Opening the New Testament and Finding the Old II

From Tomsk, Siberia in Russia

 

Opening the New Testament and Finding the Old II

Being an attempt to make full proof of the following proposition:

The writers of the New Testament wrote in Greek, but they thought in Hebrew.

 

The Old Testament thought form

There is a curious Hebraism which is very common in the Old Testament, but which is so foreign to the modern ear that it is all too often treated as an oddity that perhaps really means nothing at all. It is most familiar in a distinct type of proverb often known as the “numerical proverb.”  The construction is disarmingly simple and quite flexible.  It is the literary device which is framed in terms of a numerical progression – basically, “c, yea c + 1.”  The wisdom teacher, Agur, especially loved this form of expression; four times in Proverbs 30 this construction is employed, always with the numbers “3, yea 4.”  In each case, the four items are iterated after the introductory accounting.

There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: (30:15, KJV)

    There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not. (30:18, KJV)

    Under three things the earth quakes, And under four, it cannot bear up. (30:21, NASB)

    There are three things which are stately in their march, even four which are stately when they walk (30:29, NASB)

 

This is the most obvious form of the device, as both numbers are explicit. (At Prov 30:7, K&D refer to this as the “sharpened or pointed” numerical proverb.)  Many times only one numeral is explicit, but the list which follows makes clear the numerical progression; for instance, in Prov 30:7, Agur implores, “Two things I asked of you…”, but in the next verse he lists three. And again, in many cases there is no digit expressed at all, but the progression from one number to the next carries the weight of the expression, as in Agur’s opening distich “The man declares to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal” (30:1). Finally, the digits may be used with no ensuing list, as in Amos 1:3 – “Thus says the LORD, ‘For three transgressions of Damascus and for four I will not revoke its punishment…’”

 

So what is the point of this curious device?  Very simply, it expresses fullness.  For instance it’s not true that there are only six things the Lord hates, but He really despises these seven (Prov 6:16-19). Ithiel and Ucal – whoever they were – were precisely the audience for whom Agur intended his wisdom sayings.  And Damascus has filled to overflowing its cup of iniquity.  In a day when italics and underscoring were not available, and when most people accessed the Scriptures by ear at any rate, such a device for communicating fullness, completeness, or intensity was precious to speakers and writers.

 

The New Testament Use

In Luke 13:31, Jesus is in Perea.  Some Pharisees, still seething over the claim made by Jesus in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles (Jn 10:30-40), come from Judea with a plot to lure Jesus back into the land where they could do Him harm. Jesus sees through their sinister designs and in response He makes a statement that is enigmatic to many:

 

    And He said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal.’” (13:32)

 

The chronology of this period late in Jesus’ ministry is very difficult to piece together with any specificity, and thus to trace His travels day-by-day is impossible.  So what are we to make of the Lord’s reference to “today and tomorrow, and the third day…”?

 

I am persuaded that He is employing the Hebraism considered above: “today and tomorrow” = two days, and “on the third day I will reach my goal.”  The point again is fullness – only when the time was full (cf. Gal 4:4), the time intended by the Father, the time when everything was in readiness, would Jesus make His way to Judea once again. (Compare, by the way, the strikingly similar construction employed by the prophet Hosea in 6:3.) Indeed, I would contend that to read the passage in Luke 13 with a modern Greek mind, to ponder exactly what happened on the mysterious succession of three days in the weeks between Dedication and Passover, is to miss the point entirely, that this reference is best understood as another place where we open the New Testament and encounter the Old.