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THE WITNESS OF OTHER VERSIONS

Chapter 4.

The number of English translations of the New Testament increases year by year. We have Moffat's, Weymouth's, Williams', Phillips', and many others. The number of translations of the Old Testament is probably almost as great,and if we include the more ancient versions, they may even exceed those of the New Testament. Moreover, the Bible in whole or in part has been translated into many hundreds of other languages, and the Jewish people themselves have produced quite a few versions in their own vernacular. It is these versions as well as those in various languages other than English - Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew (New Testament) - with which this chapter is chiefly coneerned.
The best known among the earliest of such other-than-English versions is that commonly referred to as the Septuagint. This Greek translation of the Old Testament was made, supposedly, by some seventy Jewish scholars in the third century B. C. The origin of the word "Septuagint" is to be found in the Epistle of Aristeas who recorded that King Ptolemy Philadelphas (285 - 246 B. C.) at the instigation of Demetrius of Phaleron, had determined to have a Greek rendering of the Holy Scriptures for his library at Alexandria. He accordingly asked the High Priest Eleajar at Jerusalem to send a commission of the most erudite Jewish scholars for the undertaking. With alacrity, Eleajar dispatched 72 elders (six from each tribe) to make this version.
It is considered unlikely that the whole of the Old Testament was translated into Greek at one "sitting" but it is believed that at least the Pentateuch was completed during Ptolemy Philadelphas' time and that the remainder was completed later in Alexandria, probably within 150 years.
Three subsequent Greek versions appeared. One, a literal translation of the Hebrew by Aquila is dated around 128 A. D. A second, by Theodotian is dated about 180 A. D. , and a third of unknown date was produced by Symmachus. These three were put into parallel form by Origen along with the original Septuagint and accompanied by a transliteration of the Hebrew text into Greek characters, to form his great critical work, The Hexapla, only small fragments of which now remain.
It is with the original Septuagint that we are chiefly concerned here and primarily with its rendering of Genesis Chapter 1. There are numerous copies of this available and these do not differ significantly with respect to the information they supply relevant to the present issue. Remembering that this text originated in Egypt in an atmosphere of broad educational interests where the best of the tradition and folklore and philosophy of the ancient world was being recorded and preserved and where a certain cosmology had already crystallized in a form which saw the first stage of creation as a Chaos rather than a Cosmos, what the Jewish scholars have and have not seen fit to recognize of the precise structure of the Hebrew original will be better understood. It is to be assumed that the translators themselves were scholars in the Hebrew of the Old Testament: but they were also concerned to produce a rendering which would impress their Greek readers with the "soundness" of the Mosaic Cosmology, by which would be meant its essential concordance with the views of the day though entirely free of any polytheistic element, as well as the antiquity of their own history as a people to match that claimed by the Egyptians for themselves.102,103 These two facts are important: first, because the version makes one odd exception in this first chapter in the handling of the Hebrew verb 4-1.jpg - 1197 Bytes which is otherwise not easily accounted for, an exception which allowed them to present a cosmology that, like other pagan cosmologies, appeared to make creation begin with a Chaos much as the Egyptian and Greek cosmogonies did. Secondly, as is well known, the Septuagint extends the Hebrew chronology considerably, presumably in an attempt to give a comparable antiquity to their own history, like that of the Egyptians.
Here, then, is a picture as it relates to their translation of this verb.
Throughout the whole of Chapter 1, the Hebrew verb 4-2.jpg - 1226 Bytes occurs 27 times. In verse 2 once, in verse 3 twice, in verse 5 twice, in verse 6 twice, in verse 7 once, in verse 8 twice, in verse 9 once, in verse 11 once, in verse 13 twice, in verse 14 twice, in verse 15 twice, in verse 19 twice, in verse 23 twice, in verse 24 once, in verse 29 once, in verse 30 once, and in verse 31 twice. In 22 of these instances the Septuagint has employed some form of the Greek verb 4-3.jpg - 1893 Bytes i.e., "become". Of the remaining 5 occurrences of 4-4.jpg - 1219 Bytes, they have used some part of the Greek verb 4-5.jpg - 1408 Bytes. In four of these 5 cases the verb4-6.jpg - 1206 Bytes appears as an imperative directed towards the future. Thus in verse 6 where the Hebrew has, "And let it be a divider between, etc .... ", the Greek has used the future of 4-7.jpg - 1431 Bytes , ie., 4-8.jpg - 1357 Bytes, "it shall be .... " This seems quite proper. The sense in all four instances is "to serve as" or "to serve for", and not simply "to become" and although the meaning is similar, it is not precisely the same. We have here not a change in fact, only in function, a circumstance which is recognized by Lexicographergs.104 In verse 14 the Hebrew has 4-9.jpg - 2295 Bytes (which even by the most adverse of critics of the present thesis: would be allowed to mean "become" since the verb 4-10.jpg - 1184 Bytes is followed by the Hebrew lamedh), the Septuagint has 4-11.jpg - 1667 Bytes which falls into the same class of verbal forms as verse 6. The same is precisely true of verse 15 where, as in verse 14, the 4-12.jpg - 1145 Bytes is accompanied by a lamedh and should certainly have been rendered "Let them become as lights.... ", the Septuagint again uses the form of command - 4-13.jpg - 1741 Bytes. In verse 29 there is either a straightforward future sense or a form of command (once again the 4-14.jpg - 1176 Bytes being followed by lamedh) and so the Greek employs a simple future of the verb "to be", meaning either "let it be.... "or "it shall be...."
Now this, then, accounts for all the occurrences of the verb 4-15.jpg - 1173 Bytes save one, and this exception occurs in verse 2. Here, for reasons which are worth considering, they made an exception. But just to show how really exceptional this case is, it may be well to note in summary that, excluding these occurrences of the Hebrew verb 4-16.jpg - 1157 Bytes which are strictly future or in the imperative mood, ie. , versie 6,14, 15, and 29 (all of which have been rendered in the Authorized Version as "Let it be for", "Let them be for", "It shall be for...."), the Septuagint scholars uniformly rendered 4-17.jpg - 1206 Bytesby the Greek verb 4-18.jpg - 1795 Bytes, so showing that they viewed it in this context as meaning "become" and not as a simple copula. Thus, there is only one case out of 23 occurrences of the verb 4-19.jpg - 1177 Bytes in which they have made an exception and treated it as a copula, translating it in verse 2 as 4-20.jpg - 1027 Bytes, thereby presenting the reader with the opening words of Gen. 1. 2 as 4-21.jpg - 2110 Bytes: i.e. , "But the earth was ...." a circumstance strongly influencing Jerome as he produced the Latin Vulgate which in turn served as a basic guide in many cases to all the other Western versions from the Authorized to the present day. As a consequence, the Universe appears to have begun as a Chaos.
Now the word chaos had a rather special meaning in Greek thought. It did not necessarily signify what we mean by a situation which has become so badly disrupted that it is a ruin. The Greek concept tended rather to mean only the infinity of space: not an engineered dis-order but an early stage of development before order had been imposed on the Universe. The opposite to Chaos is Cosmos. The first stage in the development of the Cosmos was therefore being presented as a stage of total emptiness - and this total emptiness was termed Chaos. In Appendix II it will be seen that Ovid defined it as, "Rudis indigestaque moles"., ie. , "A shapeless mass unwrought and unordered". Webster defines Chaos as, "The void and formless infinite; the confused, unorganized state of primordial matter before the creation of distinct or orderly forms". But this interpretation of the word was a later one, held only by Roman authors and not by the Greeks, and when the Septuagint was being written, the word Chaos almost certainly still bore its more ancient meaning, ie. , the infinity of empty space. In time it came to be viewed as not so much empty space but as unorganized matter.
Thus it is not really too surprising that the Jews who formed the translation Committee of the Septuagint and who knew too well that the Version they produced was to take its place beside the literature of Greece in the great library at Alexandria, should seek, but without actually distorting the Hebrew text , to make it possible to look upon it as a reflection of the same basic cosmogony as was commonly accepted at that time. Yet they did NOT, be it noted, actually use the word Chaos as a translation of the Hebrew tohu where it might have seemed the obvious thing to do if this is how they saw the earth's condition in verse 2. I think their use of terms other than the Greek word Chaos is a significant indicator of their view of Gen. 1. 2.
That the words in Gen. 1. 2, however, have a very different meaning from the Greek Chaos or the modern "nebulus", is shown later (in Appendix XVI) and it seems likely to me that the Jews in Alexandria were quite aware of this. So they left the meaning "open" by a transliteration which was true in part but not the whole truth and could be interpreted by the reader with some freedom to adjust the meaning to his own particular preconceptions. The earth was a "chaos", whether initially or as a consequence of some intervening event it is not specifically made clear in the Greek version, even though they did as shown above, use 4-22.jpg - 935 Bytes instead of 4-23.jpg - 1042 Bytes for the particle between verse l and verse 2. It may be argued that a Jewish reader would not necessarily see such a significance in the use of 4-24.jpg - 954 Bytes as many commentators have done since, including Jerome. Yet Onkelos evidently did, for he viewed the situation as a Chaos, not in the Greek sense but in the more modern sense, a destroyed rather than a waiting-to-be-ordered world. In conclusion, therefore, in Genesis chapter 1, wherever 4-25.jpg - 1179 Bytes is clearly indicative of a change or a becoming, the Septuagint has in all but one case (22 out of 23) used the Greek 4-26.jpg - 1558 Bytes. And, as Thayer has underscored,105 it is most important to note that the verb 4-27.jpg - 1787 Bytes, is not to be equated with 4-28.jpg - 1325 Bytes. The Septuagint were, it would appear, consciously departing from their normal practice in verse 2.
Now according to my count the Septuagint rendered 4-29.jpg - 1126 Bytes by 4-30.jpg - 1710 Bytes some 146 times in Genesis alone: in Genesis and Exodus together, 201 times; in the Pentateuch, some 298 times; and in the whole of the Old Testament,close to l500 times. Since the Old Testament uses the verb 4-31.jpg - 1160 Bytes approximately 3570 times, it appears that in nearly half its occurrences the Septuagint considered the correct sense to be "become". A very large number of the cases where 4-32.jpg - 1125 Bytes occurs refer to the future as a changed circumstance where, as we have seen, it is necessary to introduce it since it is no longer merely copulative: quite properly this demanded in Greek the simple future of the verb "to be". On a fair number of occasions the Septuagint has taken the Hebrew original and paraphrased it, rendering the verb "to be" followed by some other verbal form as a single verb which comprehends the composite of the Hebrew original. I do not know exactly how often these two situations (future tenses and paraphrastic renderings) occur, but it must account probably for a fair percentage of the balance of appearances of the Hebrew verb 4-33.jpg - 1131 Bytes. When we add those instances in which the Hebrew verb appears as an imperative, and those in which it has the meaning of "existing" (ie. , living), we shall not be far wrong if we conclude that in the great majority of cases the Septuagint did not look upon the meaning of the Hebrew verb as mere "being" in the copulative sense but as "becoming" or "coming to be".
In summary, I think it is safe to say that 4-34.jpg - 1212 Bytes is seldom considered by the Septuagint as meaning "is" or "was", and that their rendering of it in Gen. 1. 2 as 4-35.jpg - 986 Bytes was probably in order to avoid conflict with the accepted cosmogony held in Alexandria and by the Greeks generally. For such a conflict would have appeared, had they translated Gen. 1. 2 as "But the earth had become unorganized...", since this clearly implies that it had not been so in the beginning.
We have already made reference to the Targum of Onkelos, but in order to make this Chapter more or less complete in itself, a brief review of what this Targum represents may be in order.
The word Targum, (from Ragamu, "to speak", in certain Semitic languages) is a term for the Aramaic versions or paraphrases of the Old Testament which became necessary when, after or perhaps during the Babylonian exile, Hebrew began to die out as the common language of the people and was supplanted by Aramaic. The first evidence of a Targum as an already existing body of accepted Aramaic paraphrase has been found by some authorities in Neh.8.8. According to tradition, Ezra and his coadjutors were the original founders". There grew up a certain accepted rendering into Aramaic of parts of the Old Testament which assumed something of the status that the Authorized Version did in the seventeenth century in England. The Mishnah or official Commentary of the Jews on the Old Testament soon contained a number of injunctions respecting the "Targum" but for many centuries it was preserved orally and not written down.
All that is now extant of these traditional "renderings" are three distinct "Targums" on the Pentateuch, a Targum on the Prophets, Targums on the Hagiographa (Psalms, Job, Proverbs), and the five Magilloth (Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, and Ecclesiastes), another Targum on Esther, one on Chronicles, one on Daniel, and one on the Apocrypha.
The most important of the three Pentateuch Targums is named after Onkelos, probably a corruption of Aquila, a proselyte and one of Gamaliel's pupils. Aquilals Greek version became so popular that the Aramaic version current at the time was credited to him. It appears that this Targum originated among the scholars of Rabbi Akiba between 150 - 200 A. D. in Palestine. It was later sent to Babylonia where it was modified and edited and vowelled in the Babylonian manner about 300 A.D. Hence arose the Babylonian Targum.
The oral tradition behind it may therefore be traced to about 150 A. D. , but it could in fact be considerably earlier. Hence at or about this time we have an Aramaic version of Gen. 1. 2 which reads 4-36.jpg - 3107 Bytes meaning as we have already noted, "And (or but) the earth was destroyed", where the Aramaic verb has the meaning "to cut", "to lay waste", or "to destroy", a rendering reflected in the traditional Midrash interpretation quoted from Ginaberg (See page 14 above).
The next version to be examined is the Vulgate. Jerome, or more accurately, Sophronius Eusebius Hieronymous, its author, was born in the city of Stridon on the borders of Dalmatia and Pannonia, some time between 331 and 340 A. D. At about the age of 20, he was sent to a Roman school where he studied the classical authors under Aclius Donatus. He later attended the University at Trier and Aquileia, where he studied theology. After a tour of the East which ended in 373 and after a severe illness, he adopted the ascetic life and spent four years in the desert near Antioch where he studied Hebrew. He was ordained in 379 and three years later visited Rome on official ecclesastical business from Antioch. In Rome he began his work on the translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures into Latin. This great work was completed before he died in 420 A. D. and since that time remained in use throughout the Roman Church.
Of chief concern here is his rendering of the verb 4-37.jpg - 1140 Bytes, especially in the first chapter of Genesis. In his translation he consistently has factum (or facta ) est (ie. , "became") wherever the Septuagint has 4-38.jpg - 1535 Bytes, and in verse 2 he has "Terra autem erat .... ", ie. , "The earth, however, was.... ", thus faithfully reflecting the Greek version. Whether he really was governed in this by what he found in the Septuagint or was independently convinced that he was correctly translating in each instance, we shall, of course, never know. But this much at least can be said: once he had passed beyond verse 2, he had no hesitation thereafter in equating the meaning of the Hebrew verb 4-39.jpg - 1177 Bytes with the Latin for "became" and he adopted this rendering in 13 occurrences in the first chapter of Genesis alone. His departure from this general principle in verse 2 thus seems odd and looks suspiciously like a Septuagint influence.
Now, if we allow that the term "Version" really means nothing more than "Translation into a different language", we have another non-English "Version" that may be allowed to bear its independent witness - and this is the New Testament wherever it quotes the Old Testament. For here the Hebrew original is translated by inspiration (I believe) into Greek.
According to the Oxford Cyclopedic Concordance, there are 277 quotations from the Old Testament in the New, which are more or less exact. There are, of course, many inexact quotations or allusions and many incidents referred to, but these are not sufficiently exact as to wording to allow the drawing of any conclusions about equivalent verbal meanings within the two languages.
Of these 277 quotations, only 29 are of such a form that the verb "to be" is an essential part of the English rendering in the Authorized Version. In one case (No. 5 in the list below) the situation is confused by the fact that the New Testament uses a different sentence structure.
Of the 28 quotations remaining, the Old Testament in 20 cases omits the verb 4-40.jpg - 1185 Bytes entirely, its use being not required since the meaning is copulative. This leaves us with only 9 clearcut examples upon which to attempt the formulation of some kind of guiding principle. The number. is far too small to allow of any certainty - yet there seems to be some measure of consistency.
To begin with, here are the 29 quotations.
(1) Matt. 23. 39 (Mk. 11. 9): "Blessed is He...."
Psa. 118.26: identical - is is omitted in Hebrew.
(2) Mk.10.8: "They shall be into one flesh" (4-41.jpg - 2179 Bytes). So also LXX.
Gen. 2. 24: "They shall become...." 4-42.jpg - 1270 Bytes with 4-43.jpg - 891 Bytes.
(3) Mk. 12. 29: "The Lord our God is one Lord..." (4-44.jpg - 1468 Bytes).
So also the LXX
Deut. 6. 4: In Hebrew, is is omitted.
(4) Lu. 4. 18: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. . . ."
Isa. 61. 1: In Hebrew, is is omitted.
(5) Lu. 19.46: "My house is the house of prayer...." (4-44-1.jpg - 789 Bytes, "shall be").
Isa. 56. 7: "My house shall be called.... " (different verb used).
(6) Lu. 20.17 (Matt. 21.42): "The same has become the Head of the corner",ie, 4-45.jpg - 4989 Bytes, so also the LXX.
Psa. 118.22,23: "Has become, as it were, the head....", 4-46.jpg - 2331 Bytes
(7) Jn. 10. 34: 1 "I said ye are gods...:" (4-47.jpg - 1251 Bytes), so also LXX.
Psa. 82. 6: "1 said, gods (are) ye....", no verb in Hebrew.
(8) Acts 13.33: "Thou art My Son" (4-48.jpg - 1045 Bytes).
Psa. 2. 7: "Thou, My Son" no verb in Hebrew.
(9) Rom.3.10: "There is none that...." (4-49.jpg - 1290 Bytes occurs through out).
Psa.14.1,3: "There, no God ", Hebrew omits verb throughout.
(10) Acts 1.20: "And let his ... become.... (4-50.jpg - 884 Bytes); neither shall there be .... (4-51.jpg - 897 Bytes).
Psa. 69. 25: "Let it become that their habitation be a desolated one and no one shall become a dweller in their tents..." 4-52.jpg - 1084 Bytes.... 4-53.jpg - 1241 Bytes
(11) Acts 7. 32, 33: "I am the God of your fathers .... is holy ground ...."
Exod. 3. 6: verb omitted in both clauses.
(12) Acts 7.49, 50: "Heaven is my throne..."
Isa. 66.1: verb omitted throughout.
(13) Rom. 3.13-16: Verb is is omitted throughout.
Psa. 5.9 and 36.1: verb omitted throughout.
(14) Rom. 4.7, 8: "Blessed are they whose sins are forgiven... covered".
Psa. 32.1, 2: verb omitted in both cases.
(15) Rom. 4.18: "So shall thy seed be. . . ." 4-54.jpg - 1284 Bytes
Gen. 15.5: "So shall thy seed become.... " 4-55.jpg - 1040 Bytes
(16) Rom. 11. 9, 10: "Let their table be as a snare...(4-56.jpg - 976 Bytes)
Psa. 69.22: ".... become before them as a snare...." 4-57.jpg - 1312 Bytes
(17) 1 Cor. 6.16: "They shall be (4-58.jpg - 817 Bytes) .... (4-59.jpg - 726 Bytes) into (4-60.jpg - 882 Bytes)
Gen. 2. 24: 4-61.jpg - 825 Bytes "They shall become as it were... ."
(18) 1 Cor. 10. 26: "The earth is the Lord's
Psa. 24. 1: Hebrew verb omitted.
(19) 1 Cor. 15. 54: "Death is swallowed up... where is thy victory?"
Isa. 25. 8: Verb omitted in Hebrew. The quotation reads slightly differently in Hos. 13. 14: "I will become thy (4-62.jpg - 743 Bytes).... plague, oh death.... I will become (4-63.jpg - 738 Bytes) thy destruction, O grave". This is not an exact quote from the Old Testament to the New Te tament where the Greek has 4-64.jpg - 1214 Bytes .. . . "Where, oh death, is your victory?"
(20) Gal. 3. 13: "Cursed is every one that hangeth...."
Deut. 21.23: Verb omitted in Hebrew.
(21) Heb. 1. 5: "Son of Mine, art Thou. . ." (4-65.jpg - 988 Bytes...)
Psa. 2. 7: Verb omitted in Hebrew ("My Son, Thou....").
(22) II Tim.2.19: "Those being of Him..." (4-66.jpg - 1097 Bytes).
Num. 16. 5: Hebrew omits verb.
(23) Heb.1.5: "I will be to him as a Father...."
4-67.jpg - 1358 Bytes...
II Sam. 7.14: "1 will become to him as a Father...."
....4-68.jpg - 1155 Bytes
(24) Heb. 1.8: "Thy throne is forever .... "
Psa. 45. 6: Hebrew omits the verb.
(25) Heb.2.6: "What is man that. ." (4-68-1.jpg - 1201 Bytes)
Psa. 8.4: verb omitted.
(26) Heb.5.6: "You, a priest" (4-69.jpg - 1252 Bytes..)
Psa. 110. 4: Hebrew omits verb.
(27) Heb. 9.20: "This is the blood of the Covenant."
Exod. 24.8: Hebrew omits the verb.
(28) 1 Pet.1.16: "Be ye holy..." (4-71.jpg - 973 Bytes - imperative)
Lev. 11.44: "Become ye holy (imperative) for I am holy ... "
.....4-72.jpg - 1417 Bytes
This is an important illustrustration of the principle. The people were to become what God is. Thus the verb 4-71-1.jpg - 750 Bytes is proper in the first but not in the second case.
(29) 1 Pet. 1.24: "All flesh is grass".
Isa. 40.6: Hebrew omits the verb.
Of these examples as already observed, nine only [ie. , Nos. (2) (6), (10), (15) 5 (16), (17) 5 (19) 5 (23), and (28)] involve the verb 4-73.jpg - 746 Bytes in the Hebrew of the text of the Old Testament. From this small body of information the following "rules" * seem to appear:
RULE NO. 1. From the five references numbered as (2), (6), (16), (17), and (23) it appears that where in the Hebrew the verb 4-74.jpg - 748 Bytes is employed followed by 4-75.jpg - 677 Bytes, the New Testament writers were led to use either the simple future of the verb "to be" [ in (2) 4-76.jpg - 839 Bytes, and in (23) 4-77.jpg - 796 Bytes] or the verb "became" [in (6) and (16) - 4-78.jpg - 833 Bytes, 4-79.jpg - 854 Bytes ] followed by the preposition 4-80.jpg - 735 Bytes ("into"). It would seem that the best English literal rendering for both the Hebrew and the Greek, where 4-81.jpg - 704 Bytes appears in the latter and 4-82.jpg - 675 Bytes in the former,

* It is virtually certain that these rules will prove to be totally inadequate but at least they make a starting point, and nothing more is claimed for them than just that.


would be "as it were" or "in effect". Thus:

(2) and (17): "They shall become, as it were, one flesh".
(6): "He shall become, as it were, the head of the corner".
(16): "Their table, let it become, as it were, a snare".
(17): "They shall become, as it were, one body".
(23): "1 will become to Him, as it were, a Father"

In each instance the thought expressed is that the end result shall be analogously such-and-such. Thus in (2) and (17) the man and wife do not literally become one body but only analogously. It cannot have reference to the fact that children are to be born who will bodily sum up the parents because many couples are childless and yet are so united as to fulfil the real conditions of "oneness" which is to be the hallmark of a true marriage. In (6) a man shall become in effect a stone, the stone which is the key to the stability and completeness of the rest of the building; meaning surely that the Lord will analogously be a corner stone - not in actual fact: and in (16) a table is to become a snare, but only in a manner of speaking. And in (23): "1 will become, as it were, Father to Him" is a very significant statement for it implies that there is a special meaning to this Father-Son relationship, and that this relationship cannot be precisely spelled out in reference to the merely human situation. No human son exists until he is begotten of his father, whereas the Lord's relationship to His Father was something far more than this.
Thus, in each of these cases, there would seem to be an important reason for using the verb 4-83.jpg - 744 Bytes followed by 4-84.jpg - 674 Bytes In each case, moreover, there is a change involved. In many instances in the Old Testament there is a change of state, and in many there is a change of status. Stars are to become time- setters, a woman is to become a man's wife (cf. Gen. 20.12), a river is to become blood...., and so on. The rule here, then, seems to be that 4-85.jpg - 687 Bytes is required when the change is more analogous than real. The stars remained stars, the woman a woman, the river a river: each achieved a new significance.
RULE NO. 2. In three cases, (10), (15), and (19), the Old Testament uses 4-86.jpg - 739 Bytes without the 4-87.jpg - 687 Bytes and one must therefore assume that analogy is not in view, but a real "conversion" into something different. Thus:

in (10), a habitation will literally become a desolation.
in (15), Abram Is seed (singular) literally becomes a great host (plural).
in (19), God the Creator will become a Destroyer, of Death.

These passages lend weight to the contention that while 4-88.jpg - 756 Bytes consistently implies a change of state (or status), the addition of 4-89.jpg - 677 Bytes adds a distinct nuance to the sense in which the "becoming" takes place. That is, it takes place only in an analogous sense, whereas without the following 4-90.jpg - 686 Bytes the verb may still be properly rendered "become" but it is "becoming" in a more literal sense, a transformation of one thing into another, not "as it were" but absolutely.
We have now accounted for 8 out of the 9 occurrences marked off for consideration. The ninth case (28) is readily disposed of, the clear intent of the text being to indicate a command and the verb in both the Hebrew and the Greek being required to make the Imperative clear.
Thus it seems reasonably certain that whenever the simple copulative use of the verb "to be" is involved, the Hebrew omits 4-91.jpg - 749 Bytes though the Greek does not always follow the same rule. However, the Greek does show that if 4-92.jpg - 766 Bytes appears in the Old Testament in any of the passages quoted in the New Testament, some specific method must be adopted to convey a precise meaning which is always more than the mere copula. We may observe that either a future is involved, or a command, or the sense of "becoming", which thus demands the use of the verb 4-93.jpg - 862 Bytes. These conclusions are borne out even in those indirect quotations so far examined. Thus in Rom. 9.29 for example: "(Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed) we also had become (4-94.jpg - 1148 Bytes, etc.) as Sodom. . . ," The original, Isa. 1. 9, has: 4-95.jpg - 1246 Bytes ie. , "We would have become as Gomorrah (as to) our likeness".
In summary, then, on the basis of this admittedly meagre sample, it appears that wherever in the Old Testament no change of state or status is intended or implied or commanded or predicted, the verb 4-96.jpg - 751 Bytes is entirely absent. But whenever a change is intended or implied or commanded or predicted, the verb is expressed by some form of 4-97.jpg - 740 Bytes - either with or without lamedh following, depending upon whether the transformation is viewed as analogous or real. The New Testament in rendering the Old Testament quotations into Greek seems to have followed this rule. It is also clear that in the 20 cases where the verb 4-98.jpg - 748 Bytes is omitted, the meaning is purely copulative, a fact borne out by the New Testament Greek which either follows suite and omits any verb or uses the simple present tense of the verb "to be", ie. always 4-99.jpg - 790 Bytes but never 4-100.jpg - 812 Bytes. When the present tense is not used but some other tense or mood is called for, the future involving a real change from the present, as for example in (2), (15), (17) , and (23), or the imperative as in (28), the Hebrew requires the appropriate form of the verb 4-101.jpg - 746 Bytes to be expressed. It is, in short, a rule according to the testimony of these 29 quotations that Hebrew does not employ the verb 4-102.jpg - 732 Bytes copulatively: and that whenever it does employ it, it is to convey the future, a command, or the sense of "becoming".
Finally, we may turn to one further form of evidence, namely, the translations which have been made of the New Testament into Hebrew. Of those made by Ginsberg and Delitzsch, Heward observed:
"It is important to see that the Kal or simple conjugation of the verb4-103.jpg - 739 Bytes does have the force of 'become'. In the standard Heb;ew translations of the New Testament the Kal is employed by the Greek 4-104.jpg - 821 Bytes (to become) in more than half the occurrences in Ephesians and Colossians - and no other conjugation."
Such modern versions of the New Testament do not, of course, carry the weight of inspiration, so that the usage in each particular instance has been determined purely by human judgment. Yet it is important to see that here, too, 4-105.jpg - 740 Bytes has in the majority of cases been taken as a proper verb for the sense of "becoming". To attach this meaning to it most assuredly does not impose a strain upon it. It is its most common, not its least common, sense. I do not have a Ginsberg or a Delitzsch rendering into Hebrew of the New Testament. The version in my possession was published by the Trinitarian Bible Society (London) with no specific authorship ascribed to it. However, it is most probably based on Ginsberg. Almost all English versions stem ultimately from the Authorited Version which formed their startingpoint, although the "Modern English" versions owe perhaps least in this regard - and a paraphrase such as Phillips' or The Amplified Version owe even less, of course.
But assuming that the New Testament I have is the work of Hebrew scholars, we may examine it with benefit in order to see to what extent the Greek "became" is rendered back into Hebrew by use of the verb 4-106.jpg - 745 Bytes. For this purpose, I began with the Student's Concordance to the Revised Version (not the Revised Standard Version, note) and from it was led to the following passages, in all of which the Hebrew translation has 4-107.jpg - 731 Bytes where both the Greek and the English have "become".
Matt.18.3: "Except ye be converted and become as little children...." Of which the Greek is ".....4-108.jpg - 1081 Bytes 4-109.jpg - 791 Bytes...." which is rendered into Hebrew "to become as (little) children", ie., 4-110.jpg - 1087 Bytes.
John 1. 12: "To them gave He power to become the sons of God....", "....4-111.jpg - 1416 Bytes....." which in Hebrew is rendered: 4-112.jpg - 1280 Bytes, ie. , "to become sons with respect to God".
John 9. 39: ".... the seeing shall become blind, and the blind shall become seeing .... ", which appears in the Greek as 4-113.jpg - 772 Bytes 4-114.jpg - 2070 Bytes, that is to say, "those not seeing, seeing, and those seeing becoming blind". The verb 4-115.jpg - 831 Bytes is perhaps intended to serve both clauses though being introduced but once at the end of the sentence. The Hebrew translationis: 4-116.jpg - 1774 Bytes, ie., "the blind shall become see-ers and the see-ers shall become blind". It is quite true that if the present thesis Is incorrect, this could just as well have been rendered, "the blind shall be see-ers and the see-ers be blind", but we have the New Testament as a guide here indicating that what is intended is "shall become", not merely "shall be". And it is therefore to be noted that Hebrew simply has no other way of expressing the sense of "becoming" - nor is it required that the verb 4-117.jpg - 746 Bytes be followed by 4-118.jpg - 671 Bytes in order to convey this meaning, as is so often argued. On the other hand, when a change of status IS involved, 4-119.jpg - 738 Bytes is followed by 4-120.jpg - 680 Bytes: as in Acts 1. 22 when a believer becomes also an apostle. "One must be ordained to become a witness....", is in the Greek, 4-121.jpg - 1474 Bytes 4-122.jpg - 1079 Bytes, literally, "a witness of the resurrection of Him with us to become "). In the Hebrew this has been rendered thus:......4-123.jpg - 1765 Bytes ie., "He was taken from among us, one who shall become with us a witness...." Thus was Matthias ordained and numbered among the twelve.
In the sense of "happening to" someone, the verb 4-124.jpg - 742 Bytes is used in the Hebrew New Testament in Acts 7.40, "We know not what has become of him .... ", ie.,4-125.jpg - 1224 Bytes ie., "We do not know what has happened to him"
In Acts 7. 52 there is an interesting illustration of the difference between the merely copulative use of the verb "to be" and that use which signifies a changed status. The English reads: "Of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers". The Hebrew translation omits the verb before the word "betrayers" but inserts it before "murderers": 4-126.jpg - 1755 Bytes ie. "Whom you (are) the betrayers and have become, with respect to Him, as murderers". It may be that the verb is intended to serve for both clauses.... but it may also be that a mere betrayer remains as he was vis-a-vis society, whereas a murderer certainly does not, for his status has definitely changed. At any rate, the associated lamedh 4-127.jpg - 736 Bytes appears only before the word "murderers" as though to signify the special sense in which they had become murderers - not by themselves laying hands on Him but by having others perform the deed with their authorization.
In Acts 12. 18 we have an excellent example of the pluperfect use, in which the subject precedes the verb. The English reads: "As soon as it was day, then a great stir was there among the soldiers to see what was become of Peter". In Hebrew this passage becomes: 4-128.jpg - 2579 Bytes which, rendered literally, would be: "(Came) the morning light aid a great stir had there come about among the men of war saying, What has become of (ie. , happened to) Peter?". The dramatic effect of this sentence is evident enough. Certainly the sense here is "to happen" or "come about", and by paying attention to the word order one observes the use of the pluperfect which adds to the vividness of the whole situation.
In Rom. 2. 25 the verb 4-129.jpg - 738 Bytes appears in the niphal or passive voice and has the meaning of "be made into" or "turned into", followed by 4-129-1.jpg - 684 Bytes and the sense is thus: "thy circumcision is made into no circumcision at all", ie. , "thy circumcision is converted into un-circumcision in reality". This is a meaning found in the Old Testament also, as in Exod. 38. 24, for example.
In I Cor.9.22 and 23 the Greek has 4-130.jpg - 1259 Bytes.....4-131.jpg - 877 Bytes....4-132.jpg - 1213 Bytes..... 4-133.jpg - 1224 Bytes.....4-134.jpg - 806 Bytes : ie. , "to the weak I became weak.... to all I became all things.... in order that I might become a partaker of it". In Hebrew, 4-135.jpg - 856 Bytes is here consistently replaced by 4-136.jpg - 746 Bytes : the verbal forms appearing as 4-137.jpg - 813 Bytes twice, and 4-138.jpg - 778 Bytes once.
In I Cor. 13. 11, "when I became a man", ie. , 4-139.jpg - 1045 Bytes, in Hebrew appears as 4-140.jpg - 1151 Bytes, ie. , "and when I became as a man" and thus achieved the status of manhood, 4-141.jpg - 729 Bytes again being followed by 4-142.jpg - 678 Bytes signifying this change of status.
In II Cor. 5.21, speaking of "achieving" the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, the Hebrew is 4-143.jpg - 1649 Bytes, meaning "In order that we might become in Him as the righteousness of God". The lamedh signifies a change of status once again. The Hebrew 4-144.jpg - 782 Bytes is for the Greek 4-145.jpg - 863 Bytes.
In Gal. 3. 13: "(Christ) hath redeemed us from the curse of the law) becoming on our behalf a curse...." appears in the Greek as 4-146.jpg - 1355 Bytes. In the Hebrew translation this is written as 4-147.jpg - 1204 Bytesie. , "in which he became on our behalf a cursed thing". Lamedh follows 4-148.jpg - 755 Bytes since this was indeed a change of status for the Holy One of God.
In Rev. 11. 15 appear the words, ".... saying, The kingdoms of this world have become (the kingdoms) of our Lord". Here the Greek reads: 4-149.jpg - 2166 Bytes, and the Hebrew has: 4-150.jpg - 1672 Bytes or literally, "saying, The kingdoms of the earth have become our Lord's".
Now in the light of Thayer's conclusion that 4-151.jpg - 819 Bytes is never to be confused with 4-152.jpg - 761 Bytes in Greek since its proper meaning is "becoming", not "being", it is a little surprising to discover that in the Authorized Version (as indexed by Young's Concordance) the Greek verb 4-153.jpg - 819 Bytes is translated "to be" some 250 times and "to become" only 42 times. However, an examination of those instances where the sense "to be" has been given to this verb in the Authorized Version will soon reveal that the rendering "become" would be equally valid, if not to be preferred, in the great majority of cases. Indeed at the heading of this list, Young himself gives the true meaning of the Greek verb as "to become"! A few random cases will reveal the validity of the above observation.
Matt. 5.45 (Young's first entry) is given as "That ye may be the children of your Father", which is clearly more correctly to be read as, "That ye may become the children of your Father.... ", a statement exactly in accord with Jno. 1. 12. In Mark 6.26, "the king was exceedingly sorry", means in point of fact that he became exceedingly sorry", for this is what we really mean in such a context since it was a consequence of what preceded.
Luke 2.13, "Suddenly there was with the angel.... " is clearly a change, more expressively, "suddenly there came to be with the angel.... " John 4.14, "shall be in him a well of water.... " is clearly, ".... shall aLways be in him a well of water .... " And so forth. I do not say that it must always be so rendered, for sometimes the sense involves an imperative, for example. But in the majority of cases it should be. In a number of instances the range of meanings of the Hebrew verb 4-154.jpg - 749 Bytes is found here in this Greek verb 4-155.jpg - 844 Bytes by much the same processes of idea-extension. It may mean "to happen", "to come about", "to live" or "exist" (as in I Cor. 2.3 for example), and so forth. It has occasionally the meaning of "counting for" or "amounting to". But it is very, very seldom indeed that 4-156.jpg - 856 Bytes is employed as a mere copulative. I think it possible that it is so employed more frequently than the Hebrew 4-157.jpg - 749 Bytes is since the latter almost certainly never is, but its normal meaning is "to become" just as by contrast the nornal meaning of 4-158.jpg - 762 Bytes is "to be".
This is quite clearly borne out by the lexicographers. Thus Thayer gives its meanings as: 106 (1) "to become", "to come into existence", "to begin to be", "to receive being"; (2) "to become", ie., "to come to pass", "to happen"; (3) "to arise" in the sense of "appearing in History"; (4) "to be made" . "to be done" , "to be finished"; and (5) "to become" or "to be made" in situations where a new rank, or character, etc. , is involved. This last is analogous to the force of 4-159.jpg - 744 Bytes where a change of status is in view, as when a woman becomes a wife.
It will be observed that Thayer does not list in his five classes of meanings the simple copulative idea - is, was, shall be, etc. On the other hand, he expressly states that this is the prime significance of the Greek verb 4-160.jpg - 758 Bytes "to be". It would seem, therefore, that the scholars who translated the New Testament of the Authorized Version either were not aware of the true distinction between 4-161.jpg - 753 Bytes and 4-162.jpg - 818 Bytes OR did not themselves distinguish between "being" and "becoming" in English. If one examines Young's list of occurrences under the word "to be" as an English translation of the verb 4-163.jpg - 827 Bytes (the 3rd column of page 73 in my edition of that Concordance) one finds that almost always the verb 4-164.jpg - 795 Bytes is rendered in the Hebrew version of the New Testament by 4-165.jpg - 751 Bytes and the sense is strictly "became". There are occasional exceptions. In Matt.9.29 an entirely different Hebrew verb is used (4-166.jpg - 741 Bytes) which means "let it be established for you.... ", which is surely most appropriate. Another exception is in Matt. 16. 2 where the translator of the Hebrew version must have considered the word is in this verse ("when it is evening") as purely copulative, for he has decided to omit the verb entirely. This could possibly be a case where 4-167.jpg - 819 Bytes is used copulatively. But certainly such occasions do not seem very frequent. Indeed, even in Greek, the simple copulative verb is apt to be omitted where one might expect to find it according to English modes of expression. When it is omitted, the Hebrew version follows suite - as in Matt. 24. 32 for example, "Ye know that summer is nigh.... ", or in Matt. 24. 37, "But as the days of Noah were. . . . " In Matt. 26. 5 and 27.45 the Hebrew translator took the sense as simply copulative and omitted the verb 4-168.jpg - 746 Bytes, though 4-169.jpg - 802 Bytes appears in the Greek.
One must clearly bear in mind that the Hebrew version of the New Testament is not an inspired one. It constantly involved human judgment. And although perhaps the translator worked prayerfully at his task, we cannot expect of it the same inerrancy that we may expect to find in the original Scriptures. I think we must either assume that in such seemingly copulative uses in the New Testament Greek we have in reality something more than appears to the casual reader (in which case the Hebrew version is not accurately interpreting the text) or we have some cases where the normal verb "to become" is for some reason being used exceptionally. It is possible of course, that our Greek New Testament is itself a version, a translation of an original Aramaic, at least where the Gospels are concerned, as Lamsda would argue.107
From such examples * it would appear that whereas in moving from Greek to Hebrew the Greek may be viewed as copulative and will not be represented by any corresponding verb, in moving from Hebrew to any other language it is safe to interpret the absence of the verb 4-170.jpg - 739 Bytes as prima facie evidence that the sense of the original is copulative. In short, in so far as arguments have validity when based on a study of an uninspired Hebrew version of the Greek New Testament, there is evidence enough that the verb 4-171.jpg - 740 Bytes is virtually always employed in Hebrew when the meaning is something other than the simple one of "being". Thus 4-172.jpg - 742 Bytes is not the normal word for "being" even in the minds of modern translators, but it is the normal word for "becoming" and there is, in fact, no other way in which a Hebrew writer can express the idea of becoming except by its use.

* Further examples will be found in Appendix XVII.


Thus, in considering the meaning of Gen. 1. 2, we have two factors to take note of. If the verb is merely copulative, the writer could have made this quite clear by omitting it entirely. Then there would have been no doubt about it. But he did NOT omit the verb. On the contrary, there was no other way in which he could have expressed the idea of "becoming" and the presence of the verb should therefore be taken as having this significance. It is no longer sufficient to appeal to the old cliché that 4-173.jpg - 732 Bytes means "become" only when followed by lamedh. The many versions in English do not support this argument at all. A quite cursory examination of the Authorized Version shows 30 or more passages in which 4-174.jpg - 722 Bytes without the Lamedh is rendered "became" or "become". Indeed, in more than one third of the occurrences of 4-175.jpg - 733 Bytes in the original text, this is the case. A similar examination of the Revised Standard Version shows about the same number of occasions, actually about 25% of all occurrences of 4-175.jpg - 733 Bytes in the original. And the even more recent Berkeley Version reveals ten cases in Genesis alone. * Such lists do not include the numerous occasions where 4-176.jpg - 754 Bytes is followed, not by lamedh, but by some other preposition, such as 4-177.jpg - 682 Bytes , etc. # where it is still rendered as "became" in the English versions. Nor do these lists include numerous occasions where the meaning is clearly "became" in spite of the fact that no English version currently available has indicated the fact: such passages, for example, as Exod. 23. 29, "Lest the land become desolate...", or Ezek. 26. 5, "It shall become a place for the spreading of nets.... "
Thus, no special pleading is required to establish the fact that the verb in Gen. 1. 2 is most unlikely to be a mere copula. Those who decline to adopt this principle of rendering 4-178.jpg - 746 Bytes as became rather than was are surely far more in danger of attempting to "explain away" the original text than are those of us who do accept it, for we are being guided by what certainly seems from the evidence to be the rule rather than the exception.

* See Appendix XVIII for lists of references to these Versions.
# See Appendix X for references.



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