Founder’s Blog
Luke 2:27 through Hebrew Eyes
It has been very exciting and interesting to see the stories and teachings of our Master through the lens of the Hebrew language. Many English translations focus on making Yeshua seem more culturally relevant and familiar, but this obscures his true national and cultural identity. More than anything, when reading the Hebrew (and hopefully our Hebraic English translation) it becomes immediately apparent that Yeshua and his students were Jews observing Judaism. This has theological and interpretive ramifications that serve to enhance our understanding of his message of the coming kingdom.
For example, one interesting detail in Delitzsch's translation helps to shed light on a mystery in the New Testament. When the "greatest commandment" in the Torah is quoted (Deuteronomy 6:4ff), there is a substantial deviation from the original Hebrew. The English Standard Version reads:
And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27 ESV, emphasis added.)
This raises some questions. Our version of the Hebrew instructs us to love God with three things: our heart (levav), our soul (nefesh), and our strength or resources (me'od). The New Testament provides a fourth item to the list: our mind.
One might suggest that Yeshua or the Apostolic community had a different version of the Torah than ours. This is problematic for numerous reasons. First, when Matthew quotes the verse it simply reads "heart," "soul," and "mind," leaving out "strength." Secondly, there are no Hebrew manuscripts that attest to this variation.
Another suggestion could be that Yeshua added "mind" to the list because it was something new that God wanted. This, however, does not hold up either. For one, the translation "mind" is present in the Septuagint (which lists, "mind," "soul," and "strength"). Secondly, in the passage of Luke quoted above, the changed version is uttered by a "certain sage" other than Yeshua.
A third, more likely possibility is that the individuals who recorded these events in Greek felt that the three Hebrew terms in the original text represented profound meanings that could only be fully conveyed with four Greek terms. This suggests that when Yeshua originally spoke these words, they were in Hebrew and only required the three descriptives. Only when his teachings were later disseminated by his students in the Greek language did it become necessary to add the fourth.
"Mind" certainly is a component in view of the verse, as the heart represents the place of consciousness and will in Hebrew thought. Thus, the Septuagint simply replaces the literal term "heart" with the interpretation "mind." However, the Gospel of Matthew uses "mind" in place of "strength," while Luke and Mark include all four. Where does this difference come from? Delitzsch's translation provides a key insight.
The Hebrew word we translate as "strength" is actually quite peculiar. Me'od is not normally a noun. In most circumstances it is an adverb that means "very." For example, to say "very good" in Hebrew, one would say tov me'od. How, then, are we to understand the command to love God with "all of our very"?
A common Jewish interpretation is that me'od is that which makes a person great in this world: i.e., our resources, such as wealth. "Strength" is a similar type of interpretation. Nonetheless, me'od still seems unusual.
But when we read the Gospel text in Hebrew, we find something interesting. "Mind" in Hebrew is rendered as madda. It appears that when trying to understand what was meant by "with all of your very (bechol me'odecha)," some people may have read it as bechol madda'echa -- "with all of your mind."
The Delitzsch Hebrew-English Gospels renders in the following manner,
He answered and said, "Love HaShem your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength, and with all of your knowledge* and your fellow as yourself." (Luke 2:27 DHE)
*The word for "knowledge" (madda, ΧΦ·ΧΦΌΦΈΧ’) sounds similar to the perplexing word in the original Torah verse often translated "might" or "strength" (me'od, ΧΦ°ΧΦΉΧ).
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