Cataloging the New Testament's Hebraisms: Part 3

Awareness of even the simplest Hebrew grammatical structure can bring to life a vague, or difficult-to-understand, saying of Jesus. Since potential Hebrew idioms are so dense in the Greek texts of Matthew, Mark and Luke, one has to ask, Could these apparent Hebrew idioms be evidence that the synoptic Gospels are descendants of an ancient translation of a Hebrew Life of Jesus, the gospel that the church father Papias (ca. 70-160 A.D.) spoke of when he wrote: “Ματθαῖος...Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ τὰ λόγια συνετάξατο” (“Matthew...arranged the sayings [of Jesus] in the Hebrew language”; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., 3.39)? The Hebrew work Papias mentions is not extant. It is not the Greek Matthew of the New Testament -- scholars agree that canonical Matthew is not a direct translation of a Hebrew source. However, the text Papias mentions might be an ancestor of canonical Matthew, a Hebrew source that was translated to Greek. The authors of canonical Matthew, Mark and Luke may have used this Greek translation in writing their accounts.

In Israel, when a Hebrew speaker doesn’t know the name for something, the person asks, איך קוראים לדבר לזה (ech kor’im la-davar ha-zeh; literally, “How are they calling to this thing?”). When an English-speaking immigrant to Israel wants to know the Hebrew word for something, for instance, “table,” the immigrant turns to a native speaker and asks, ...איך אומרים בעברית (Ech omrim “table” be-Ivrit), literally, “How are they saying ‘table’ in Hebrew?”), that is, “How do you say ‘table’ in Hebrew?” or “What’s the word for ‘table’ in Hebrew?” A person asks the question using the 3rd-person plural active form of the verb. (Throughout this article, the 3rd-person plural active form of the verb is emphasized by italics.) In such a context, the “they,” which in Hebrew is included in the verb, is indefinite, that is, “they” does not refer to anyone specifically.

I once saw an advertisement promoting purchase of listings in the Israeli Yellow Pages. The ad had the banner headline: בדפי זהב רואים אותך (Be-dapei zahav ro’im otcha, literally, “In the Yellow Pages, they are seeing you”). Here, too, the “they” does not refer to any specific individuals: it is indefinite and impersonal. From an English speaker’s standpoint, such a sentence is unclear. English speakers would not make the appeal in this way; they probably would employ a passive construction, for instance, “[If you buy a listing in the Yellow Pages,] you will be seen,” or, more likely, “You will get exposure.”

The use of this Hebrew idiom is very ancient. It was used in written and spoken Hebrew in biblical times, was common in post-biblical Hebrew, was still in use in the time of Jesus, was frequent in Mishnaic Hebrew, continued its use in the Middle Ages, and, as my examples above indicate, is still widely used in the language of modern Israel. (This Hebrew idiom also exists in Aramaic, a close sister Semitic language. The construction is found in English, although not as frequently as in Hebrew: compare the vague “they,” referring to an undefined subject, e.g., “They tell me that....”)

In the Hebrew Scriptures we find this idiom in, for example, 1 Chron. 11:7: “David stayed in the stronghold; therefore, they called it the City of David.” Compare the much more idiomatic rendition of JPS: “David occupied the stronghold; therefore it was renamed the City of David.” (Amazingly, 1 Chron. 11:7 exhibits the same Modern Hebrew expression, “they call,” that we noted in the first paragraph of this article.) Another good example of the idiom is found in 2 Chron 25:27 (see also 2 Sam. 9:2; Isa. 47:1).

For post-biblical, pre-first century, examples of the idiom, see the Hebrew fragments of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus (ca. 180-132 B.C.), for example: “When a rich man is speaking, all are silent and his understanding they exalt to the clouds. When a poor man speaks they say, ‘Who is this?’” (Sir. 13:23).

The idiomatic use of the 3rd-person plural active form of the Hebrew verb continued its existence into Jesus’ time, as the many NT examples below will show. The idiom is very common in rabbinic literature. One interesting example is found in the Mishnah: במידה שאדם מודד בה מודדין לו (ba-midah she-adam moded bah, modedim lo; “With the measure that a man measures with it, they are measuring to him”; m. Sotah 1:7), that is, “With the measure that a man uses to measure with, it is measured to him.” (Note the necessary shift in English to the passive “it is measured,” since in the Hebrew saying, no particular individuals are intended.) In other words, if a man is liberal in his giving to the poor, God will be generous to him. (God is frequently the intended subject when this idiom is employed.) This rabbinic saying has a familiar ring to readers of the New Testament because Jesus uttered a similar saying: “With the measure you measure, it will be measured to you” (Mt. 7:2; cf. Lk. 6:38). For a full discussion of Jesus’ saying, see Joseph Frankovic’s article, “Measure For Measure.”

According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus said, “How are they saying that the messiah is the son of David?” (τι λέγουσιν...; Lk. 20:41). This is strange Greek, but very much like the “How are they saying” idiom of Modern Hebrew (mentioned in paragraph 1). Apparently, this Greek preserves the literal Greek equivalent of Jesus' Hebrew words! Were we to assume that behind the Greek text of Luke 20:41 is a Hebrew saying that was translated very literally to Greek, we would reconstruct the conjectured Hebrew as, “How is it said that...,” or, “How can it be said that the messiah is the son of David?” The “they” does not refer to the Pharisees, or the Sadducees, or anyone in particular, but is simply an idiomatic way of avoiding a passive construction such as, “How is it said....”

Another striking example of this idiom is found in the Parable of the Dishonest Manager: “so that they may receive me into their houses...so that they may receive you into eternal tents” (Lk. 16:4, 9). In the parable, Jesus likens God to the manager’s master, a rich man. All the world’s wealth belongs to God. Jesus is interested in teaching that we should use God’s money to make friends, that is, we should give it away to help the poor. (In another place Jesus says: “Lay up treasure in heaven,” a teaching about giving to the poor.) Notice that the master praised his fraudulent manager (Lk. 16:8): God loves it when we give His money away!. When money fails, that is, when we die, we’ll have a friend upstairs who will take care of us.

An example I discussed in “Jesus and the Enigmatic ‘Green Tree’” is, “Ιf in the green tree these things they do....” (Lk. 23:31). Assuming a Hebrew origin for this saying, we probably have another case of the 3rd-person plural active form of the verb employed to avoid a passive construction. The clause, “If they do these things in the green tree” could mean, “If these things are done in the green tree.”

Other good examples of this idiom in the Gospels are: “Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished” (Mt. 17:12; NKJV); “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you” (Mt. 5:11; NKJV); “they [do not] light a lamp and put it under a basket” (Mt. 5:15; NKJV); “Are they gathering grapes from thorn bushes...?” (Mt. 7:16; my trans.); Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins.... But they put new wine into new wineskins” (Mt. 9:17; NKJV); “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub....” (Mt. 10:25; NKJV); John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say...the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say....” (Mt. 11:18-19; NKJV); “Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished” (Mt. 17:12; NKJV); “they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you” (Mt. 24:9); “they receive you...they do not receive you....” (Lk. 10:8, 10; my trans.); “when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities” (Lk. 12:11; NKJV); “in this night the soul of you they are demanding from you” (Lk. 12:20; my trans.); “they are throwing it outside....” (Lk. 14:35; my trans.); “they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud” (Lk. 21:27; NKJV); “the days are coming when they will say...they will begin to say to the mountains...." (Lk. 23:29-30; RSV).

A Hebrew speaker expresses him- or herself differently than speakers of European languages, such as English or ancient Greek. Thus, if we were to hear a person say in English, or read in an English piece of writing, “How are they calling to such-and-such?” or, “How are they saying such-and-such a thing?” we could suspect the speaker or writer is either thinking in Hebrew, or, translating a Hebrew text literally.

When speaking English, a Hebrew-speaker of today will often say, “I’m afraid from something,” rather than the idiomatic, “I’m afraid of something.” My wife and I speak only English to our 4 Israeli grandsons (ages 4 to 8) so that when they grow up, they will be fluent in English as well as Hebrew. I notice that our grandsons will often say, for instance, “I am bigger from you,” instead of “I am bigger than you.” Their “from” is great Hebrew, but less than idiomatic English! When the grandsons give thanks to God for food, they often will pray, in good Hebrew idiom, “Thank you God on the food,” rather than, “Thank you God for the food.” Such unidiomatic English signals that the speaker is thinking in Hebrew and translating his thoughts to English. A Hebrew idiom that suddenly appears in an English sentence lets us know that the speaker is not a native English speaker. Likewise, Hebrew idioms in the Greek of the New Testament are telltale signs of a Greek author’s Hebrew-speaking origins, or, an indication that the author’s Greek is “translation Greek,” Greek that was originally composed in Hebrew and later, at some stage of the text’s transmission, translated to Greek.

In summary, awareness of the most insignificant grammatical features of the Hebrew language may pay huge dividends when we approach the Hebrew-sounding Greek words of Jesus. Each potential Hebraism in the Gospels should be examined carefully, since each may prove to be a treasure of new understanding.

What’s the bottom line? By reading this article, you have been sensitized to occurrences in the NT of “3rd-person plural active forms of verbs” that have no apparent preceding subject. In the future, when reading the NT, if you meet such a verb in an English translation, you will probably stop, reread, and ponder for a moment whether or not you have discovered another Hebrew idiom in Greek guise. In any case, you won’t automatically make an attempt to supply a subject for the plural verb of the idiom (to specific the subject of the verb). Instead, you will experiment with the sentence making the direct object of the sentence its subject and turning the verb of the sentence into a passive. For example, you will consider changing “if they do these things to the green tree” into “if these things are done to the green tree.”

Often English translators of the Bible have disguised a potential Hebraism by translating the “they” of a Greek 3rd-person plural verb freely as “men” or “people” -- or worse, supplied an assumed subject such as “Pharisees.” The only way an English reader can be certain the word for “men” or “people” really exists in the Greek text is to learn to read Greek -- a task that requires only a few hours of one’s time since nearly half the Greek alphabet’s 24 letters look and sound the same as their English counterparts. :-)

We will discuss other Hebraisms in “Cataloging the New Testament’s Hebraisms: Part 4.”