1983 where the phrase so that is used to mean “provided that.” 
 
“If you happen to destroy his soul in the process, I won’t be upset. But it isn’t necessary. Just so that he ends up dead, with no chance of anyone revivifying him.”
- S. Brust, Jhereg, 1983

If the OED already includes modern examples of this sense of so that in their quotations for the third edition, then it is highly unlikely that they will mark it as obsolete.
 
“False Friend” vs. Contextual Understanding
 
Ward insists that the phrase so that is a false friend in I Kings 8:25 because people reading it today would be more likely to assume the sense of “in order that” over the sense of “provided that.” He claims that this leads modern readers to confusion, but he overlooks the fact that previous generations had the exact same potential for misunderstanding this verse. The primary definition of so that has always been along the lines of “in order that.” Even in the seventeenth century when the KJV was translated, readers would have been likely to misunderstand this verse if they read it without any knowledge of the theological and historical background.
 
Ward insists that this situation “isn’t the King James translators’ fault. It’s the fault of language change over the last four centuries.” But if there is any fault to be found in the use of so that in this passage, then the fault must lie with the translators because it was just as likely to be misunderstood in their day as it is now. In the realm of reality, however, there is no fault at all because no one studying the Bible will ever miss the intent of this verse. The meaning is only ambiguous if the verse is read in isolation from the context by someone with no previous knowledge of the Bible. The likelihood of that happening is so small that it might as well be impossible.
 
Modern Uses
 
As I mentioned before, it is challenging to search for modern uses of either the word so or the phrase so that being used in the conditional sense because this word and phrase are both so ubiquitous in English literature. I had to narrow the results by including additional words before or after the phrase. Even this was challenging because so many of the results were ambiguous and could be read with either sense equally. I’m aware of reading the phrase so that in the sense of “provided that” on many occasions in the past, but I was reluctant to base my position on nothing more than my own recollections. Fortunately, I finally hit on a search term that yielded a narrow field of results with a high percentage of them clearly using so that to mean “provided that.” Here are a few of the results that were returned by that search:
 
“I put up with everything that you do just so that I can be there for Aria as much as you allow.”
- H. M. Trey, The Wedding Man, 2012
 
“He whispered to himself, hoping that the noise would at least spark something from her, an annoyance, an argument, even a break in her stubbornness, anything, just so that he wouldn’t be the one that started it all.”
- P. D. Ingledew, One of Thirteen, 2012
 
“Anything, sir, anything, just so that I get help or weapons to home to the Twelve Niles!”
- Gardner Dozois, Another World, 2012
 
“That’s the reason Marija had wanted to start up a conversation with Zana and have her talk about the cannons, about Jakob, about the escape, ultimately about anything, just so that it would set her free from this nightmare and so that she wouldn’t hear Polja’s death rattle.”
- Danilo Kis, Psalm 44, 2012
 
“I was ready to give up teasing my brother and looking through my sister’s purse -- anything, just so that I wouldn’t have to say the equivalent of Miss P____ in front of my classmates and teacher.”
- Darryl A. Forman, The Unleavened Truth, 2010
 
“I thought to myself that someone must have told a joke, or said something about the teacher, anything just so that they weren’t laughing at me.”
- JB Duvane, The Dark Doctor, 2016
 
“I wish you could sit at my phone for a week and hear the horror stories from parents at the breaking point as they struggle to find care for their children. They are so desperate that they are willing to take anything just so that [they] don’t lose their jobs.”
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Early Education and Child Care: Does the United States Measure Up?, 2001
 
“From those moments when the pain, suffering, and torture of being alone become so intense, some people would be willing to subject themselves to anything just so that they don’t have to continue alone.”
- Tony Jeton Selimi, #Loneliness: The Virus of the Modern Age, 2016
 
Ward’s claim that modern readers are unaware of so that being used to mean “provided that” is clearly false. His own sources make the opposite claim, and our modern literature clearly proves him wrong. Once again one of Ward’s “false friends” has proven to be nothing of the sort.

Click here to read about more words that are not "false friends" in the KJV.