Eamon Younis

Thursday, 29 July 2021

The Curse Of Cain Reconsidered: A Study Of The Translation Of “Min Ha’adamah” In Genesis 4:11a

by Todd Borger

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Genesis 4:11a has traditionally been rendered into English with some variation of “You are cursed from the ground.” E. A. Speiser’s interpretation of the Hebrew word ארור (“cursed”) to mean banishment has also had great influence on modern interpretation of this verse. A closer study of the grammar of the sentence and the larger context of Genesis 3 shows that a better translation of this verse is “You are cursed more than the ground.” This translation shows not only the extension of the curse from the serpent to the land and now to Cain, but it also shows the amplification of the curse as Cain is specifically cursed more than the ground was cursed in Genesis 3.

Key Words: Cain, curse, grammar, primeval history, translation

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The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis is fraught with several unsolvable riddles. Hardly a verse goes by in the chapter without some textual, linguistic, or theological problem arising. Genesis 4:11 is no exception to the general tenor of the chapter. Many English translations are unified in rendering the first part of this verse Cursed are you from the ground or with variations and explications. That simple sentence, however, is rife with problems, and there are notable exceptions within the English translation traditions. This essay will look at several of the problems in the verse and focus on one particular translation issue—the rendering of the preposition מן in the expressionמן האדמה (min ha’adamah).

This essay will look first at the variety of published English translation options. The purpose of that section is not to limit our discussion to the range of options chosen thus far. The section summarizing the various translation traditions is illustrative to show the range of possibilities. The following section will contain a brief survey of the history of interpretation of this verse, showing some of the interpretive options and opinions concerning this verse. Following that section will be an analysis of the syntactical options for translating מן האדמה. Finally, we will show how this phrase could be seen in relation to the larger context, both in the immediate context of Gen 4:10–11 and in the larger context of Genesis 3–4. The essay will conclude with the thesis that the best English translation of the phrase מן האדמה in Gen 4:11 is with the comparative you are cursed more than the ground.

English Translation Traditions

In comparing various English versions, we can detect several streams of tradition in translating this verse: (1) cursed from the earth; (2) cursed from the ground; (3) cursed upon the earth; (4) cursed and alienated from the ground; (5) [cursed and] banned from the ground; (6) cursed and driven from the ground; and (7) cursed more than the ground. These variations are grouped below.

Variation (1), cursed from the earth, appears in the Geneva/KJV/Web-ster traditions.

Now therefore thou art cursed from the earth. (Geneva)
And now art thou cursed from the earth. (KJV)
So now you are cursed from the earth. (NKJV)
And now [art] thou cursed from the earth. (Webster)

Variation (2), cursed from the ground, which only changes the translation of the noun adamah appears in the various Revised versions and in the 1917 JPS version.

And now you are cursed from the ground. (NRS, RSV, NASB, ESV)
Now you are cursed from the ground. (NAU)
and now, cursed art thou from the ground. (YLT, JPS [1917], ASV, RV)
You are now cursed from the ground. (CEB)
And now be thou cursed from the ground. (LEE, Darby)
Now, therefore, accursed, art thou,—from the ground. (ROT)

Variation (3) is unique, found only in the Douay-Rheims English translation. The preposition does not seem to be adequately dealt with in this version until one notes that the Douay-Rheims version was a translation not of the Hebrew Bible but of the Vulgate. Jerome translated the pertinent phrase super terram, which could be taken in a number of ways. The Douay-Rheims translators took the preposition super to mean on or above. It might be, however, that Jerome actually was using super in the sense of beyond, which would add weight to the translation proposed here—you are cursed beyond the earth, or you are cursed beyond what the earth was cursed.

Cursed shalt thou be upon the earth. (Douay-Rheims, 1899)
Nunc igitur maledictus eris super terram. (Vulgate)

Variation (4) is found in the various versions of the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), now simply the Christian Standard Bible (CSB). The original version of this tradition inserted an explanation “with alienation” using brackets to indicate that they have made explicit in the translation something that was implicit in the original Hebrew. In the 2009 edition the brackets were removed and commas were used to set off the explanation “alienated.” While the commas in that version set the word “alienated” off as explanatory of the word “cursed,” there is no indication that this word is not represented explicitly in the Hebrew text. The new 2017 Christian Standard Bible has removed the second comma from the 2009 translation, apparently removing the explanatory function of the word, and furthering the confusion about its relationship to the original text.

So now you are cursed with alienation from the ground. (HCSB, 2004)
So now you are cursed, alienated, from the ground. (HCSB, 2009)
So now you are cursed, alienated from the ground. (CSB, 2017)

Variation (5) is interesting. In 1985 the Catholic Jerusalem Bible translated the passage “cursed and banned” from the ground, apparently following Speiser’s Anchor Bible commentary on the matter of the meaning of cursed. In 1996, the New Living translators followed this lead but removed the explicative nature of banned and instead translated arur as “banished,” leaving out “cursed” altogether. In 2011, the new Catholic version came out and followed the same line, translating arur simply as “banned.” However, each of the New Living updates have gone the other way, translating the word as “cursed” and including the explicative “and banished.”

Now be accursed and driven from the ground. (Jerusalem Bible, 1966)
Now be cursed and banned from the ground. (New Jerusalem Bible, 1985)
Now you are banned from the ground. (New American Bible, 2011)
You are hereby banished from the ground. (NLT, 1996)Now you are cursed and banished from the ground. (NLT, 2004)

Variation (6) includes all of the NIV editions—British, American, and Reader’s—which have consistently used “cursed” with the explicative “and driven from.”

Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground. (NIV, 1984, 2011)
So I am putting a curse on you. I am driving you from the ground. (NIrV, 1998)

Finally, variation (7) is seen in the 1985 JPS translation, which went a completely different way by translating the phrase “more cursed than the ground.”

These variations show that there is slight variation in the understanding of the term אדמא, whether it is earth or ground. Since these terms can be, but are not always, synonymous in English, the difference is slight. There is greater variation over the meaning of ארור.1 Rather, there is not so much disagreement over the meaning but rather over how much information is implicit in the Hebrew text which must then be made explicit in the English translation. One underlying problem with the phrase ארור מן is that the translation be cursed from is virtually meaningless in English.[2] Perhaps better, it could be said that apart from this particular context, the English phrase be cursed from is virtually gibberish. All of the translation streams except two take the preposition min in a fairly uniform manner. The Douay-Rheims translation and the 1985 JPS translation are the exceptions.

History Of Interpretation

While most English translations have some variation of cursed are you from the ground, the situation was at one time more fluid. Johannes Bartholdy Glenthøj surveyed the interpretation of the Cain and Abel narratives in Syriac and Greek writers of the 4th to 6th centuries. He discovered these opinions about this text: the earth was the instrument of the curse; the earth was hostile and an unceasing enemy; Cain was cursed away from the earth; the curse of the earth was related to both Adam and Cain.[3]

Medieval Jewish commentators took different views of the passage. Rashi, for example, understood the phrase in the comparative sense. He wrote, “Even more than it [the earth] was already cursed for its iniquity, and also with this it continued to sin.”[4] Sellers, in a brief note to the American Oriental Society, agreed with that view, adding that Cain’s words in 4:13 should be taken as hyperbole.[5]

Cassuto followed Ibn Ezra in interpreting the phrase as showing the origin of the curse: you are cursed with a curse that is coming from the ground. For Cassuto the deciding factor was the parallelism between this verse and the preceding verse in which Abel’s blood is crying out “from the ground.”[6]

In modern commentary, Speiser, in both a 1960 article and his Anchor Bible commentary on Genesis, takes the preposition in the separative sense, but does so by reexamining the meaning of the root ארר.7 He is aided in this investigation by his student H. C. Brichto in his monograph on the meaning of curse in the Hebrew Bible.[8] Speiser understands the root ארר as a magical term which finds meaning in the biblical setting as a ban or banishment. The curse on the serpent in 3:14, then, is really a banishment from the rest of the animal kingdom. The curse on Cain in our passage is a banishment from working the land.[9] It is difficult to suggest motivation of a study, but Speiser seems to be motivated by the need to explain this one construction, ארור מן, and extending it out to the other uses of the verb, rather than locating the larger meaning and then bringing that meaning to this passage.

Keil offers two options for interpreting the prepositional phrase. He says it is difficult to choose between the separative and source meanings of the preposition. He concludes, however, that the association with the phrase “which has opened its mouth” lends itself to the understanding of the preposition as showing source. In other words, because the ground has taken in Abel’s blood, it is now giving back to Cain a curse.[10]

Von Rad takes the preposition as showing agent or at least means, but his language seems to push more toward the land itself as the author of the curse. “The earth itself is to deny [Cain] the power of its blessing. . . . Therefore the soil denies him fruit.”[11]

Mathews notes the connection between the curse of Cain and the curse of the serpent in Genesis 3, even going so far as to note the parallel construction of the curse. “Like father like ‘seed,’ both the serpent and Cain . . . receive the same retribution.” Yet even with such strong wording, Mathews preserves the distinction between the comparative use of the preposition for the serpent and the separative use of the preposition for Cain.[12]

Fretheim interprets the preposition ןמ as showing means. The ground mediated the curse from God to Cain by no longer producing fruit in keeping with Cain’s labors. The curse of Cain is thus an intensification of the earlier curse against the ground itself (3:17). The reader can see the intensification also in the themes of banishment, hiddenness from God, and the journey east.[13]

Wenham notes the parallels between the curse of the ground and the curse of Cain—“certainly there is an element of mirroring punishment in the curse pronounced on Cain”—yet he translates the prepositional phrase as separative, noting the comparative sense in a ַfootnote.[14]

From this brief survey, it is evident that the uniformity of modern English translations in regard to the preposition מן was not always the case. The next section will explore other possibilities for understanding the preposition as found in various guides to Hebrew syntax.

Syntactical Options

Having surveyed past interpretations of the phrase מן האדמה, we will now turn our attention to the range of meaning available to us from our understanding of Hebrew grammar. The preposition מןhas the basic idea of separation. Spatially, this meaning comes out as showing the direction from where something is coming. In a related way, it will indicate the origin of some person or thing. The idea of separation can be seen in temporal statements as well. The preposition can indicate the starting time from which some event takes place or is due to take place. Three related but more abstract uses are the partitive, privative, and comparative.

From these descriptions, we might create the following options for our understanding of Gen 4:11. The separative use of the preposition would give us “away from the ground.” This phrase could be understood in two different ways. Statically, it could mean the place the curse is occurring. Dynamically, it would show the direction away from which the cursing is taking place. The former is possible but does not yield a meaningful sentence (“The place where you are being cursed is away from the ground.” Then where is he? Up in the air?). The latter use requires a verb of movement, however. Cursing, normally understood, is not a verb of movement so it is unlikely to be separative without redefining the words. Understood as showing source, our phrase would carry the meaning “you are being cursed, and the curse is coming up out of the ground.” Related to this, we might say the ground is the agent of the curse—“you are being cursed by the ground.” There is some history of this tradition, as seen in Ibn Ezra and Cassuto (source) and Gunkel and von Rad (agent). The preposition used as a partitive marker—“the curse is taken from the curse in the ground”—makes good sense from the larger context of Genesis 3–4 and is related to the meaning of source.

Similar to the use of source is that of means. This use would yield a similar meaning but would preserve the agency of God and restrict the ground to a mediatorial role. This use is made explicit in Barnwell and Kuhn’s Translator’s Notes for the book of Genesis prepared for Bible translators.[15]

Finally, the comparative use of the preposition must be considered.

This use makes the best sense of the grammar of the sentence. The structure of noun + adjective/passive participle + min + noun is the basic form of the comparative expression. There is no information left implicit and no terms need to be redefined.

When making decisions about grammar, we must remember that native speakers do not go through these processes. Or rather, the process of making syntactic decisions happens at a subconscious level. The use of one form over another, or the proper interpretation of a term that has several uses, does not need to happen cognitively. This can be seen in the language use of children who are able to make proper decisions and interpretations with no explicit external knowledge of the language system. On the other hand, a more comprehensive awareness of the language system allows one to make puns and other word jokes.

Also, it is a mistake to think that one use of a preposition is more or less “literal” than another use. When students are learning the uses of the preposition מן it is often tempting for them to think or say something like “The Hebrew expression for ‘David is greater than Saul’ literally means ‘David is great from Saul.’” Of course, this is nonsense. The second sentence—David is great from Saul—is ungrammatical and gibberish. The Hebrew sentence that we translate as “David is greater than Saul” cannot literally mean something that is ungrammatical. The important point here is that when we are deciding between various uses of the preposition, it is a mistake to suppose that one of the meanings is more “literal” than another one. The literal meaning, if we must use that term, is the meaning that the speaker intended.

Contextual Translation

In considering the use of the preposition in this sentence and the meaning of the sentence as a whole, it will be good to consider the larger context and in particular, the prior context. There are several layers of context from which to draw.

First, we have within verse 11 another use of the preposition min. The ground has opened its mouth to take the blood of Abel from the hand of Cain. This use of the preposition is clearly separative. The blood is coming away from or out of Cain’s hand. It could be considered instrumental, but that seems unlikely. Keil followed this line of thinking in his commentary.[16]

A nearer context than this, however, is found at the end of the previous verse 10. The entire phrase מן האדמה is used there to indicate the source of the cry going out to God: “the sound of the blood of your brother crying out to me מן האדמה.” This sentence leads directly into our passage “And now, you are cursed מן האדמה.” The preposition is used to show the source or origin of the cry. It was coming from out of the ground. If we took this as parallel to our present passage, it would require the understanding that the curse was coming from out of the ground. Cassuto followed this opinion.[17]

Moving further away from our passage, we find the preposition used in 4:3, 4, 13, 14, and 16. None of these occurrences, however, have any grammatical relationship to the phrase under discussion here.

If we expand our context to include the word cursed, however, we find more interesting information. The phrase . . . ארור. . . מן occurs twice in the OT. Beside our context in 4:11 we find that the serpent was cursed מן כל הבהמה ובכל חית השדה in 3:14. The scarcity of this form is striking given two considerations. First, the root ארר occurs 63 times in the OT. The use of this root as a passive participle occurs 54 times. That we only find it in 2 of the 54 occurrences with the following preposition מן seems odd, or at least remarkable. But second, given that much of the usage of the curse formula in the OT is reserved for the blessings and curses in Numbers and Deuteronomy, and then given the dominant theme of cursing leading to expulsion from the land in Deuteronomy, if there were a typical formula with the meaning you are cursed and removed from the land, you would find it in Deuteronomy. But we don’t. Since we don’t find the passive participle used in this manner in the many formulaic uses of it, it would seem likely that we have a different understanding of its use in Genesis 3 and 4.

Two other passages in chapter 3 bear mention in regard to our passage in 4:11. First, we find cursing and the ground together in 3:17. We read that the land was cursed because of Adam’s sin: ארורה האדמה בעבורך. It is remarkable that in Genesis 3, humanity is not cursed, or at worst, is cursed secondarily through the curse of the land. The curse that befalls the earth in 3:17 certainly links to the curse of Cain in 4:11. The result of the curse of the land was felt most importantly in the difficulty of Adam’s future toil. The land would no longer easily yield its strength to Adam at his work. The produce would be difficult and only obtained through hard labor. Likewise, however we understand the curse of Cain in 4:11, it is clear that the result of that curse affected his ability to work the land and have it produce for him. In the same way, the curse of Cain affected his relationship with the land in similar, but more serious ways.

Second, the curse of the serpent in 3:14 must be compared to an earlier passage about the serpent. Genesis 3:1 reads והנחש היה ערום מכל חית השדה (“The serpent was more crafty than all the wildlife”). So the curse in 3:14 takes on a special meaning in that context: . . . מכל חית חשדה ארור אתה(“You are cursed more than all the wildlife”). The serpent changed from being arum to arur. In both of these verses, almost all English versions take these as comparative uses of the preposition.[18]

So we see the following progression in Genesis 3–4:

3:1	והנחש היה ערום מכל חית השדה the serpent was crafty min all the wildlife.
3:14	ארור אתה מכל הבהמה ומכל חית השדה You are cursed min all the cattle and min all the wildlife.
3:17	ארור האדמה בעבורך The ground is cursed because of you.
4:11	ארור אתה מן האדמה You are cursed min the ground.

These connections alone lead the reader to hear a repetition of a formula. It is more than a formula, however, because the reader is hearing the repetition of an idea or concept. The serpent changed from being the most clever to the most cursed. Then the reader learns that the ground has been cursed, but that in turn Cain becomes more cursed than the land. While it is difficult to speak for what an ideal reader or an original audience might suppose concerning a story, it would seem both from the structure of the language and from the larger, prior context that the story is advancing along the lines of this curse. The curse is expanding and deepening as it moves from serpent to land to Cain. It not only expands to Cain, but it also deepens if we take the comparative understanding of מן.

If this connection were all that we saw between chapters three and four, there would be sufficient cause to read the prepositional phrase in 4:11 as a comparative. There is another connection, however, that serves to connect the two narratives.

In the second half of God’s declaration to Eve in 3:16, he said, “Your desire will be to your husband, and he will rule over you.” Note the Hebrew:ואל־אישך תשוקתך והוא ימשל־בך. Compare this statement with God’s words to Cain in Gen 4:7 concerning sin’s relationship to Cain:ואליך תשוקתו ואתה תמשל־בו. Allowing for the inflectional changes in person and gender, the two sentences are identical. The context of each statement, however, would seem to be entirely different, yet God expressed himself in the same way to both Eve and Cain about the way Eve would relate to Adam and personified sin would relate to Cain. While it is outside the bounds of this essay, I would argue that the translations of these two verses should be as similar as language and sense allows in order to mimic the matching of the two Hebrew sentences.

The patterning in these two chapters indicates that we do not have a new story in chapter four, but rather a continuation of the tragedy begun in chapter three.[19] As Sellers notes, the three blessings of chapters one and two—animals, mankind, the seventh day—have been followed by the three curses of chapters three and four—the serpent, the land, and Cain.[20]

If we shape the translation of 4:11 to match the translation of the same formula in 3:14, we must take one of two tacks. We can eliminate, it would seem, the instrumental sense of the preposition. That the curse against the serpent would come either through or from the other animals seems odd. We must conclude that the preposition should be taken as separative or comparative. Speiser, it was noted above, argues that both prepositions should be taken as separative and he does so by redefining the word ארר to mean “ban” or “banishment.” His argument on the meaning of the word has been followed by some and has made its way into several translation traditions. The argument seems circular, however, because he seems intent on finding a definition that fits this particular context and then extending that definition to other passages rather than establishing a definition outside of this passage and then applying it here. In other words, while his definition can be seen to fit in many, but not all, other passages, it would nowhere else be thought of as the primary meaning.

He seems to be intent on finding a consistent separative use of the preposition and then imposing his own definition on the verb to make it fit.

Problems

Speiser does note one problem with a uniform comparative translation. He says that we have a problem with a comparative translation in 3:14. Could it accurately be said that the serpent was cursed more than the animals when they had not explicitly been cursed at that point in time? It does not seem a stretch, however, to say that God’s statement to the serpent could be a use of hyperbole to emphasize the extent of the serpent’s curse. Besides, to say that the serpent was cursed more than the other animals does not logically necessitate that the other animals had been cursed, but only that the serpent’s curse was more severe than the non-existent curse of the animals.

Perhaps a more serious objection to translating our preposition in 4:11a as comparative lies in Cain’s understanding of the curse. He complained after God’s word to him that Yahweh had cast him out from upon the face of the earth and that he would be hidden from the face of Yahweh. Apparently whatever was meant in the curse, Cain took it as resulting in banishment.

This is a more serious problem but need not defeat the argument presented here. One could, as Sellers did, dismiss Cain’s speech as hyperbole. I am not certain about the warrant for the hyperbole in this case, but if it suffices as a solution, then so be it. There are other options, however. More interesting, perhaps, is the possibility of an intentional wordplay that results in a rather clear example of Janus parallelism, in which one literary element has one meaning when seen in the preceding context, but then changes meaning in light of the succeeding context. If our understanding of the grammar of Genesis 3 is correct, then the reader who is approaching this text for the first time and who reads only as far as 4:11, I believe, would have no option but to understand the curse of Cain as a comparison showing the severity of Cain’s curse compared to the curse on the ground in 3:17. It is only when one arrives at 4:14 that one sees a different possibility for understanding the grammar. Could it be that Yahweh and Cain, and then the author of Genesis, created a sort of wordplay with the prepositional phrase מן האדמה? I do not believe that the existence of this Janus parallelism here is necessary for the argument of this essay. It could simply be that Cain understood that the effects of this curse on him would include his banishment from the cursed land that he had polluted with his brother’s blood.[21] The existence of a wordplay at this point, however, would completely sew together the narratives of Genesis 3 and 4 into a whole piece. The destructive behavior of mankind in ever- increasing wickedness would be inescapable.

Conclusion

Based upon the larger context of Genesis 3 and 4 as well as the syntactic possibilities for the phrase ארור מן האדמה, I have concluded that it is best to translate Gen 4:11a as “you are more cursed than the ground.”

If we translate the preposition in 3:14 as a comparative, then how does our translation affect our understanding of 4:11? If God said to Cain that he was cursed more than the land, we would seem to have a very important addition to our understanding of these chapters. It has been often noted that while the serpent and the land are cursed in chapter three, the two humans avoid directly being cursed. They did suffer the effects of the curse on the serpent and the land, but only secondarily. Now, with the murder of Abel in Genesis 4, mankind entered directly into the world of the cursed, joining the serpent and the earth. The curse on Cain, however, was not simply an addition to the curses of Genesis 3 but was specifically worse than those curses.

The narrative of the fall in chapter three is not a climax (or anti-climax) to which additional stories are added, but is rather the beginning of a longer decline. This decline is seen here in chapter four with the curse of Cain, continues with the boasting of Cain’s descendant Lamech about his own evil in comparison to Cain (4:23–24), and then comes to a low point in Noah’s generation in which “every inclination of his heart was only evil all the time” (6:5, 11–12). Cain’s curse was not merely another type of curse or a kind of retelling or reapplication of the curse of the land in chapter three. Rather, it was very specifically an intensification of the tragedy of Genesis 3. While Adam’s sin may have led to the sin of all men, it was clearly not the worst that mankind could or would do, as we see in the very next generation. Even Cain’s sin was not the worst that mankind would do, as Lamech’s boast would show and as Noah’s generation made universal.

Notes

For general works on the concept of curse, see Hans Ulrich Steymans, “Blessing and Curse: Old Testament,” in Religion Past and Present (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 2:126-28; George Scheper, “Cursing,” in Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd ed.; Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005), 3:2097-2108; Herbert Chanan Brichto, The Problem of “Curse” in the Hebrew Bible (Journal of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 13; Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, 1963); Douglas Stuart, “Curse,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1:1218-19.
It would make sense in English only in used temporally. For example, He was cursed from his youth.
Johannes Bartholdy Glenthøj, Cain and Abel in Syriac and Greek Writers (4th– 6th centuries) (Louvain: Peeters, 1997), 178.
Genesis, Volume One: Bereshith, Noach, Lech Lecha, Vayera: Translation of Text, Rashi, and Other Commentaries (trans. A. J. Rosenberg; New York: Judaica Press, 1993), 69.
Ovid R. Sellers, Journal of the American Oriental Society 50 (1930): 336.
Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary of the Book of Genesis (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1978), 219.
E. A. Speiser, “An Angelic ‘Curse’: Exodus 14:20,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 80 (1960): 198-200; idem, Genesis: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 24.
Brichto, The Problem of “Curse” in the Hebrew Bible, 77-117.
Speiser, “An Angelic ‘Curse’,” 198; idem, Genesis, 24.
C. F. Keil, Commentary on the Old Testament (vol. 1, Pentateuch; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996 [Reprinted from Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1866-91]), 1:71
Gerhard von Rad, Genesis (rev. ed.; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), 106. Von Rad very much reflects Gunkel’s earlier interpretation of Genesis as a book of legends. Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (trans. Mark E. Biddle; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997).
Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26 (NAC 1A; Nashville: B&H, 1996), 275.
Terence E. Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible (vol. 1; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 374.
Gordon J Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (WBC 1; Waco: Word, 1987), 107.
Katherine Barnwell and Hanni Kuhn, Translator’s Notes on Genesis 1:1-11:26 (Dallas: SIL International, 2007). These works are important for understanding the significance of explicit and implicit information in any text. While one may not agree with the decisions of the authors, these linguists and translators are often more sensitive to the presence of implicit information than the casual or even the academic reader.
Keil, Commentary on the Old Testament, 1:71.
Cassuto, Genesis, 219.
One notable exception is Speiser’s commentary, which consistently translates the formula arur min as separative. The Common English Bible takes 3:14 in a partitive sense you are the one cursed out of all the farm animals. The 1991 New American Bible translates this passage with a separative understanding of the preposition “you shall be banned from all the animals.” The 2011 revision, however, changed this language to the comparative use.
Cf. Alan J. Hauser, “Linguistic and Thematic Links between Genesis 4:1– 16 and Genesis 2-3,” JETS 23 (1980): 297-305, and Devora Steinmetz, “Vineyard, Farm, and Garden: The Drunkenness of Noah in the Context of Primeval History,” JBL 113 (1994): 193-207. While Hauser points out several interesting links between these passages, he misses completely the connections made in the present work. He does not deal with the meaning of the curse in 4:11 other than to apparently accept uncritically Speiser’s view. Steinmetz extends the links to include the conclusion of the Noah narrative.
Sellers, 336.
In a similar way, Steinmetz implicitly accepts a bifurcated view of the meaning of the prepositional phrase. She accepts both the earth as the means of the curse and also in a separative sense taking Speiser’s understanding of the curse as banishment. “[B]ecause Cain has violated the earth, the earth is the vehicle of Cain’s punishment . . . and this curse constitutes a banishment from upon the earth” (Steinmetz, “Vineyard, Farm, and Garden,” 201).

Sell Your Possessions: Luke 12:33 And The Greco-Roman Utopian Ideal

by Murray Vasser

Asbury Theological Seminary

How can the command, “Sell your possessions and give alms” (Luke 12:33), be reconciled with the fact that many Christians in Luke-Acts maintain significant possessions? In the first section of this essay, I review the various answers to this question which scholars have proposed and argue that none of these answers is entirely satisfactory. In the second section, I draw upon the insights of redaction criticism to demonstrate that Luke has intentionally set Jesus’ command in contrast with the parable of the rich fool, who hoards his superfluous possessions. In the third section, I draw upon the work of Abraham J. Malherbe, who demonstrated that Luke 12 develops a common Greco- Roman topos on the vice of greed. I argue that the extant literature bears witness to a prominent antithesis in first century thought between the vice of greed, expressed through hoarding, and the ideal of equality, expressed through sharing. In the fourth section, I demonstrate that Luke was influenced by this ideal of equality. I conclude that the command to sell possessions in Luke 12:33 should not be understood as a command to relinquish all possessions and embrace poverty, but rather as a command to relinquish all superfluous possessions and embrace equality.

Key Words: Acts, almsgiving, charity, equality, greed, Luke, money, poor, possessions, utopia.

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In a chapter entitled, “In Search of a Christian,” popular author and activist Shane Claiborne considers “what it would look like if we really decided to follow Jesus.” He then describes his own personal quest to find someone who believed “Jesus meant the stuff he said.” Claiborne’s search eventually led him to India, where he encountered a man named Andy.

[Andy] used to be a wealthy businessman in Germany, and then he said he read the gospel and it “messed everything up.” He read the part where Jesus commands the disciples to sell everything they have and give it to the poor (Luke 12:33), and he actually did it. I had met some fundamentalists before, but only “selective fundamentalists,” not folks who took things like that literally. He sold everything he owned and moved to Calcutta, where for over ten years he had spent his life with the poorest of the poor.

Claiborne concludes, “I had gone in search of Christianity. And I had found it. I had finally met a Christian.”[1]

This provocative passage raises an important question. Does being a Christian really require one to “sell everything”? Must Christians part with their cell phones, their computers, their cars, their homes, and their businesses? Of course, such a reading of Luke 12:33 is incompatible with the notion that Christians “have a stewardship responsibility” to “[produce] more than they consume” and contribute to a “flourishing economy” which “lifts people out of poverty.”[2] One must typically own something to engage in value creation and economic exchange. Nevertheless, the observation that absolute divestiture is counter-productive hardly solves the interpretive question. Jesus, after all, was crucified, and there is nothing prudent or practical about the lifestyle encapsulated in the command to pick up a cross and follow (Luke 14:27).[3]

However, the meaning of Luke 12:33 is not as obvious as Claiborne implies, for the reader encounters scores of people in Luke-Acts who respond positively to the message of Jesus and yet do not “sell everything.”[4] This apparent discrepancy has sparked extensive scholarly investigation, but a satisfactory solution which preserves both the unity of Luke-Acts and the radical force of Jesus’ command has not yet been offered. In this essay, I will suggest that the significance of the Greco-Roman utopian ideal has been overlooked in the interpretation of Luke 12:33. Building on the work of Abraham J. Malherbe, as well as the insights of redaction and literary criticism, I will seek to demonstrate that Luke 12:33 is not a command to relinquish all possessions, but rather a command to relinquish all superfluous possessions.[5]

A Brief Survey Of Scholarship

There is widespread agreement that Luke 12:33 is directed to Jesus’ followers in general and cannot be restricted to the twelve or the seventy.[6] Walter E. Pilgrim, who understands Luke 12:33 as “a command to sell all,” affirms that it is for “everyone who would call themselves followers or disciples of Jesus.”[7] Nevertheless, Pilgrim argues that Luke understands this command as “a call limited to Jesus’ time”; now that “Jesus himself is no longer present, a new form of discipleship is called for (cf. Luke 22:35–38).”[8] Therefore, while this command “functions with exemplary force for wealthy Christians in Luke’s day,” the third evangelist does not intend for his readers to actually implement it.[9] Instead, Luke presents Zacchaeus, who is allowed to retain some of his possessions, as the “paradigm par excellence for wealthy Christians in his community.”[10]

However, as Thomas E. Schmidt observes, “If the argument . . . is universal, the inference from it can hardly be otherwise: when is the Rich Fool not a rich fool, or to whom among the little flock is it not the Father’s good pleasure to give the kingdom?”[11] Nothing that Jesus affirms in Luke 12:22–32 changes after the ascension. The command of Luke 12:33 is not predicated on some temporal aspect of Jesus’ earthly mission; it springs from the reality of God’s provision for his people. Furthermore, even if Pilgrim is correct in his assertion that the requirements for discipleship changed radically after the ascension, the story of Zacchaeus is prior to the ascension. Pilgrim affirms that the command in Luke 12:33 was directed to “disciples in the broadest sense of the term”; why then did Jesus not require Zacchaeus to obey it?[12] Furthermore, if Jesus really demanded complete divestiture, why did he share the possessions of his friends (Luke 9:3–5; 10:5–7, 38–42; 24:29–30)? As Luke Timothy Johnson notes, throughout Luke hospitality “is a sign of acceptance and faith,” and yet it obviously requires one to possess “a house, or at least a room.”[13] Schmidt, like Pilgrim, argues that the historical Jesus did indeed demand absolute divestiture. However, instead of suggesting that Jesus only intended this command for his first followers, Schmidt contends that the church simply failed to implement Jesus’ command. He speculates, “Deprived of the powerful and exemplary presence of Jesus himself, disciples were less and less likely to practice dispossession but no less likely to preserve and approve the teaching.” Thus the behavior of the early Church, which Luke describes in Acts, differs “fundamentally in purpose and extent” from the teaching which Luke preserves in passages such as Luke 12:33.[14]

Once again, however, the story of Zacchaeus and the hospitality passages pose a problem for this view. Schmidt argues that, while Zacchaeus retains half of his wealth, he does so “not in order to possess it but in order to make restitution.”[15] The same argument is made by Robert C. Tannehill, who notes that Zacchaeus says nothing “about keeping a portion for himself.”[16] However, while it is reasonable to infer that Zacchaeus would not have remained wealthy after encountering Jesus, nothing in the tax collector’s statement suggests that the restitution he offers will exhaust the remaining half of his fortune and leave him homeless. Furthermore, Schmidt does not explain how his view can be maintained in light of the hospitality passages in Luke.

James A. Metzger offers another suggestion for reconciling Luke 19:8 with complete divestiture. After noting that µου is placed between τὰ ἡµίσια and τῶν ὑπαρχόντων, Metzger suggests that the possessive pronoun modifies τὰ ἡµίσια instead of τῶν ὑπαρχόντων. Thus Zacchaeus is not offering to give half of his possessions, but rather all of his half of the possessions. The other half, Metzger suggests, belongs either to Zacchaeus’ wife or his children or both.[17] This solution is ingenious but untenable. In Luke alone, the pronoun µου often occurs before the noun it modifies.[18] Furthermore, if Zacchaeus really gave away everything, why would Luke not say so? Why preserve the awkward statement, “my half of the possessions,” particularly when Luke provides absolutely no explanation to help his readers understand? Metzger’s harmonization is the sort of strained interpretation that emerges only among scholars pouring over the text; such a complex and non-intuitive reading would never have occurred to Luke’s original audience.

Faced with the difficulty of reconciling the various passages on wealth, Raj Nadella goes beyond Schmidt to propose that discontinuity exists, not simply between Luke and Acts, but within Luke itself. In a monograph entitled, Dialogue not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke, Nadella argues that Luke includes “mutually exclusive” perspectives on wealth and declares “the futility” of any attempt “to arrive at a unitary understanding of Luke’s views on the issue.” According to Nadella, the third Gospel “refuses to let any one perspective dominate the dialogue”; it is “more interested in accommodating disparate perspectives and in subverting a unitary worldview” than in providing “a consistent set of instructions.”[19] Barry Gordon also argues that discontinuity exists throughout Luke-Acts, but instead of portraying Luke as a postmodernist seeking to undermine a “unitary worldview,” Gordon suggests that Luke is simply confused. Luke is unable to resolve the tensions which exist among his own biases against wealth, the Jesus traditions he has inherited, and the realities of the early church.[20]

Few scholars, however, are willing to accept such a fractured view of Luke-Acts, a work whose author evidently possessed considerable literary and theological acumen. Given the numerous passages which indicate that some disciples retained some possessions, many scholars conclude that Luke 12:33 does not require complete divestiture.[21] James R. Edwards suggests, “Luke does not understand Jesus’ teaching literally.”[22] Robert H. Stein likewise argues that while Luke 12:33 is on the surface a command “to sell all one has,” it is “overstatement” or “hyperbole.”[23] However, when Jesus gives an almost identical command to the rich ruler in Luke 18:22, he means it quite literally. Furthermore, Luke states no less than four times that the earliest followers of Jesus literally sold property (Acts 2:45; 4:34–35, 37; 5:1–2). The reader of Luke-Acts is thus led to understand Luke 12:33 as literal.

Johnson, however, argues that while the command may be literal, it is not necessarily mandatory. After asserting that Luke presents the “plainly inconsistent” ideals of “wandering destitution, almsgiving, hospitality, and a community of goods,” Johnson proposes that Luke is not attempting to mandate a particular mode of sharing for all Christians at all times.[24] Instead, the only mandate is that Christians must, “in some fashion, share.”[25] Passages such as Luke 12:33 thus exemplify the ethic required of all disciples, but offer only one of the many ways this ethic may be realized. Sondra Ely Wheeler, citing Johnson, explains further that while Luke 12:33 is a command to sell “all,” Jesus’ commands have “more the character of counsels aimed at achieving an end than of laws requiring obedience.”[26] However, even if Luke 12:33 is “counsel” instead of “law,” should not the counsel of Christ be followed? Furthermore, the reader of Luke-Acts cannot help but suspect that by reducing the radical command, “Sell your possessions,” to the ambiguous cliché, “Share with others,” Johnson has somewhat domesticated Jesus.

A more promising interpretation is offered by Dennis J. Ireland. Based on the literary context, Ireland suggests, “The actions called for in v. 33 are to be understood as the opposite of the rich fool’s actions.”[27] The same point is made by Matthew S. Rindge, who states, “[The command in Luke 12:33] has an important literary function in that it represents a constructive alternative to the rich man’s failure to act in the parable.”[28]

Thus Ireland concludes that the focus “is on charity in contrast to selfishness, not on total renunciation.”[29] However, Ireland’s interpretation remains somewhat ambiguous. While he indicates that Luke 12:33 does not require complete divestiture, he does not specify how much property, if any, disciples are required to sell. Furthermore, while Ireland has noted an important feature of the text, the contrast with the parable of the rich fool hardly proves that Luke 12:33 does not enjoin total renunciation. After all, total renunciation would certainly entail “the opposite of the rich fool’s actions.”

In conclusion, this survey has examined five distinct options for understanding the command to sell possessions in Luke 12:33: (1) the command is not universal—it only applies to some Christians; (2) the command is not consistent—it conflicts with other passages on wealth in Luke/Acts; (3) the command is not literal—it is to be understood as hyperbole; (4) the command is not mandatory—it only exemplifies the proper attitude towards wealth; (5) the command is not absolute—it does not entail complete divestiture. For the reasons discussed above, I find the first four options unsatisfactory. Furthermore, the fifth option requires additional specificity and support, which this essay seeks to provide.

The Literary Context Of Luke 12:33

The connection Ireland observes between the command of Luke 12:33 and the parable of the rich fool provides a helpful starting point for our investigation. This connection was noted as early as Augustine, who aptly observed, “The bellies of the poor were much safer storerooms than [the rich fool’s] barns” (Augustine, Serm. 36.7 [Hill]).[30] Furthermore, several features of the text indicate that Luke intends his readers to make this connection.

First, Luke has apparently composed 12:21 as a bridge to link the parable of the rich fool to the subsequent teachings of Jesus. Most commentators agree that this verse was not part of the original parable in Luke’s source but is rather an “appropriate application” composed by Luke.[31]

“The sense of the parable is complete without it,” and “Jesus leaves most parables open-ended.”[32] Furthermore, the somewhat ambiguous notion of being “rich towards God” (εἰς θεὸν πλουτῶν) appears for the first time in v. 21 and is not explained in the parable. As Joshua A. Noble observes, “There is broad agreement that Luke 12:33 spells out the thought of v. 21 more fully, indicating the concrete practice recommended is almsgiving.”[33] In a recent essay, Noble argues persuasively on the basis of the extant occurrences of πλουτεῖν εἰς + acc that this phrase in Luke 2:21 “should be understood as describing a transfer of wealth to God.”[34] The verb θησαυρίζω also occurs nowhere else in the gospels except in Matthew’s version of the saying recorded in Luke 12:33 (Matt 6:19–20). In Matthew the verb occurs twice, and in Luke 12:33 the noun form appears (θησαυρός). Thus Luke 12:21 functions as a “vorwegnehmende Zusammenfassung” of the instruction in Luke 12:33.[35]

Nevertheless, I. Howard Marshall considers it “unlikely” that Luke composed 12:21 “as a transition to the next section” because “the thought of treasure in heaven is so far away (v. 33).”[36] However, such an objection fails to give enough credit to Luke’s skill in crafting an “orderly account” (1:3). After noting that ancient writers often utilized rough drafts, Craig Keener observes, “The Gospels are . . . undoubtedly polished products of much effort, carefully arranged to communicate their points most adequately.”[37] Note that in chapter 18, Luke inserts the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9–14) before the stories of the children and the ruler, which he has taken from Mark. Thus the “principle of status transposition” expressed in Luke 18:14 provides a framework for reading the two pericopes that follow.[38] In Luke 18:15–17, children who are being dismissed become the standard for status in the kingdom of God, while in 18:18–25, a rich ruler who believes himself to be righteous fails to obtain salvation. Luke also appears to have sharpened this contrast by emphasizing the low status of the children and the high status of the man.

Thus Luke replaces Mark’s παιδία (“children”; Mark 10:13) with βρέφη (“infants”; Luke 18:15) and specifies that the rich “man” (Mark 10:17) was a “ruler” (Luke 18:18). We have no reason, therefore, to doubt that Luke could have composed Luke 12:21 with the material of Luke 12:33 in mind.

In addition to the transition in Luke 12:21, Luke’s redaction of the Q material in 12:33 appears to link Jesus’ teachings on wealth back to his initial warning about greed in Luke 12:15. While Luke 12:22–32 and Matt 6:25–34 are quite similar, Luke 12:33–34 and Matt 6:19–21 differ significantly. Most scholars believe that Matthew’s version reflects the original saying, which Luke has paraphrased with more freedom.[39] First, the vocabulary of Luke 12:33 is Lukan. Luke-Acts accounts for all four occurrences of βαλλάντιον in the NT, ten of the thirteen occurrences of ἐλεηµοσύνη in the NT, and nine of the fourteen occurrences of ὑπάρχω for “possessions” in the NT.[40] Furthermore, Matthew’s version preserves “plus de rythme et de parallélisme sémitique que celui de Luc,” and is thus more likely original.[41] Finally, the command, “Sell your possessions [τῶν ὑπαρχόντων], and give alms,” recalls the warning which opened this section on wealth: “Beware of all covetousness; for a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions [τῶν ὑπαρχόντων].” Thus, in summary, Luke appears to have composed 12:21 and 12:33 in such a way as to connect the material in 12:13–21 with the material in 12:22–34.

Thomas D. Stegman offers an intriguing hypothesis which is worth considering here. Stegman argues that Luke structured 12:13–34 according to the template of a standard classroom exercise for developing a chreia. He suggests the passage contains all eight elements of the template: a note of praise (“teacher”; 12:13), the chreia (12:13–15a), the rationale (12:15b), a statement of the opposite or contrary (12:16–20), a statement from analogy (12:24–28), a statement from example (12:30a; 12:27), a statement by an authority (12:30b–32), and a closing exhortation (12:33).[42] If true, Stegman’s hypothesis would further strengthen the argument that Luke intended 12:33 to be read in contrast to the behavior of the rich fool. However, the hypothesis is not entirely convincing. As Stegman acknowledges, Luke is not composing; he is assembling pre-existing traditions. Furthermore, while the progymnastic exercise produces a speech about the words of a teacher, Luke is actually writing in the voice of the teacher. Finally, while interesting, the parallels Stegman suggests seem somewhat stretched. In addition to the conflated “statement from example” and “statement by an authority,” the “note of praise” and “rationale” proposed by Stegman are significantly shorter than any attested in Ronald Hock and Edward O’Neil’s collection, which Stegman utilizes.[43] Stegman’s argument would be greatly strengthened if one could find other occurrences in Luke of this same template, but I find none. Nevertheless, Stegman’s observations serve to emphasize the thematic unity of Luke 12:13–34; regardless of whether or not Luke was following a fixed template, Luke 12:33–34 provides a fitting conclusion to the discourse.

In conclusion, the findings of redaction and literary criticism indicate that the command in Luke 12:33 is a paraphrase of Jesus’ teaching which Luke has deliberately placed in contrast with the behavior of the rich fool. Nevertheless, we are still left with the question of how the command in Luke 12:33 is to be understood. In Luke 18:22, Jesus gives an almost identical command to the rich ruler. The wording is so similar that some scholars believe this command shaped Luke’s paraphrase in 12:33.[44] While Luke 12:33 may be ambiguous, in Luke 18:22 Jesus clearly commands complete divestiture, and Luke emphasizes this point by altering the command from ὅσα ἔχεις πώλησον (Mark 10:21) to πάντα ὅσα ἔχεις πώλησον. Furthermore, the command to relinquish “all” occurs also in 14:33. Nevertheless, in Acts 2:44–47 and 4:32–37, Luke describes the disciples selling only a portion of their possessions and sharing the rest.[45] The question under consideration in this essay can thus be framed as follows: should the command to sell possessions in Luke 12:33 be interpreted in light of the absolute divestiture commanded in Luke 18:22 or in light of the partial divestiture described in the early chapters of Acts? To answer this question, we turn now to the Greco-Roman context of Luke-Acts.

The Antithesis Between Greed And Equality In Ancient Thought

In a 1996 essay entitled, “The Christianization of a Topos,” Malherbe compares Luke 12:13–34 with the oration, “On Covetousness,” by Dio Chrysostom. He concludes that the “entire text” of Luke 12:13–34, which opens with a warning against πλεονεξία (Luke 12:15), is “shot through with items” from the common Greco-Roman topos on the vice.[46] Along with other parallels, he demonstrates that the depiction of the rich fool in Luke matches “the typical self-centered, acquisitive covetous man given to gathering superfluities” discussed by the philosophers.[47] Mahlerbe’s stated focus, however, is on the “personal dimension” of πλεονεξία, not the “social dimension.” He briefly notes that Dio sketches “the antithesis between covetousness and equality,” but Malherbe does not discuss how prevalent this antithesis was in ancient thought or how this antithesis might contribute to the interpretation of Luke 12:33.[48] In this essay, I will build on Malherbe’s work by exploring this antithesis and its relevance to the command in Luke 12:33.

Note first that by πλεονεξία, Dio does not mean the desire of a poor person to gain equality with a rich person; for Dio, covetousness is the desire of one “to have more than his neighbor” (Avar. 20 [Cohoon; LCL]). Thus Dio laments, “Not one man refrains from [covetousness] or is willing to have equality of possessions with his neighbour.” He then quotes an excerpt from the ancient poet Euripides: “At greed [πλεονεξία], the worst of deities, my son, Why graspest thou? . . . Thou art mad for her!— ’tis best to venerate Equality” (6–9).[49] Like Dio, Philo also contrasts πλεονεξία and equality, presenting the words as near antonyms: “Our mind should change from ignorance and stupidity to education and wisdom, and from intemperance and dissoluteness to patience and moderation, and from fear and cowardice to courage and confidence, and from avarice [πλεονεξία] and injustice to justice and equality” (QE 1.4 [Marcus, LCL]).[50]

This antithesis between covetousness and equality is pervasive in Greco-Roman utopian thought. Seneca describes a time when “the bounties of nature lay open to all, for men’s indiscriminate use, before avarice and luxury had broken the bonds which held mortals together, and they, abandoning their common existence, had separated and turned to plunder.” All “was divided among unquarrelling friends. . . . Not yet had the miser, by hiding away what lay before him, begun to shut off his neighbor from even the necessities of life; each cared as much for his neighbor as himself.” In the absence of greed, “armor lay unused,” and hands were “unstained by human blood.” This time of peace and abundance came to an end, however, when “luxury began to lust for what nature regarded as superfluous,” and “avarice broke in upon a condition so happily ordained, and, by its eagerness to lay something away and to turn it to its own private use, made all things the property of others” (Ep. 90.19, 36–41 [Gummere, LCL]).[51]

The mythical era described by Seneca is referred to as the “golden age” and associated with the reign of the Roman god Saturn or the Greek equivalent Cronus. Ancient writers routinely described this age as a time of peace and plenty, in which humankind enjoyed the bounty of the good earth in simplicity and complete equality.[52] This golden age was also remembered every December in the immensely popular Saturnalia festival, which Plutarch identifies as the “greatest festival” of the Romans (Plutarch, Quaest. rom. 34 [Babbitt, LCL]).[53]

One of the most notable features of the Saturnalia was the temporary liberty permitted slaves to dine with their masters and speak their opinions openly.[54] Pompeius Trogus explains that during Saturn’s rule slavery did not exist. Instead, “everything was held in common, undivided, as if all men shared a single family estate.” Thus during Saturnalia, slaves are permitted “to recline with their masters” at dinner, “all enjoying a position of equality” (Justinus, Epitome 43.1.3–4 [Yardley]).[55] Plutarch likewise notes that this custom was understood by some as “a reminder of the equality which characterized the famous Saturnian age, when there was neither slave nor master, but all were regarded as kinsmen and equals” (Comp. Lyc. Num. 1.5 [Perrin, LCL]).[56]

In a satirical dialogue between the god Cronus and Lucian, Cronus explains that, although Zeus normally rules, he “thought it best” for a few days every December to “take over the sovereignty again to remind mankind what life was like under me.”[57] This, Cronus explains, is why Saturnalia is a time of rejoicing and merrymaking, and furthermore, why “everyone, slave and free man, is held as good as his neighbor” (Sat. 7 [Kilburn, LCL]). Lucian then complains that, despite the god’s intentions, the festivities do not actually realize the fabled equality of Cronus’ reign. He states, “[It is] most unreasonable for some of us to have too much wealth and live in luxury and not share what they have with those who are poorer than they while others are dying of hunger. . . . I hear the poets saying that things were not like that in old times.” Lucian suggests that, instead of having a few days of silly frivolity, Cronus should abolish the current “inequality” and make “the good things accessible to everyone” (19). Specifically, Lucian suggests that Cronus should compel the rich to reach into “their bushels of gold” and “throw down a measure for us all” (21).

In addition to the annual celebration in December, certain institutions in the Roman economy stood as reminders of the golden age. In his Roman Questions, Plutarch offers the following explanation for why the Temple of Saturn was used as the public treasury: “When Saturn was king there was no greed [πλεονεξία] or injustice among men, but good faith and justice” (42 [Babbitt, LCL]). Macrobius offers a similar explanation:

The Romans wanted the temple of Saturn to be the treasury, because it is said that when he dwelt in Italy no theft was committed in his territory, or else because in his reign no one held private property . . . . Hence the money belonging in common to the people was placed in his temple, because under his rule all men had all things in common. (Saturnalia 1.8.3 [Kaster, LCL])

In the same passage cited above, Plutarch also explains that Saturn’s rule was characterized by “abundant harvests”; thus the market-day, held every eight days, was “considered sacred to Saturn.”

The golden age also featured prominently in political propaganda and critique. One poet extolled the justice, peace, and abundance of Nero’s early reign by insisting, “The days of Saturn have returned” (Einsiedeln Eclogues 2.23–34 [Duff, LCL]).[58] On the other hand, Suetonius mentions a far less satisfied poet who, after lambasting Tiberius as a “cruel and merciless man,” states, “You, O Caesar, have altered the golden ages of Saturn; for while you are alive, they will always be iron” (Tib. 59 [Rolfe, LCL]). Plutarch writes of the Athenian statesman Cimon, “He made his home in the city a general public residence for his fellow citizens, and on his estates in the country allowed even the stranger to take and use the choicest of the ripened fruits . . . Thus, in a certain fashion, he restored to human life the fabled communism [κοινωνίαν] of the age of Cronus” (Cim. 10 [Perrin, LCL]). Philo also references the golden age in evaluating the early reign of Caligula. While describing the equality and prosperity which characterized the time, Philo exclaims, “Indeed, the life under Saturn, pictured by the poets, no longer appeared to be a fabled story” (Embassy 2 [Colson, LCL]).

Philo’s familiarity with the utopian ideal is evident throughout his works, particularly in his description of the Essenes.[59] Philo states that the kinship all people naturally share “has been put to confusion by the triumph of malignant covetousness [πλεονεξία], which has wrought estrangement instead of affinity and enmity instead of friendship.” The Essenes, however, have been able to reclaim this kinship by ridding themselves of all “inducements to covetousness [πλεονεξία],” for they “do not hoard gold and silver or acquire great slices of land” (Good Person 76–79 [Colson, LCL]). In fact, they do not “have any private property.” Instead, “they put everything together into the public stock and enjoy the benefit of them all in common.” As a result, while they live frugally without luxury, they have “food in abundance” (Hypothetica 11.4–11 [Colson, LCL]). In language far more reminiscent of Seneca’s ninetieth epistle than the War Scroll (1QM), Philo states, “As for darts, javelins, daggers, or the helmet, breastplate or shield, you could not find a single manufacturer of them, nor, in general, any person making weapons or engines or plying any industry concerned with war” (Good Person 77–78). Josephus also, in describing the Essenes, emphasizes elements which are reminiscent of the golden age. He states that they owned no slaves, devoted themselves “solely to agricultural labor,” and held their possessions in common (Ant. 18.5 [Feldman, LCL]).

In conclusion, the antithesis between greed and equality which Malherbe notes in Dio Chrysostom’s discourse is a common theme in Greco- Roman utopian thought. Of course, discussions of the golden age do not always include this theme. For example, while in Saturnalia Lucian discusses the golden age as a time of sharing instead of hoarding (see above), in another reference to the golden age he simply mentions that crops grew of their own accord, without the need of manual labor.[60] Nevertheless, while Greco-Roman utopian thought certainly includes other elements, the antithesis between greed and equality remains an important component. We turn now to consider the extent to which Greco-Roman utopian conceptions influenced Luke.

Luke And The Golden Age

In Acts 2:44–47 and 4:32–37, Luke describes the community life of the first Christians, stating that they held their possessions in common. As Richard I. Pervo notes, “Similarities in theme and diction between [these passages] and Greco-Roman utopian thought are widely recognized.”[61] Johnson also points to OT echoes in these passages and rightly cautions against the assumption that Luke “is simply portraying the Christian community as a philosophic school”; nevertheless, he still agrees that the Hellenistic utopian ideal influenced Luke’s depiction.[62] Given the prominence of the golden age in Greco-Roman literature, when writers such as Philo, Josephus, and Luke “were commending the customs and practices of their religion to those for whom they wrote in Greek, it is only to be expected that they should portray members of a close knit Jewish sect as fulfilling some of the Greek Utopian ideals.”[63]

Furthermore, in addition to the widely noted connections between the Greco-Roman utopian ideal and Luke’s language of communal sharing, Acts 2:46 contains another echo of the golden age which has been overlooked. In this verse, Luke states that the Christians ate their meals together ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει καὶ ἀφελότητι καρδίας. The word ἀφελότης, which is quite rare, occurs nowhere else in the NT or LXX. Modern translations offer a wide range of interpretations including “generosity” (ESV, NRSV, NJB), “sincerity” (NASB, NIV), and “humbleness” (NET, HCSB). However, the standard reference works, including BDAG, PGL, LSJ, and MM, all agree that ἀφελότης means “simplicity,” citing its usage in the extant Greek literature.[64] C. K. Barrett also notes that the Vulgate translates ἀφελότης with simplicitas.[65] To this we should add that the Syriac Peshitta renders ἀφελότης with the word , which also means “simplicity.”[66]

Nevertheless, despite this unanimous evidence, commentators routinely point to the phrase ἐν ἁπλότητι καρδίας (Eph 6:5, Col 3:22) and allow the NT usage of the more common term ἁπλότης to dictate their interpretation of ἀφελότης (note especially Rom 12:8; 2 Cor 8:2; 9:11, 13).[67] Ernst Haenchen asserts that in Acts 2:46, “The more sonorous ἐν ἀφελότητι καρδίας stands for the more usual ἐν ἁπλότητι καρδίας. Elsewhere too, Luke preferred longer to shorter expressions, even when they were not fully synonymous with what was meant.”[68] However, the notion that ἀφελότητι is “more sonorous” than ἁπλότητι is rather subjective, and Haenchen offers no evidence to support his claim that Luke prefers length to precision. In any case, we are simply not justified in adopting entirely unattested meanings of ἀφελότης on the basis of the usage of a different word by different authors in different contexts. The word ἀφελότης means “simplicity,” and unless we have decisive contextual evidence that such a meaning is impossible in Acts 2:46, we must assume that Luke meant what he said. Moreover, the statement, “They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart” (NKJV), makes perfect sense in the context of Acts 2. As noted above, one of the most common elements in descriptions of the golden age is simplicity. Writers envision a time when humankind dwelt together in harmony, eschewing all luxury and enjoying the simple but abundant blessings of the good earth. Thus we have no need to invent arbitrary translations such as “generosity of heart” to make sense of Luke’s language.

A final point must be made here. Since Luke draws upon the ideal of a bygone utopian age, Eckhard Plümacher asserts that he is using “ein erbauliches Schema der antiken Literatur” to describe the “unwiederholbaren Anfängen der Kirche.” He suggests that Luke “schildert sozusagen das Saturnische Zeitalter der Kirche.”[69] Likewise, Johnson states, “A Hellenistic reader would recognize in Luke’s description the sort of ‘foundation story’ that was rather widespread in Hellenistic literature.”[70] From this Johnson concludes, “Luke is making a statement about ‘how things were in the primordial beginning’ . . . Luke is not proposing this picture as a concrete example to be imitated.”[71]

However, the fact that Luke echoes descriptions of a bygone utopian era does not mean that he considers the situation of Acts 2 and 4 to be “unwiederholbaren.” As noted above, Philo echoes descriptions of the golden age in his account of the Essenes, but he is obviously not providing a “foundation story.” Moreover, the so-called “unwiederholbaren Anfängen” described by Luke evidently continued long after Pentecost. The Didache, an early compendium of basic Christian teaching for new converts, states, “You shall not turn away from someone in need, but shall share everything with your brother and not claim that anything is your own” (4.8 [Holmes]).[72] In an apology to pagans, Justin Martyr confesses, “We who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to every one in need.”[73] Tertullian likewise claims, “We . . . have no hesitation about sharing property. All is common among us—except our wives” (Apol. 11–12 [Glover, LCL]). If such statements did not contain at least some truth, they would hardly make for effective apologies. Furthermore, Lucian, a quite hostile source, describes the Christians as follows: “Their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another . . . Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property” (Peregr.13 [Harmon, LCL]).[74] Note also that in 2 Cor 8:13–15, Paul calls for “equality” among believers.

Johnson argues that many passages in Luke-Acts assume private property, and he is certainly correct. He is mistaken, however, to conclude from this fact that the behavior described in Acts 2 and 4 is not presented by Luke as the normative behavior of the church.[75] The early Christians simply saw no contradiction between the notion of private property and the confession that they held all things in common. Immediately before stating, “All is common among us,” Tertullian describes the church’s collection for the poor: “Every man once a month brings some modest coin—or whenever he wishes, and only if he does wish, and if he can; for nobody is compelled; it is a voluntary offering” (Apol. 5). Justin, after explaining that Christians “bring what we have into a common stock,” explains the weekly collection for the poor as follows: “They who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit.”[76] The Didache, after forbidding converts to claim anything as “your own,” prescribes giving an amount which “seems right to you” (13.8).

In summary, Luke is evidently familiar with the mythic golden age in which humankind shared their possessions equally instead of greedily hoarding them. Furthermore, Luke knows his readers are also familiar with the golden age and thus describes the behavior of the disciples in Acts with language which echoes this ideal.

Conclusion

This study attempted to answer the following question: should the command to sell possessions in Luke 12:33 be interpreted in light of the absolute divestiture commanded in Luke 18:22 or in light of the partial divestiture described in the early chapters of Acts? Our findings may be summarized as follows:

The extant literature bears witness to a prominent antithesis in first century thought between the vice of greed, expressed through hoarding possessions, and the ideal of equality, expressed through sharing possessions.
Luke’s depiction of the church in Acts 2:44–47 and 4:32–37 was influenced by this ideal of equality. The life envisioned here is not a life of poverty, but a life of simplicity and sufficiency.
In Luke’s paraphrase of the Q material in Luke 12:33, the same language used in Acts to describe the ideal of equality is deliberately set in contrast with material which exemplifies the vice of greed (Luke 12:15–21).

The command, “Sell your possessions,” in Luke 12:33 should therefore be understood to prohibit hoarding, not mandate poverty.[77]

What then of Jesus’ words in Luke 14:33 and 18:22? First, the fact that Luke explicitly specifies “all” in these passages makes the absence of “all” in Luke 12:33 rather striking.[78] Furthermore, the inclusion of “all” in Luke 14:33 and 18:22 is easily explained. Consider the context of Luke 14:33 where Jesus says, “Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple,” only after saying, “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Jesus’ words are shocking, but the point is obvious: allegiance to Jesus must trump everything else (see Matt 10:37). No sensible reader walks away from Luke-Acts thinking that Jesus literally requires her to hate her children. While all disciples must be willing to break with family for the sake of Jesus, not all are required to actually do so, for some have family members who also love Jesus. In the same way, while Luke 14:33 clearly requires all disciples to be willing to sell everything, there is no reason to conclude from this text that all disciples are actually called to sell everything. Just as the reader knows that Peter did not hate his mother-in-law (Luke 4:38), the reader also knows that Zacchaeus did not give everything away.

Secondly, consider the context of Luke 18:22. In this passage, the rich man, like Levi (Luke 5:27–28), is called to drop everything and follow Jesus full-time. This same call is simply not given to other characters in Luke, such as Zacchaeus. Ben Witherington argues, “For Luke, Jesus’s specific teaching to the rich young ruler is broadened and applied to Jesus’s followers in general. Accordingly, we must assume that Luke did not think that Jesus’s advice to the rich young ruler was a special or exceptional case.”[79] This is certainly correct, but Luke 12:33 shows us precisely how the command is “broadened and applied.” The injunction which applies to all Christians is this: sell your superfluous possessions. For those like Zacchaeus who are called to be honest businesspersons, only some possessions may be superfluous. On the other hand, for those like Levi called to be itinerant evangelists, all possessions may be superfluous. Each reader of Luke-Acts who seeks to follow Christ must discern which of her own possessions are necessary for her calling and which are superfluous.

In summary, this study sought a satisfactory interpretation of Luke 12:33 which preserves both the unity of Luke-Acts and the radical force of Jesus’ command. By attending to the Greco-Roman context of Luke- Acts, as well as the literary context of Luke 12:33, I have argued that the command, πωλήσατε τὰ ὑπάρχοντα ὑµῶν, should be read as a command to sell superfluous possessions. Thus Luke 12:33 is not inconsistent with other passages in Luke-Acts, for it does not forbid disciples to own property and conduct business. Furthermore, the command cannot be dismissed as hyperbole. According to Luke, Jesus really does forbid all who would follow him from retaining superfluous possessions. He really does command that such possessions be sold and the money given to the poor. Affluent Christians living in a world of poverty cannot ignore these words.

Notes

Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 71-77.
Economic Wisdom Project, “A Christian Vision for Flourishing Communities,” 9 (http://oikonomianetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/ 02/Economic-Wisdom-Project-10-2014-small.pdf).
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the RSV.
See Luke 9:4; 10:5-7, 38; 19:8; 24:29-30; Acts 2:2, 44, 46; 4:32; 8:3; 9:39; 10:6; 11:29; 12:12; 16:15, 34; 17:5; 18:7; 20:7-8; 21:8, 16.
Abraham J. Malherbe, “The Christianization of a Topos (Luke 12:13-34),” NovT 38.2 (1996): 123-35.
So Walter E. Pilgrim, Good News to the Poor: Wealth and Poverty in Luke-Acts (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1981), 98-99; Robert H. Stein, Studying the Synoptic Gospels: Origin and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 90-91; Thomas E. Schmidt, Hostility to Wealth in the Synoptic Gospels (Sheffield: JSOT, 1987), 135-36; Christopher M. Hays, Luke’s Wealth Ethics: A Study in Their Coherence and Character (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 3-4; Thomas E. Phillips, Reading Issues of Wealth and Poverty in Luke-Acts (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2001), 16-18; Kyoung-Jin Kim, Stewardship and Almsgiving in Luke’s Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield, 1998), 14– 17.
Pilgrim, Good News to the Poor, 94.
Ibid., 123, 101.
Ibid., 123.
Ibid., 129.
Schmidt, Hostility to Wealth, 36.
Pilgrim, Good News to the Poor, 49.
Luke Timothy Johnson, Sharing Possessions: Mandate and Symbol of Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 20.
Schmidt, Hostility to Wealth, 165-66.
Ibid., 159.
Robert C. Tannehill, “The Story of Zacchaeus as Rhetoric: Luke 19:1-10,” Semeia 64 (1993): 203. So also Hays, Luke’s Wealth Ethics, 178.
James A. Metzger, Consumption and Wealth in Luke’s Travel Narrative (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 175-76.
See 6:47; 7:44, 45; 10:29; 12:18; 14:23, 24, 26, 27, 33; 19:23.
Raj Nadella, Dialogue Not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 109-10.
Barry Gordon, The Economic Problem in Biblical and Patristic Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 67-70.
So Johnson, Sharing Possessions, 18; Hays, Luke’s Wealth Ethics, 129; Kim, Stewardship and Almsgiving in Luke’s Theology, 24; Robert H. Stein, Luke (NAC 24; Nashville: Broadman, 1992), 52-54; François Bovon, Luke 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 9:51–19:27 (ed. Helmut Koester; trans. Donald S. Deer; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 222; James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Luke (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 377.
Edwards, Luke, 377.
Stein, Studying the Synoptic Gospels, 97.
Johnson, Sharing Possessions, 22-23.
Ibid., 108.
Sondra Ely Wheeler, Wealth as Peril and Obligation: The New Testament on Possessions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 70.
Dennis J. Ireland, Stewardship and the Kingdom of God: An Historical, Exegetical, and Contextual Study of the Parable of the Unjust Steward in Luke 16:1-13 (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 182.
Matthew S. Rindge, Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Fool: Luke 12:13-34 among Ancient Conversations on Death and Possessions (Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 190. Noland also observes that the command in Luke 12:33 is “in contrast to the rich man’s strategy” (John Nolland, Luke [WBC 35; Dallas: Word, 1989], 694).
Ireland, Stewardship and the Kingdom of God, 182. Similar observations are made by Craig Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 131-32.
This passage was brought to my attention by Edwards, Luke, 372.
Nolland, Luke, 684. So also Edwards, Luke, 372; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke (AB 28; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 971; Bovon, Luke 2, 204; Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, Glaube Und Handeln in der Theologie des Lukas (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 64-65.
Fitzmyer, Luke, 971; Edwards, Luke, 372.
Joshua A. Noble, “‘Rich Toward God’: Making Sense of Luke 12:21,” CBQ 78.2 (2016): 315.
Ibid., 319.
Horn, Glaube Und Handeln in der Theologie des Lukas, 65.
I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 524.
Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 74.
Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 653.
So Fitzmyer, Luke, 981; Bovon, Luke 2, 213; Léopold Sabourin, L’Évangile de Luc: Introduction et commentaire (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1985), 251; Horn, Glaube Und Handeln in der Theologie des Lukas, 67; Roman Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving in Early Christianity (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 65.
The word βαλλάντιον occurs in Luke 10:4; 12:33; 22:35, 36. The word ἐλεηµοσύνη occurs in Matt 6:2, 3, 4; Luke 11:41; 12:33; Acts 3:2, 3, 10; 9:36; 10:2, 4, 31; 24:17. The word ὑπάρχω as “possessions” occurs in Matt 19:21; 24:47; 25:14; Luke 8:3; 11:21; 12:15, 33, 44; 14:33; 16:1; 19:8; Acts 4:32; 1 Cor 13:3; Heb 10:34.
Sabourin, L’Évangile de Luc, 251. The same argument is made by François Bovon: “[Matthew] preserves the Semitic antithetical parallel of Q, while Luke adapts the text to his language and his theology” (Luke 2, 213). However, the “almost perfectly symmetrical parallelism of Matt 6:19-20” makes Stephen Johnson suspicious that Matthew, as well as Luke, has modified the original saying (Steven R. Johnson, Seeking the Imperishable Treasure: Wealth, Wisdom, and a Jesus Saying [Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2008], 36-37).
Thomas D. Stegman, “Reading Luke 12:13-34 as an Elaboration of a Chreia: How Hermogenes of Tarsus Sheds Light on Luke’s Gospel,” NovT 49.4 (2007): 328-52.
Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises (Atlanta: SBL, 2002).
So Sabourin, L’Évangile de Luc, 213; Johnson, Seeking the Imperishable Treasure, 33.
The following passages reveal that the Jerusalem disciples retained possessions: Acts 2:44, 46; 4:32; 8:3; 12:12.
Malherbe, “The Christianization of a Topos,” 124.
Ibid., 132.
Ibid., 125-26.
The original text of Euripides reads “ambition” (φιλοτιµία) instead of “greed,” but the context indicates that Dio’s paraphrase is warranted. In the poem, Jocasta is urging her son Eteocles to give up his attempt to take away his brother’s rightful portion. Immediately following the lines quoted by Dio, Jocasta notes that the daylight and the nighttime share the year equally without feeling “envy” (Euripides, Phoenician Women 531-48 [Kovacs, LCL]).
See also Philo, QE 2.64; Plutarch, Lyc. 24; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 9.12; Menander, Mon. 259.
This passage was brought to my attention by Pieter W. van der Horst, “Hellenistic Parallels to the Acts of the Apostles 2:1-47,” JSNT 25 (1985): 60.
See Hesiod, Works and Days 109-26; Plato, Pol. 272; Aelian, Letters 17; Aratus, Phaen. 108-14; [Seneca], Octavia 391-406; Fronto, Eulogy of Negligence 3; Virgil, Eclogues 4.6; etc.
As the celebration drew near, Seneca noted that all of Rome was “in a sweat” (Ep. 18.1 [Gummere, LCL]), and when the festivities began, Pliny the Younger was forced to retreat into another room to continue his work, for “the roof resounds with festive cries” (Ep. 17.24 [Radice, LCL]).
See Ausonius, Eclogues 23.15-16; Horace, Sat. 2.7.4-5; Dio Cassius, Roman History 60.19; Seneca, Ep. 47.10-16; Lucian, Sat. 5; Tertullian, Idol. 10.
This passage was brought to my attention by van der Horst, “Hellenistic Parallels,” 60.
Macrobius also states that in the golden age of Saturn, “The distinction between slavery and freedom did not yet exist, as is made plain by the fact that slaves are allowed complete license during the Saturnalia” (Saturnalia 1.7.26 [Kaster, LCL]).
This passage was brought to my attention by van der Horst, “Hellenistic Parallels,” 60.
Another poet wrote, “Amid untroubled peace, the Golden Age springs to a second birth” (Calpurnius Siculus, Eclogue 1.42). Translators J. Wright Duff and Arnold M. Duff present evidence that both poems were composed in praise of Nero. Minor Latin Poets Volume I (LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934), 211, 319.
Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (4 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 1:1027; David L. Mealand, “Community of Goods and Utopian Allusions in Acts II–IV,” JTS (1977): 98-99. See also Philo, Posterity 1.116-19; Moses 1.313, 324.
Lucian, Rhet. praec. 8.
Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 90. See also Martin Hengel, Property and Riches in the Early Church: Aspects of a Social History of Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 8-9; Mealand, “Community of Goods.”
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Literary Function of Possessions in Luke-Acts (Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977), 200; Johnson, Sharing Possessions, 119.
Mealand, “Community of Goods,” 98.
W. Bauer, “ἀφελότης,” BDAG 155; H. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. Jones, “ἀφελότης,” LSJ 288; G. Lampe, “ἀφελότης,” PGL 274; J. Moulton and Milligan, “ἀφελότης,” MM 95-96.
C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (ICC; (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 171.
Michael Sokoloff, “,” A Syriac Lexicon: A Translation from the Latin, Correction, Expansion, and Update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 189.
F. F. Bruce, The Book of the Acts (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 74; David Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 164; Hans Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (trans. James Limburg, A. Thomas Kraabel, and Donald H. Juel; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 24; Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (trans. Bernard Noble and Gerald Shinn; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 192; Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, 59.
Haenchen, Acts, 192. The same suggestion is made in Conzelmann, Acts, 24.
Eckhard Plümacher, Lukas als hellenistischer Schriftsteller: Studien zur Apostel- geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972), 18.
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (SP 5; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1992), 62.
Johnson, Sharing Possessions, 128-29.
Michael William Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 246.
Justin, 1 Apol. 14 (ANF 1:167).
The passages from Justin, Tertullian, and Lucian were brought to my attention by Keener, Acts, 1028.
Johnson, Sharing Possessions, 129. See also ibid., 22.
Justin, 1 Apol. 67 (ANF 1:186).
Compare with Pss. Sol. 5:16 (“If a man has too much, he sins” [Atkinson, NETS]), and Tobit 4:16 (“Give all your surplus to charity”). Note also that 1 Enoch 97:8-10 provides a close parallel with Luke 12:16-21, though in 1 Enoch, the emphasis is on the unjust acquisition of wealth.
So Hays, Luke’s Wealth Ethics, 129; Ireland, Stewardship and the Kingdom of God, 182-83; David P. Seccombe, Possessions and the Poor in Luke-Acts (Linz, Austria: A. Fuchs, 1983), 153.
Ben Witherington, Jesus and Money: A Guide for Times of Financial Crisis (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2010), 94.

“Out Of Egypt I Called My Son”: Intertextuality And Metalepsis In Matthew 2:15

by Charles L. Quarles

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Matthew rightly interpreted Hos 11:1 as a reference to the historic exodus that anticipated an eschatological exodus led by the Messiah. Matthew was attentive to the fact that Hosea repeatedly used the image of the Egyptian bondage to portray Israel’s Assyrian exile and thus utilized the image of the exodus to portray Israel’s restoration (Hos 2:14–15; 8:13; 9:6; 11:5). Like his Jewish contemporaries, Matthew recognized that the Messiah would fulfill the prophecy regarding the coming of a prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15–19) and thus would lead God’s people on the promised new exodus from this continuing exile. Matthew quoted Hos 11:1 because he saw Jesus’ return from Egypt as signaling the beginning of this new exodus.

Key Words: Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15; new Exodus; new Moses; NT use of the OT

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Martin Pickup referred to Matt 2:15 as the passage “that many Bible believers regard as the most troubling case” of the NT use of the OT.[1] The text is such an important test case for hermeneutical theories that one recent book on hermeneutics required each contributor to offer an interpretation of Matt 2:7–15 and explain this specific verse.[2]

Four major views of Matthew’s use of Hosea exist. Each of these has multiple variations and scholars often combine multiple approaches. The atomistic interpretation view claims that Matthew was attracted to the text simply because it mentioned the departure of a divine son from Egypt. Matthew either misunderstood or was completely disinterested in the original sense of the text. Although some scholars see Matthew’s atomistic interpretation as faulty, others argue that Matthew’s approach was legitimate for the period since it was consistent with midrashic interpretation.[3]

The recapitulation of Israel view sees Matthew’s use of Hos 11:1 as prompted by the notion of the Messiah’s corporate identification with Israel that results in him reliving major events in Israel’s history.[4] Thus Matthew applied Hos 11:1 to the Messiah on the basis of an “Israel typology.”[5]

The Messianic prophecy view (championed by Barnabas Lindars) suggests that Matthew identified the Messiah as the “son” of Hos 11:1 under the influence of a messianic interpretation of Num 24:7–9 suggested by the LXX.6 Lindars suggested that Matthew interpreted Hos 11:1 against the background of the similar statement in Balaam’s oracle and concluded that Hosea referred to the Messiah. Matthean scholars David Hill and Dale Allison and Old Testament scholar John Sailhamer have adopted, to one degree or another, the view suggested by Lindars.[7]

An often-neglected proposal is the biblical-theological interpretation defended most ably by Greg Beale. Beale persuasively argued that “Matthew is interpreting Hos 11:1 in the light of its relation to the entire chapter in which it is found and in the light of the entire book, and that his approach does, indeed, verge upon a grammatical-historical approach combined with a biblical-theological methodology.”[8] Beale’s argument included several essential elements. First, Hos 11:1–11 focused on Israel’s future eschatological restoration that is described as a return from “Egypt.” Hosea 11:1 referred to Israel’s historic exodus. However, 11:10–11 referred to an eschatological exodus in which Israel would be delivered from exile and restored. Hosea intended to highlight the correspondence between the historic exodus and this eschatological exodus.[9] Second, Israel’s deliverance from Egypt would be led by an individual king (Hos 3:5) who is identified in 1:10–11 as the “head” (רֹאשׁ) of the “sons of the living God.” This introduces the concept of corporate headship. Furthermore, Hosea 11 alludes to Numbers 23 and 24 in which the Balaam oracles refer to both the exodus of Israel (23:24) and the exodus of Israel’s king (24:9), thus applying corporate language to the individual. Beale further suggests that the description of Jesus as the “son of the living God” in Matt 16:16 may be an allusion to the description of Israel as the “sons of the living God” in Hos 1:10 “by which Jesus is seen as the individual kingly son leading the sons of Israel, whom he represents.”[10] He added: “Such an identification of this individual son with the corporate sons is likely the reason that Matt 2:15 applies the corporate ‘son’ reference of Hos 11:1 to the individual Jesus.”[11] Beale concluded: “Jesus’ journey out of Egypt is identified as Israel’s eschatological exodus out of Egypt to which Israel’s first exodus out of Egypt pointed.”[12]

The view that Matthew recognized Hosea was referring to an eschatological exodus of Israel has been argued by recent commentators such as Craig Keener and older commentators like Strack and Billerbeck.[13] Recent studies in intertextuality have bolstered this interpretation. Scholars such as Richard Hayes have argued that New Testament allusions or citations of the Old Testament involve metalepsis, “a literary technique of citing or echoing a small bit of a precursor text in such a way that the reader can grasp the significance of the echo only by recalling or recovering the original context from which the fragmentary echo came and then reading the two texts in dialogical juxtaposition.”[14] In Matthew’s metalepsis, he expects the reader to recall that Hosea’s description of the historic exodus was the prelude to the promise of a second eschatological exodus. Other texts in Hosea demonstrate that this exodus would be led by a Davidic Messiah and prophet like Moses.

The rest of this essay will explore evidence supporting the “biblical- theological” interpretation.[15] First, the essay will argue that expectation of a second exodus is prominent in the Old Testament and it is not surprising that Matthew would be aware of this theme. The threat of a second Egyptian captivity and promise of a second exodus was part of the fabric of the Deuteronomic covenant. Later, the Old Testament prophets Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah further developed the new exodus motif.

Second, the essay will argue that Matthew’s use of Hos 11:1 to refer to an eschatological exodus led by the Messiah suits well his historical and cultural context. Under the influence of the Law and the Prophets, the correspondence between Moses and the exodus on the one hand and the

Messiah and eschatological deliverance on the other hand became an important element of rabbinic eschatology. Furthermore, several features of the messianic movements described by Josephus and characteristics of the Jewish sect in Qumran show that the expectation of participating in an eschatological exodus led by a redeemer like Moses was a prominent trait of popular Judaism in the first century.

Third, the essay will argue that the biblical-theological interpretation fits Matthew’s literary context exceptionally well. The understanding of the quotation of Hos 11:1 as part of the promise of the new Moses and eschatological exodus coheres with the emphases of Matthew 2 in which the stress is on Jesus’ identity as the prophet like Moses rather than on his identity as the divine Son.

The Prominence Of The New Exodus Theme In The Old Testament

The Torah Foretold A Second Exodus

The Pentateuch warned that, if Israel failed to keep the covenant, they would suffer the horrors of Egyptian bondage yet again. Deuteronomy 28:27 threatened, “The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, tumors, a festering rash, and scabies from which you cannot be cured.”[16] Deuteronomy 28:60 warned, “He will afflict you again with all the diseases of Egypt, which you dreaded, and they will cling to you.” Most significantly, Deut 28:68 which serves as the climax of the description of the curses for abandoning the covenant threatened, “The LORD will take you back in ships to Egypt by a route that I said you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”[17]

The Pentateuch frequently warns that Israel’s refusal to keep covenant with Yahweh will result in Israel’s defeat, deportation, and subjugation (Deut 28:36–37, 48, 63–64). The climactic warning about a return to Egypt refers to this deportation and subjection by many different nations.

Thus “Egypt” may include the literal land of Egypt, but it is clearly not restricted to it. Egyptian bondage serves as an emblem for deportation, subjection, disease, and suffering that will result from divine judgment for breaking the covenant.

God promised that after this return to Egypt he would restore and bless his people again (Deut 30:1–4). Since the divine curse was expressed in terms of a return to Egypt and since the covenant renewal in Moab made repeated references to the exodus (Deut 29:2–5, 16, 25), the promised restoration of repentant Israel was naturally conceived of as a new exodus and conquest: “The Lord your God will bring you into the land your fathers possessed, and you will take possession of it. He will cause you to prosper and multiply you more than He did your fathers” (Deut 30:5).

Hosea Predicted A Second Exodus

The prophet Hosea (786–746) employed the Pentateuchal theme of a return to Egypt and eventual new exodus in his prophecy. Several lines of evidence support this claim.[18]

First, Hosea portrays Israel’s future judgment for her sin as a return to Egypt. Hosea 8:13 says, “Now He will remember their guilt and punish their sins; they will return to Egypt.” Hosea 9:6 adds, “For even if they flee from devastation, Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them.” This theme is especially prominent in chapter 11, the source of Matthew’s quotation: “Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent?” (Hos 11:5, NIV).[19]

Second, Hos 2:14–15 foretells of a day when God will bring Israel “into the wilderness” and when Israel will “answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt” (ESV). The passage anticipates a time of restoration for Israel that will be reminiscent of the Exodus experience. Rabbinic interpretation saw the passage as a reference to the Messiah, who, like Moses, will lead his people in the wilderness (Ruth Rab. 2:14; Pesiq. Rab. 15:10). The rabbinic interpretation seems justified since Hos 3:4–5 connects this time of restoration with the reign of the Messiah.

Third, the immediate context of Hosea 11 also shows that 11:1 was part of a promise of a new Exodus. Although 11:1 describes the original exodus from Egypt (since 11:2 shows that this exodus was followed by Israel’s idolatry), the following verses warn that Israel will be enslaved again in Egypt and Assyria but that God would deliver his people again, just as he had done through the exodus, by bringing about a return from exile. After the threat of a second “Egyptian bondage” in Assyria,[20] Hos 11:11 then promises an exodus from Egypt and a return from exile in Assyria: “They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria, and I will return them to their homes, declares the Lord” (ESV).[21] Hosea 12:9 recalls the historic exodus (“I have been Yahweh your God ever since the land of Egypt”) but promises a new sojourn in the wilderness such as accompanied the exodus (“I will make you live in tents again, as in the festival days”). Israel will not just live in huts for a brief time as a commemoration of the exodus during the feast of tabernacles. Instead, they would reenact the exodus by returning to the wilderness to live in tents.[22]

Fourth, the portrayal of Israel’s restoration as a new exodus in Hosea 11 may have stirred Israel’s hope for a new Moses as well. On the heels of this promise of a new Exodus, Hosea reminded his readers: “By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded” (Hos 12:13, ESV). The portrayal of Moses as a prophet derives from the primary reference to Moses as a prophet in the Pentateuch, Deut 18:15–19 (cf. 34:10 which appears to allude to Num 12:6–8). The allusion to Deuteronomy 18 may imply that the new exodus will be accompanied by the appearance of a new deliverer as well, the prophet like Moses.[23] At the very least, Hosea associated the new exodus with the Messiah. Hosea 3:4–5 clearly indicated that Israel’s renewal and restoration would occur when Israel sought the Lord their God and “David their king . . . in the last days.”

Other OT Prophets Predicted A Second Exodus

The OT prophets understood the Pentateuchal threat of a new Egyptian bondage and the gracious promise of a new exodus and conquest. Like Hosea, they portrayed Israel’s deportation and exile as a second Egyptian captivity and pictured Israel’s return and restoration as a second exodus.

Isaiah (740–698 BC)

New exodus imagery appears in Isaiah in 4:5, 11:15–16, and is especially prominent in 40–55 (40:3–4; 43:16–21; 44:27; 48:20–21; 49:8–13; 50:2; 51:10–11; 52:4).24 Although space will not permit an exploration of each of these references here, R. Watts summarized the data well:

Exodus typology, of some significance in chapters 1–39, is central to this salvation theme [in 40–55]. Although other canonical writings appeal to the Exodus tradition, here it is elevated to its most prominent status as a hermeneutic, and according to some commentators, shapes the heart of 40–55 even replacing the first Exodus as the saving event. The allusions cover the whole Exodus experience, and their appearance in the prologue, the end of the first section (48:20ff), and the epilogue (55:12f) stress its significance. . . . If Israel’s founding moment was predicated on Yahweh’s redemptive action in the Exodus from Egyptian bondage, then surely a second deliverance from exilic bondage, this time of Babylon, could scarcely be conceived of in other terms except those of the first Exodus?[25]

Micah (735–710 BC)

Several possible references to a new exodus appear in Micah. Micah warned that Israel would be forced into exile because of its sin (1:16). Yet Micah repeatedly promised a return from exile (2:12–13; 5:2–4). Micah 2:12 uses the imagery of God as Shepherd of his people and 2:13 describes Yahweh going before his people in their deliverance. Allen notes that the description of God as Shepherd is “a religious metaphor traditionally associated with the exodus” and that God going before his people echoes the “old motif” of God going before his people during the exodus in a pillar of cloud and of fire.[26] Micah 7:15 adds, “I will perform miracles for them as in the days of your exodus from the land of Egypt” (ESV). This verse constitutes an example of “exodus theology” that portrays Israel’s restoration as a “kind of new exodus” akin to the exodus described in 6:4.[27]

Jeremiah (626–584 BC)

Jeremiah is steeped in references to the exodus tradition (2:6–7, 14, 18, 20, 36–37; 7:22, 25; 11:4, 7; 16:14; 31:32; 32:20; 34:13; 42:7–43:7; 44:12–14, 28). Of these texts, the clearest promise of a new exodus is Jer. 16:14–15:

“However, take note! The days are coming”—the LORD’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ but rather, ‘As the LORD lives who brought the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the other lands where He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their ancestors.”

A new exodus would overshadow the historic exodus as the pivotal event in the history of God’s people.

Ezekiel (593–571 BC)

After referring to the historic exodus in Ezek 20:6–10, Ezek 20:32–44 uses the themes of the Egyptian bondage, exodus, and wilderness judgment to describe Israel’s exile among the nations and coming restoration. Although Yahweh will judge Israel just as he judged their ancestors “in the wilderness of the land of Egypt,” he would “bring them out of the land where they live as foreign residents.” D. Block has argued that the passage promises a new exodus and that “the entire section is intentionally colored by the language of Exod. 6:6–8.”[28]

Zechariah (520–514 BC)

Zechariah 2:5 likely compares the divine protection that the city will enjoy to the theophanies of the exodus, both the pillar of fire that led the Israelites and the glory that descended on the tabernacle (Exod 3:2; 13:21– 22; 19:18; 40:34–35; Lev 9:23–24; Deut 4:24). Furthermore, the Hebrew expression “I myself will be” utilizes the same verbal form as Exod 3:14 and seems to echo intentionally that text. Hence Baldwin commented, “God is both dealing with potential enemies and protecting His people, in the same way and on the same covenant basis as He did at the Exodus.”[29]

More importantly, Zech 10:10–12 employs exodus themes to describe the restoration of God’s people. Statements such as “I will bring them back from the land of Egypt and gather them from Assyria” (v. 10), “Yahweh will pass through the sea of distress and strike the waves of the sea” (v. 11), “the scepter of Egypt will come to an end” (v. 11), and “they will march in his name” (v. 12) recall the overthrow of Pharaoh, the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, the historic exodus, and the conquest of Canaan.[30]

Matthew’s Historical And Cultural Context

Most scholars are convinced that Matthew was a Jewish Christian author writing to a predominantly Jewish Christian audience in the first century. The view that Matthew interpreted Hos 11:1 as a promise of a new exodus led by the Messiah and that Matthew’s original readers would have understood this reference is supported by messianic expectations in rabbinic Judaism and in popular first-century Judaism described in Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Rabbis Expected A Second Exodus

Rabbinic literature portrays the Messiah as a second Moses and the deliverance that he brings as a second exodus. Rabbinic texts describe the correspondence between these persons and events and point to the cyclical nature of history as the basis for the correspondence.[31]

In Mekh. Exod. 12:42 (20a) r. Joshua claimed that the eschatological redemption would occur on the night of Passover since “In that night were they redeemed and in that night will they be redeemed in the future.”[32] In Midrash Psalms 90:17, r. Akiba argued for a similar correspondence between the events of the exodus and the redemption brought by the Messiah by interpreting Ps 90:15 in light of Deut 8:3 as teaching that the Messianic era would last 40 years to match the 40 years of affliction in the wilderness.[33] Pesikta Rabbati 1:7 also recorded Akiba’s interpretation but added that his “proof from Scripture” was Mic 7:15 which explicitly compared the days of the exodus to the marvelous events of the Messianic era.[34]

Numerous rabbinic texts quote the aphorism, “Like the first redeemer, so the last redeemer,” a statement which expressed the expectation that the Messiah as the prophet like Moses would reenact features of the ministry of Moses associated with the exodus. The aphorism appears in Pesikta Rabbati 15:10[35] and Ruth Rabbah 2:14 (in reference to appearance to Israel and then disappearance). The Messianic interpretation in Ruth Rabbah 2:14 ascribed to r. Jonah interprets Hos 2:16 and 12:10 as referring to the Messianic redemption in which Israel will return to the wilderness and live in tents as during the feast of tabernacles. The final argument supporting the claim that the Messiah would reenact the ministry of Moses involved an appeal to Eccl 1:9. Since “there is nothing new under the sun,” history is cyclical. The exodus phase of history including features like the miraculous provision of manna will recur when Messiah comes. L. Rabinowitz noted that the citation from Eccl 1:9 indicated that “Whatever is destined to occur in the future Redemption occurred in the first.”[36] Midrash Psalms 43 also highlighted similarities between the redemption from Egypt and the Messianic redemption. It pointed out that the first redemption had two redeemers, Moses and Aaron. Likewise, the eschatological redemption would have two redeemers, Elijah who was of the house of Aaron and the Messiah, the Isaianic servant.[37] Exodus Rabbah 3:12 also appealed to the cyclical nature of history affirmed by Eccl 1:9 (“that which has been is that which shall be”) to argue that the latter redemption will be marked by a divine utterance similar to that which accompanied the exodus from Egypt by noting that Gen 46:4, Exod 3:12, and Mal 4:5 were all instances in which Yahweh spoke using אָנֹכִי.38 The best-known and most frequently quoted comparison of Moses and the exodus with Messiah and his redemption is Qoheleth Rabbah 1:9. It expounds the statement “That which has been is that which shall be” by quoting the familiar aphorism: “R. Berekiah said in the name of R. Isaac: As the first redeemer was, so shall the latter Redeemer be.” It confirms this statement by showing similarities between descriptions of Moses in the Pentateuch and descriptions of the Messiah in the Psalms and Prophets. Like Moses, the Messiah would ride on a donkey, cause manna to descend from heaven, and cause water to rise from the earth (Exod 4:20 and Zech 9:9; Exod 16:4 and Ps 72:16; Num 21:16 and Joel 3:18 respectively).[39]

First-Century Jewish And Christian Literature Displays Popular Expectation Of A Second Exodus

Matthew 24:26 refers to some who would insist that Messiah had arrived by exclaiming, “Look, he’s in the wilderness!” Numerous commentators have pointed out that such a claim is likely based on the expectation of a reenactment of the exodus that would occur in connection with the coming of the Messiah.[40] Acts 21:38 seems to confirm this understanding since it refers to an Egyptian who claimed to be the Messiah and led 4,000 sicarri into the wilderness.

Josephus describes several different messianic claimants who led their followers into the wilderness including the Egyptian (Bell. 2.261), Jonathan (Bell. 7:438), and Theudas (Ant. 20.97). Although one may suspect that the claimants did so in search of seclusion and safety rather than in conscious imitation of the exodus, other features of the accounts leave little doubt that the claimants associated the wilderness with the exodus. Theudas, for example, promised to part the waters of the Jordan (Ant. 20.97) in an effort to reenact the parting of the Red Sea associated with Moses and the parting of the Jordan associated with Joshua. Jonathan likewise promised his followers that he would show them “signs and appearances” in the wilderness, likely a reference to the miracles and theophanies of the exodus.[41] Josephus portrays the flight into the wilderness as a consistent feature of Messianic movements.[42]

1QS 8:12–18 shows that the Qumran covenanters saw their retreat into the wilderness as a fulfillment of Isa 40:3–4. As shown earlier, this text marks the beginning of the section of Isaiah in which the new exodus is the primary theme. 4Q175 links the prophet like Moses prophecy and the oracle of Balaam regarding the scepter rising out of Israel. It appears that both texts were regarded as Messianic at Qumran. Thus the members of the community expected the Messiah to be a new Moses who would lead Israel into the wilderness and ultimately to the land of promise in a new exodus.

J. Jeremias wrote:

This typology [new exodus/new Moses] does not arise first in Rabb. literature or in the time after Aquiba. There are references to show that it goes back to a period prior to the NT. If it is not mentioned in the OT apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, it finds attestation in the Damascus document, Josep. and the NT.[43]

The Literary Context Of Matthew 2:15

Coherence With New Exodus/New Moses Motif In The Early Chapters Of Matthew

This view of Matthew’s use of Hos 11:1 suits the literary context of Matt 2:15 remarkably well. First, the structure and arrangement of the Matthean genealogy hints at the critical role of Jesus in bringing an end to Israel’s exile. The significant turning points are the rule of David, the Babylonian captivity, and the conception and birth of the Messiah. The structure implies that the Messiah will at last deliver God’s people from their slavery and exile. This deliverance was generally conceived as a reenactment of the exodus.

Second, the birth narrative in Matthew clearly portrays Jesus as a new Moses. The circumstances of Jesus’s infancy closely parallel those of Moses. Just as pharaoh murdered male Hebrew infants and just as Moses was providentially rescued from this slaughter, so Herod murdered the male infants of Bethlehem and Jesus was providentially rescued from this massacre. The striking parallels between the infancy narratives in Matthew and Exodus are heightened in the expansive retelling of the story of Moses in first-century Jewish tradition such as that preserved in Josephus (Ant. 2.9.2 §205). The portrayal of Jesus as a new Moses is not merely accomplished by correspondences in the story line. It is expressed even more definitively through verbal parallels that establish an indisputable connection between Jesus and Moses. The announcement of the angel to Joseph in Egypt (“those who sought the life of the child are now dead”) is a clear allusion to Exod 4:19 in which Yahweh speaks from the burning bush to Moses and states “those who sought your life are now dead.” These parallels do more than merely construct a typology in which Moses is the type and Jesus is the antitype. They portray Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecy in Deuteronomy 18 that promised that God would send a prophet like Moses to Israel. Elsewhere the NT explicitly cites the Deuteronomy 18 prophecy and describes Jesus as the fulfillment (Acts 3:22; 7:37). Matthew does not. Nevertheless, the words of the Father at the transfiguration (“Listen to him”) are a clear allusion to the Deuteronomy 18 prophecy which serves to confirm that the numerous parallels between Jesus and Moses are intended to highlight Jesus’s identity as the prophet like Moses.

Coherence With Matthew’s Use Of Jeremiah 31:15

This interpretation coheres well with Matthew’s use of Jer 31:15. Scholars often assume that Matthew interpreted the weeping of the mothers of the slain sons of Bethlehem as the fulfillment of this prophecy about Rachel weeping for her deceased children. Many interpreters insist that Matthew stripped this passage from its original context in Jeremiah and applied it without any sensitivity to his original meaning. However, Matthew was using this passage much like he used Hos 11:1. Jeremiah 31:15 was a description of the grief of the nation of Israel over the Babylonian exile. Rachael wept for her children who “were no more” because they were in exile in Babylon (Jeremiah 29).

Jeremiah specifies that this lamentation for the exiles arose from Ramah, a town located about five miles north of Jerusalem and through which the exiles passed on their way to Babylon. Bethlehem was located about five miles south of Jerusalem on the same road along which the exiles traveled. Jewish traditions saw great importance in the fact that Rachel was buried in Bethlehem. Some later rabbis suggested that she was buried there near the road on which the exiles traveled so she could pray for the exiles as they passed by.

Matthew did not cite the passage because it was associated with Bethlehem. Instead, he cited the passage because it depicted Israel as in exile and awaiting deliverance. Matthew’s brief quotation assumes his reader’s familiarity with the promise of deliverance that immediately followed it:

They shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, declares the LORD, and your children shall come back to their own country. (Jer 31:17)

Matthew recognized that Jeremiah himself saw this deliverance as both eschatological and messianic. The eschatological and messianic nature of the deliverance is abundantly clear in Jer 30:8–9:

And it shall come to pass in that day, declares the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off your neck, and I will burst your bonds, and foreigners shall no more make a servant of him. But they shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.

The passage from Jeremiah that Matthew quotes also immediately precedes Jeremiah’s promise of the new covenant (Jer 31:31–34), a covenant that Jesus initiated through his sacrificial death (Matt 26:28).

Matthew deemed it appropriate to cite this eschatological and messianic text in the context of the description of the slaughter of the male infants of Bethlehem because that event showed that God’s people were still in exile in a sense. They were still under the thumb of a foreign oppressor and waiting for the Lord to raise up David their king to deliver them.

Conclusion

Matthew recognized that Hos 11:1 was a reference to the historic exodus. Matthew was attentive to the fact that Hosea repeatedly used new exodus imagery to depict deliverance from the Assyrian exile (2:14–15; 8:13; 9:6; 11:5). Hosea used the image of the Egyptian bondage to portray Israel’s exile and thus utilized the image of the exodus to portray Israel’s restoration. Matthew quoted Hos 11:1 because he saw Jesus’ return from Egypt as marking the beginning of this new exodus.

Matthew rightly interpreted the reference to the historic exodus as anticipating an eschatological exodus, an exodus led by the prophet like Moses, the Davidic Messiah, Jesus Christ. Matthew did not likely regard the “son” in Hos 11:1 as an explicit and direct reference to the Messiah. He recognized that “son” was a reference to the covenant people. In Matthew’s use of the text, “son” is a reference to the Messiah inclusively but not exclusively. Matthew knew that the Messiah will indeed participate in this exodus, but he is more than a mere participant. He is the leader of this exodus, the prophet like Moses who will redeem God’s people much like the hero of old. Matthew assumes his readers’ familiarity with Hos 12:13: “The LORD brought Israel from Egypt by a prophet, and Israel was tended by a prophet.” The statement looks back to the primary reference to Moses as a prophet in the Pentateuch, Deut 18:15–19 (cf. 34:10 which appears to allude to Num 12:6–8). The allusion to Deuteronomy 18 implies that the new exodus will be accompanied by the appearance of a new deliverer as well, the prophet like Moses whom Matthew recognized as the Messiah.

These expectations are well-represented in the Old Testament prophets and in ancient Jewish literature (Jos.; Pesiq. Rab.; Midr. Pss.; Mek. Exod.; Ruth Rab.; Exod. Rab.; Qoh. Rab.). The theme of the new exodus also coheres well with Matthew’s presentation of Jesus as the new Moses throughout Matthew 2 and his use of Jer 31:15, since this text in its original literary context is sandwiched between two promises of Israel’s return from exile. The slaughter of the innocents shows that Israel is still in exile and awaiting deliverance.[44] Jesus’ journey out of Egypt is the prelude to that coming deliverance, the initiation of the eschatological exodus. Consequently, Matthew’s use of the Hosea quotation is fully appropriate and sensitive to the original historical and literary context of the passage.

Notes

Martin Pickup, “New Testament Interpretation of the Old Testament: The Theological Rationale of Midrashic Exegesis,” JETS 51 (2008): 371.
Stanley Porter and Beth Stovell, eds., Biblical Hermeneutics: Five Views (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2012).
See Pickup, “New Testament Interpretation of the Old Testament,” 374-79. According to Sailhamer, Erasmus claimed that Julian the Apostate was the first to challenge the legitimacy of Matthew’s interpretation of Hos 11:1 (“Hosea 11:1 and Matthew 2:15,” WTJ 63 [2001]: 87). Erasmus was apparently referring to a fragment preserved in Jerome’s Latin commentary on Hos 3:11 that ascribes to Julian the quote: “The words that were written concerning Israel [Hos 11:1] Matthew the Evangelist transferred to Christ [Matt 2:15], that he might mock the simplicity of those of the Gentiles who believed.”
Craig Blomberg (“Matthew,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007], 8) argued that Matt 2:15 is “a classic example of pure typology.” See also D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in Matthew-Mark (EBC 9; 2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 118-20; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-structure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet, 1953), 103; D. E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2001), 29; J. Gibbs, Matthew 1:1-11:1 (Concordia Commentary; St. Louis: Concordia, 2006), 139-43; L. Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 42-44; G. Osborne, Matthew, ZECNT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010), 99; T. Schreiner, New Testament Theology: Magnifying God in Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 73. Although some of these commentators blend the Israel typology view with other approaches, Albright and Mann dismiss other alternatives, especially the new Moses view: “. . . Matthew’s OT quotations see Jesus as living, in himself, through the spiritual experience of a whole people, and not as an individual who becomes another Moses” (W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann, Matthew [AB 26; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971], 18).
John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 123.
B. Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations (London: SCM Press, 1961), 216-19.
D. Hill, The Gospel of Matthew (New Century Bible; London: Oliphants, 1978), 85; W. D. Davies and Dale Allison, Matthew (3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988-1997), 1:262-63. Walt Kaiser characterized Lindars’s view as an “ingenius suggestion” but one rendered doubtful by text-critical questions surrounding Num 24:7-8. See Walt Kaiser, The Uses of the Old Testament in the New Testament (Chicago: Moody, 1985), 47-53, esp. 51. Some early Christians believed that Matt 2:15 actually quoted Num 24:8 rather than Hos 11:1. An example is the scribe behind the marginal note in Codex Sinaiticus at 2:15 (ΕΝΑΡΙΘΜΟΙΣ). This view probably arose among readers who were more familiar with the LXX than with the Hebrew text. Eusebius of Caesarea interpreted Num 24:3-9 as a reference to the Messiah and his deliverance from Egypt (e.g., Dem. ev. 9.4). Although he preferred the view that Matt 2:15 alluded to Hos 11:1, he suggested that if one concluded that Hos 11:1 referred to Israel then Num 24:3-9 was the source of Matthew’s quotation.
G. K. Beale, “The Use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15: One More Time,” JETS 55 (2012): 697-715, esp. 700.
Ibid., 703.
Ibid., 709.
Ibid.
Ibid., 710.
Craig Keener, A Commentary on Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 108-9; Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (vol. 1 of Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch [München: Beck, 1922], 85).
Richard Hayes, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016), 11.
This is not to say that the article will support Beale’s interpretation in every detail. I arrived at my conclusions independently of Beale and discovered his research late in the process of my study. However, my view agrees with the broader contours of Beale’s position.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible quotations are from the HCSB.
D. J. Reimer, “Concerning Return to Egypt: Deuteronomy 17:16 and 26:68 Reconsidered,” in Studies in the Pentateuch (ed. J. Emerton; VTSup 41; Leiden: Brill, 1990), 217-29. On the difficult phrase “in ships,” see D. G. Schley, Jr., “Yahweh Will Cause You to Return to Egypt in Ships’ (Deuteronomy 28:68),” VT 35 (1985): 369-72. The reference to a previous statement regarding never seeing the route to Exodus again likely points to Exod 14:13: “The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.” For a discussion of the new exodus theme in Deuteronomy similar to my treatment, see Eugene H. Merrill, Deuteronomy (NAC; Nashville: Holman Reference, 1994), 368-69 (see also 370, 372).
For a summary of these and other important texts from the twelve minor prophets, see M. Shepherd, The Twelve Prophets in the New Testament (New York: Peter Lang, 2011), 22-24.
The most natural sense of the Hebrew (לֹא) is as a simple negative. Thus the sentence bluntly denies that Israel will return to Egypt (ESV and CSB). The problem with this translation is the repeated insistence elsewhere in Hosea that Israel will indeed return to Egypt (11:11). Such a tension may be resolved in several ways. First, the denial in 11:5 may only indicate that Egypt is to be understood metaphorically rather than literally. Thus Egypt refers to captivity and slavery, which in Hosea’s context would occur through deportation to Assyria (D. Garrett, Hosea, Joel [NAC; Nashville: B&H, 1997], 225-26). Second, the clause may be interrogative and introduce a polar question in which the negative לֹא implies a positive answer to the question (NIV: “Will they not return to Egypt?”). HALOT notes that לֹא sometimes functions as a substitute for הֲלֹא. See B. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, ID: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 684-85, esp. n. 48. Third, the לֹא may serve as a substitute for the emphatic particle הֲלוֹא resulting in the marginal reading in the ESV: “Surely they will return to Egypt.”
The translation in the NIV is probably superior to the ESV at this point. The ESV reads: “They shall not return to the land of Egypt, but Assyria shall be their king.” However, this translation seems to contradict the promise of future deliverance from Egypt in 11:11. See the appendix to the Beale article for an argument against the ESV rendering. Duane Garrett summarizes the chapter well: “The first strophe, vv. 1-5, focuses on the exodus and ends with the warning that God will undo the exodus and send Israel to a new Egypt, Assyria, and into servitude to a new Pharaoh, the Assyrian king. The second strophe, vv. 6– 12, concerns the possibility that Israel will become like the cities of the plain, that is, eternally annihilated. Yahweh recoils from this and promises a new exodus” (Hosea, Joel, 219).
Blomberg also noted that although Hos 11:1 was “a reference to the exodus, pure and simple,” the following verses portrayed Israel’s future restoration as a reenactment of the exodus. Blomberg, under the influence of McCartney and Enns, rejects Sailhamer’s view that Hosea contains a messianic reading of the exodus. See Blomberg, “Matthew,” 7-8. For a defense of Sailhamer’s messianic reading in response to McCartney and Enns, see Shepherd, The Twelve Prophets in the New Testament, 18-28.
J. Jeremias, “Μωυσῆς,” TDNT 4.861-2.
A final appeal to the exodus tradition appears in Hos 13:4-5.
Note that Pesikta Rabbati 31:10 frequently quotes from the new exodus texts of Isaiah and argues that these promises will be fulfilled when the Messiah gathers Jewish exiles from all over the earth and reassembles them in the land of Israel.
See Rikki Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark (WUNT 88; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1997), 79-82 (emphasis original).
Leslie C. Allen, The Books of Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 302-3.
Ibid., 131. Micah 7:15 would become particularly important for the new Moses/new exodus themes in rabbinic eschatology. This text would be the basis for r. Akiba’s claim that the messianic redemption of God’s people would mirror the exodus events.
Daniel Isaac Block, The Book of Ezekiel (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 650-51.
J. Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi (TOTC; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1972), 107.
These features prompted G. Klein to comment: “Presumably, Egypt serves to remind the reader of the exodus since the Egyptian bondage represents one of the most important eras of persecution in Israel’s existence. Without doubt, however, the exodus from Egyptian slavery does symbolize the greatest expression of divine salvation for the nation during Israel’s long history. Numerous prophetic passages view Egypt as a metaphor—rooted in deep historical experience—for the oppressive lands out of which the Lord would gather the nation in the messianic kingdom” (George L. Klein, Zechariah [NAC 21B; Nashville: B&H, 2007], 303).
Davies and Allison note, “Finally, in ancient Jewish sources concerned with eschatological matters, the redemption from Egypt often serves as a type for the messianic redemption, and the prospect of another exodus is held forth: before the consummation, the pattern, exodus/return, will repeat itself” (Matthew, 1:263). They cite in support Isa 40:3-4; 42:14-55:13; Ezek 20:33-44; Hos 2:14-15; 1 Macc 2:29-30; 1QS 8:12-18; Matt 24:26; Acts 21:38; Rev 12:6, 14; Josephus Ant. 20.97; Bell. 2.259, 261; 7.438; and SB 1:85-88.
Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004), 1:79.
W. G. Braude, trans., The Midrash on Psalms (Midrash Tehillim) (ed. Leon Nemoy; 2 vols.; Yale Judaica Series 13; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 2:97-98.
William G. Braude, trans., Pesikta Rabbati (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 1:46-47. Braude acknowledged that most translated the question, “And how many are the days of the Messiah?” He based his translation on the insights of Yehuda Eben Shemuel (see n. 51).
Braude, Pesikta Rabbati, 319.
L. Rabinowitz, trans., Ruth Rabbah, Midrash Rabbah 8 (ed. H. Freeman and Maurice Simon; 3rd ed.; New York: Soncino Press, 1983), 65.
Midrash Psalms 1:445.
Exodus Rabbah 3:12. S. M. Lehrman, trans., Exodus, Midrash Rabbah (London: Soncino Press, 1951), 63.
Qoheleth Rabbah 1:9.
See Martin Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 AD (trans. David Smith; 2nd ed.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 229-33; Keener, Matthew, 582; Ulrich Luz, Matthew (trans. James Crouch; 3 vols.; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001-2007), 3:198-99. Davies and Allison note that the desert “was presumably a well-known haunt of messianic pretenders who sought to imitate the wilderness miracles of Moses” (Matthew, 3:353). Gerhard Kittle pointed out that Judaism often associated the wilderness with the Messianic age and added: “There thus arises the belief that the last and decisive age of salvation will begin in the ἔρηµος, and that there the Messiah will appear. This belief led revolutionary Messianic movements to make for the ἔρηµος (Ac. 21:38)” (Kittle, “ἔρηµος,” TDNT 2.658-59). This belief was viewed as the background of Matt 24:26 and Rev 12:6, 14.
Rebecca Gray is more doubtful of the association of some of the sign prophets with Moses and the exodus. See her Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine: The Evidence from Josephus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 112-44. However, even Gray acknowledges that “In the case of Theudas and the Egyptian, the influence of the exodus and conquest traditions is clear” (137) and “Theudas promised a new exodus, or perhaps a new conquest . . . .” (138).
See Jos. War 2.13.4 §258-59; Kittle, “ἔρηµος,” TDNT 2.658-59; J. Jeremias, “Μωυσῆς,” TDNT 4.861-62; Hengel, Zealots, 249-53, esp. 252-53. See also Horsley, Richard A. “Popular Prophetic Movements at the Time of Jesus: Their Principal Features and Social Origins,” JSNT 26 (1986): 3-27, esp. 9; idem, “‘Like One of the Prophets of Old’: Two Types of Popular Prophets at the Time of Jesus,” CBQ 47 (1985): 435-63, esp. 456.
J. Jeremias, “Μωυσῆς,” TDNT 4.861.
For an overlooked piece of evidence supporting the view that Israel remained in exile awaiting deliverance, see m. Yad 4:4. In a debate concerning permitting an Ammonite proselyte to enter the congregation, r. Joshua succeeded in convincing an entire house of midrash including r. Gamaliel that the population of Israel was so ethnically mixed that one could not confidently distinguish Israelites from Ammonites. His argument was based on the premise, apparently accepted by all involved in the discussion, that Israel remained in exile. For extensive discussions of the view that Israel remained in exile, see N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God 1; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992); and Craig A. Evans, “Jesus and the Continuing Exile of Israel,” Jesus and the Restoration of Israel: A Critical Assessment of N. T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God (ed. Carey Newman; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 77-100.

Eamon Younis

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