Taking Hebrew classes in seminary will not necessarily make you capable of reading Hebrew. First, we have to get past the large number of Hebrew professors who simply are not devoted to the Word of God. The use their training to drive a wedge between people and a strong reliance on the Bible. Second, I have yet to find any of those Bible-believing professors who consistently apply the Hebrew cultural and philosophical orientation to their translation work. They may be intellectually aware of the differences between that ancient biblical culture and their own, but don't seem to do much with it theologically. In my experience, they continue to evaluate the meanings of the text from their Western assumptions.
The Hebrew people, while certainly aware of what we refer to as formal abstract logic, knew that this was not capable of handling spiritual issues. Noting they preferred a deductive logic over inductive logic still falls short of the rather extensive differences. For them, ultimate truth could not be abstracted. Ultimate truth was too far above human reason, and was not to be understood, but was to be applied. The whole of spiritual reasoning was aimed at defining the imperative, of answering the question: What must I do to please God? It was neither a matter of mere doing, nor of being, but of serving and loving. The task of understanding revelation was not an end in itself, but was at best, a step along the way to the goal of living that revelation. Indeed, it was assumed the human mind could scarcely understand much about it in the first place.
The higher realities of Heaven were beyond human ken. Grappling with it was a matter of pointing indirectly via symbols. The logic of the Spirit is symbolic or parabolic, because the underlying reality is a living Being. From our Western rational perspective, it appears all the rules of precision are thrown out the window. This is often the accusation hurled by those who aren't born again, and many who are but still trapped in formal logic. Words do, indeed, mean things. However, in the Hebrew tradition, words are tools. The purpose of language is to share an experience, not to merely to transmit concrete knowledge. You can know a lot about the world, and spend your whole life in it, smugly chuckling at quaint little stories about spiritual principles. However, the miracle of knowing the God who made this world requires operating in a higher faculty for which there are no standard logical categories, nor can there be. Expressions of that knowing God can be described by how they manifest in various circumstances, but to know the underlying principle takes place on a different level. That level exceeds the functional limits of human language.
Leaving, then, for the scholars the work of translating, we strive here to provide an awareness of what those translated words are supposed to do in us. It looks and sounds like mystical gobbledygook to formal logic, but are the very necessity for stepping outside this world to touch the hem of Our Savior. Our assumption is not our capabilities, but our desperate need, our complete inability to approach Him with anything we can muster. Merely an awareness of our need for His grace is a miracle gift from Him. These aren't just devotional words, designed to inculcate a warm positive regard from a mysterious figure in history. As with His native culture, we speak in symbols which point to something we can see only with spiritual eyes, where precise translation is less of a concern.
However, breaking out of the mental box can sometimes be aided by concrete examples. The most well-known example of confusing but proper handling of a Hebrew text comes from Matthew's Gospel, near the end of chapter 1 --
22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying; 23 "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us."
Here, Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 --
"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel."
First, let's establish clearly what Isaiah was saying in the context of that passage. He was preaching to the current king of Judah, Ahaz, a man not known for his piety. Given his lack of trust in the God of Israel, preferring human wisdom and scheming in the face of the onslaught from the combined forces of Samaria and Damascus, the Lord asked Ahaz just what it would take to make him believe. Ahaz declined, in false piety saying he would not ask a sign from God, and didn't want to be seen challenging God. God's response was to the effect Ahaz had already shown contempt for his fellow humans, and wouldn't get away with that in facing God. However, God was not going to be sidetracked. So He prepared His own sign so Ahaz would have no excuse once it came about.
What Isaiah said in the next few verses was essentially this: Within a certain time frame, the two kings of Samaria and Damascus would be dead. The span of time would match that which would be required for a young virgin, starting from that very day, to be married, conceive and bear a child. Before that child was old enough to be accountable for obeying his mother, sufficient time would pass for the Lord to have destroyed those two kingdoms. At a minimum, we can discern this is the point, because some three years from that date when Isaiah confronted Ahaz, those two kings were dead. This is quite obviously the point of the whole encounter.
We cannot accuse Matthew of sloppiness here. Whatever else he was, Matthew would have had a good solid education in his own language, plus a couple of others, in order to get a job collecting taxes. He would have to deal with people speaking his native Aramaic, along with Greek, and quite likely some Latin. His Gospel presents an overwhelmingly Hebraic orientation. Yet, for him to take the words of Isaiah's prophecy and apply them in a different context, and come up with a different meaning, and claim this was the point of the prophecy, is pretty hard to explain from our Western analytical point of view. What do these two passages have in common?
Could it be Isaiah was speaking and writing in some odd fashion, which was meant to be interpreted both ways? It would hardly seem so, but it's hard to explain otherwise how Matthew could be writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and do something which seems an abuse of language and context in previous Scripture. Indeed, for this reason so very many Hebrew scholars are the type who don't believe the Bible is the Word of God. The only obvious connection between Isaiah's and Matthew's texts are the words themselves, with different meanings in two very different contexts.
At this obvious level, we must understand something about Hebrew culture and literature: puns were very common. While this is hardly some light-hearted joke by Matthew, we can extend the principle to a much broader realization Scripture as literature is loaded with sarcasm, puns, and various other forms of using phrases to mean more than one thing. Consider this: scholars tell us the whole of Hebrew language is 800 root words, from which all the other words are built. Given the root nature of Hebrew language was to produce an impression, and only incidentally to transmit data, we should hardly be surprised when the grand and memorable phrasing from an ancient passage is recalled with drama to present yet another idea. This would be a cavalier abuse of literature and expressions in most modern languages, but was taken for granted in Hebrew.
Nor can we accuse Hebrew writers of cherry picking nifty phrases willy-nilly for any random use they might imagine. There is indeed a strong connection between these two passages which is fundamentally good theology even if we ignore Matthew's apparent abuse of the wording. Isaiah was talking about God's mighty hand of deliverance. The ultimate end of all His promises to Israel are bound up in the life of His Son. Every concrete blessing He ever promised under the Law of Moses was merely symbolic of His promises regarding higher spiritual blessings in His Son. Delivering Judah from Samaria and Damascus was God's promise in spite of Ahaz not obeying the Law. Sometimes God does such things because He wants to, because it expresses His nature better than giving mere justice. All of Israel's history is a long, declining failure from the glories of the Conquest down 1400 years later when they could hardly even comprehend the Law, because it had been twisted and perverted by a pervasive and massive cultural shift away from their original Abrahamic roots. In Jesus' day, what was left of Israel was a very worldly and materialistic society. Jesus sought to call them back to the old ways, but they rejected the faith of Abraham, and rejected their Messiah. Matthew calls attention to this.
So under Isaiah's prophetic ministry, Ahaz's court rejected God's provision, and weren't really planning on His deliverance. God delivered them anyway. First Century AD Israel was not counting on the Messiah God had promised to send, and rejected God's provision. God's sign was yet another child born of a virgin, but in a more literal sense. He fulfilled most completely the part about being "God with us" -- He was God incarnate. He grew up studying the Scripture ("milk and honey"), particularly Isaiah (whom He quoted often), until He understood His mission and how much of an apparent failure it would be in the eyes of men. But He would choose that good thing of redemption for, not ancient Israel, but New Israel. Jesus' teaching would rekindle the ancient, other-worldly orientation of men like Abraham.
Instead of playing fast and loose with pretty words, Matthew dug back into the wider context of redemption and revelation. On the minor point of what the virgin symbolized in each context, it was a typical Hebrew play on words. What he was really pointing at was the meaning of the name Immanuel. If we were to hang our whole Christology on the Virgin Birth, miracle that it was, we wouldn't have much. As a mere fact, it changes nothing. Anyone can recite that as true and remain lost and on the way to Hell. If that truth does not grab them and drag them off into a life of service in the Spirit, then it means something. If we stand on that ground of the Virgin Birth as a mere symbol of who Jesus was, then we have built a solid house on the Rock.
More than once, I have heard men say, "The Bible says what it means and means what it says." Sounds like good, solid Bible preaching. Matthew would have laughed, as would Paul and Jesus, too. I'm sure the Pharisees would have hardly batted an eye at the idea of a virgin birth. To stop there at what the mere words mean intellectually is to have a dead religion of human accomplishment. It's not as if such a phrase is untrue, but is so completely beside the point we must shake our heads and walk away. The Bible means so very much more than what it says, more than what it could say, than what anyone could say. In the very nature of biblical faith, arising from the ancient Hebrew culture, the words of the Bible are mere symbols of something far deeper. It is truth in the sense it must grab you and pull you into the life of the Spirit. Merely grasping and accepting the words changes nothing. Divine words, ever true, holy and precious -- they remain ink on paper if you are not changed into one who seeks the Person of God. How could anyone imagine the Lord and Maker of all things can be contained in mere words?
By Ed Hurst
07 October 2008
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