Robert said
brenmcg said
But nobody is arguing backwards from Matthew.
The question is, can someone who read and understood the hebrew version of Zech 9:9 produce the greek version of it found in Matthew 21:5?
That is in fact arguing backwards from Matthew.
No it would be using some perceived fact about Zech 9:9 to make a claim about the writer of Matthew who quotes a greek version of it.
One cannot prove a negative, ie, that Matthew never read Zechariah in Hebrew, but it is clear that Matthew was relying on Greek translations of Isaiah and Zechariah.
This isnt clear – if by “relying on” you mean he couldnt translate the hebrew himself.
Matthew may well have felt he was quoting scripture equally using the greek as he would using the hebrew.
The quotation from the standard Greek translation of Isaiah is very relevant to this question because it also shows that Matthew was relying on a Greek translation of Isaiah, just as he was also relying on a Greek translation of Zechariah. Likewise Matthew’s use of the Greek from Genesis 49,11 LXX for the more precise identification of the two donkeys. Once one recognizes that Matthew (or his source) is selectively combining and using Greek translations from three different texts, it is silly to argue about how he might have read or misunderstood the Hebrew of Zechariah if he ever even read it in Hebrew.
I dont think its obvious he’s quoting from Isaiah either – the only word taken from Isaiah 62:11 thats not in Zech 9:9 is “say”. This could just be Matthew misremembering not directly quoting. Likewise for Gen 49:11 – neither are obvious quotes like Zech 9:9.
Even if he is quoting from all three, he’s writing in greek and as above may feel the greek version is just as much divinely inspired as the hebrew.
Regardless it can still be discussed whether Matthew’s eventual rendering represents a misunderstanding of Zech 9:9 – whether or not Matthew got it through a translation or not.
Is this what you are really arguing about, that Jesus or Matthew correctly understood the prophecy as Zechariah intended it and which Jesus therefore correctly fulfilled as it was intended by Zecharaiah?
No my point is that it is not obvious that Mark understood Zech correctly and Matthew made an error – which feeds into the larger point that the two disciples sent by Jesus in both Mark and Matthew fits Matthew’s version of collecting two animals than it does Mark’s version of collecting one.
Robert said
brenmcg said
No it would be using some perceived fact about Zech 9:9 to make a claim about the writer of Matthew who quotes a greek version of it.
But that is NOT what you’ve been doing in your conversation with me. You’ve been arguing from Matthew’s narrative about how Zechariah’s Hebrew text should be read.
What I’ve been arguing is that it’s not obviously poetic – it depends on whether the last two lines can be read sensibly as about two separate animals.
It also depends on whether 1stC christian would think a messianic prophecy should be read as literally as possible.
Oh my God. Are you really making this pathetic argument based on English translations? There is NO doubt that the first part of Matthew’s citation is from the old Greek translation of Isaiah. Note the four exact same words, same order, same verb form, same cases for the article and two nouns:
Old Greek of Isaiah: Εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιων
Matthew’s Greek: εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών·
Aside from that exact correspondence, it is absolutely certain that this could not be Matthew trying to translate or remember the Hebrew of Zechariah:
גִּילִ֨י is a singular imperative and would never be translated with a plural imperative of a completely different root with a different meaning, hence Χαῖρε in the Old Greek of Zechariah
מְאֹ֜ד an adverb is completely missing from Matthew’s citation and from the Old Greek of Isaiah
θύγατερ is the same root, but it must be in the vocative case when translating from Zechariah, not in the dative case as in Isaiah and in Matthew
Σιών is the only one word would be translated exactly the same, and it is undeclined
Do you really want me to go on or should I spare you the embarrassment and me the waste of time? Trust me, it gets worse for you.
The question is whether he’s using the greek from Zech and misremembering part of it (and therefore not knowingly quoting from Isaiah).
Zech 9:9 χαῖρε σφόδρα θύγατερ Σιων κήρυσσε θύγατερ Ιερουσαλημ ἰδοὺ ὁ βασιλεύς σου
Matthew 21:5 εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών ἰδοὺ ὁ βασιλεύς σου
The only word that can be seen as taken from greek Isaiah and not greek Zech is εἴπατε
If he’s just mis-remembering Zech he’s got no choice but to use τῇ and θυγατρὶ in the dative.
It could just be a mistake of one word – not obviously a quote from another book.
Robert said
No, there’s still no reason to add the definite article and change ‘daughter’ to the dative case. You also forgot the change from singular to plural and the addition of σφόδρα. Are you aware of the change of sense entailed with these changes, including the addition of new characters? But if you’re really only trying to say that maybe Matthew is unknowingly quoting by sheer coincidence exactly from the Greek translation of Isaiah, rather than correctly translating the Hebrew of Zechariah, what makes you think he is correctly understanding the Hebrew of the rest of Zechariah? Are you also aware of the six words of Hebrew Zechariah that Matthew would be completely omitting? The 10 additional words in Matthew’s citation that would also coincidentally match the Old Greek translation exactly? And yet you would like to believe that Matthew’s narrative, which uses exact words from Genesis LXX instead of from Zechariah arrives at a more reliable interpretation of the Hebrew text of Zechariah than we get from reading the actual Hebrew text ourselves?
I think אִמְרוּ֙ or “say” in the plural is common enough in OT proclamations that it could be a mis-remembering, or it could be an intentional change because he didnt think Jerusalem was “rejoicing greatly”. Either way it wouldn’t be a huge coincidence that this small change to Zech would then match Isaiah exactly.
Also if he is in fact quoting Isaiah i don’t think its certain he’s quoting the greek version – couldn’t Matthew’s “εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών ἰδοὺ” also just be a direct translation of the hebrew version of Isaiah 62:11?
The similarity to Gen 49:11 just appears to be a different translation of the word donkey with the same gender?
Isn’t Matthew’s “καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου” far better understood as a direct translation of the Hebrew rather than quoting LXX?
If you really want to accept all these coincidences in order to maintain your belief that Matthew was translating only from the Hebrew of Zechariah, you’ve actually strengthened the case that Matthew is completely deaf to Zechariah’s Hebrew literary parallelism between גִּילִי מְאֹד בַּת-צִיּוֹן and הָרִיעִי בַּת יְרוּשָׁלִַם, where the daughter of Zion/Jerusalem is addressed in parallel with two singular imperatives. Matthew’s reading would now add at least two additional individuals that now need to be addressed with a plural imperative. If memory serves, even you admitted the obvious parallelism of this part of Zechariah’s Hebrew text. Matthew would also be deleting the parallelism contained in the 4th segment of the Hebrew verse (צַדִּיק וְנוֹשָׁע הוּא). Because he was deaf and blind to the Hebrew parallelism? More likely he did not understand the Old Greek word-for-word hyper-literal translation of the Hebrew which is not grammatically correct Greek. But following your theory, if Matthew effectively destroys all obvious parallelism from the first five segments of the Hebrew verse, why should we believe he has correctly understood a aupposed lack of parallelism in the sixth and final segment of the verse?
Well I dont think that “say” being in the plural is important. Its not clear in Isaiah 62:11 itself why the plural is used or who is supposed to be saying anything to daughter zion.
Whether Matthew is quoting the greek or hebrew or zech or isaiah, he has left some parts out. It’s clear he’s only interested in the prophecy of a king arriving on a donkey (and/or) colt to Jerusalem, so he’s not particularly interested in the parallelism of the beginning of Zech 9:9. So we shouldn’t infer he doesn’t understand it.
Same for the parallelism of the 4th segment.
Yes your last line is a good point, if he’s destroying any parallelism from the rest of the verse it might suggest he doesnt understand it at the end of the verse either. But it’s the end of the verse he’s interested in and its the end of the verse (καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου) that looks like the better translation of the hebrew than LXX. It doesn’t help us answer the question:
“if he understood the last two lines o Zech 9:9 as sensibly talking about two different animals, was he wrong to not read it as parallelism?”
Hey bren, Robert says he’s abandoning the forum. The last word is yours.
And if you’d believe it, his parting shot was to talk about my rudeness, after what he typed up above.
You are an obsessive monomaniac, as I have said–but I have to say, you’ve always been polite.
Thanks for inviting me here. It’s been an education. Though not in anything but human nature.
Robert said
Four precisely declined words in a row is striking but not proof positive, but we’re talking about 14 identical words, 4 in a row, 10 in a row, and 4 in a row, which is much harder to attribute to pure coincidence. You have an amazing capacity to ignore the larger picture and pointlessly argue about details in isolation.
10 words in a row of LXX Zech?
Yes sure. I don’t doubt he used LXX but I think the larger picture suggests someone capable of translating directly from the Hebrew as well.
No, that’s not all. It is indeed a different translation of the word donkey, and that different translation is also rendered as the same gender as in Matthew’s story, differently from Matthew’s own rendition of Zechariah. In addition, we are unambiguously talking about two donkeys in Genesis and in Matthew’s account, and in both Genesis and Matthew’s account both donkeys are said to be bound with the same verbal root (δεσμεύων, δεδεμένην). All of this is different from Matthew’s rendition of Zecharaiah.
Ok interesting I hadnt noticed that.
On a side note, does this not suggest to you that the idea of a bound donkey and/or colt waiting to be taken by the messiah originated from this genesis passage and that therefore this story suits Matthew’s account of two animals better – Mark/Luke not getting the reference and changing to one animal?
brenmcg said
Isn’t Matthew’s “καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου” far better understood as a direct translation of the Hebrew rather than quoting LXX?
Don’t miss the point. Whether it is a direct translation of the Hebrew or the Aramaic, the point is it is different from the two animals used in Matthew’s story. Do you see?
No don’t see your point? different from what? “ὄνον” isnt used in greek Zech but could be just a different translation?
But in Zechariah it is very clear who is supposed to be speaking! The plural here and the addition of extra characters show that Matthew has not followed Zechariah here. But, if as you want to believe, Matthew was trying to translate Zechariah’s Hebrew, not only has he missed the obvious parallelism, he’s done a truly horrible job of trying to translate Hebrew.
True – but may just be not concerned with getting the beginning of the verse correct – he’s left out “shout daughter jerusalem” as well, regardless of what he’s copying from. The safest suggestion is that he’s only concerned with the ending of the prophecy and we can’t deduce much from how he sets down the beginning. “Say to” might just be generic proclamation for Matthew.
As I said above, you have an amazing capacity to ignore the larger picture and pointlessly argue about details in isolation. If Matthew misunderstood the last two lines of Zechariah 9,9 as talking about two different animals, yes, he was not reading it in context as an obvious example of Hebrew literary parallelism. But that did not matter so much with pesher exegesis as it was practiced in some Jewish circles at this time. Take a look at some of the pesher exegesis of prophetic texts being done at Qumran. Take a look at some of Matthew’s other examples of pesher exegesis of prophetic texts. It is not uncommon to add an extra, contemporizing secret meaning that can even contradict the obvious original meaning of the text, which is not being disputed, just being explicated with an additional meaning that applies to the contemporary messianic times.
Ok sure – but we can’t be certain Matthew misunderstood Zech 9:9 – it’s wholly dependent on whether the last two lines can be read sensibly as two different animals. Matthew evidently thought so as he has Jesus ride in on two different animals – So we can’t see this as Matthew adding in extra secret meaning. We have to see it as his literal understanding – and his rendering of these last two lines suggest translation straight from Hebrew and not greek.
Robert said
What makes you think that Matthew was translating from Hebrew Zechariah?
His quote appears to be somewhat from the greek and somewhat from the hebrew. If he’s not translating direct from Hebrew he’s using a source which is. But one wonders why he’s using two greek versions of the same passage.
But it would be a different translation of Zechariah than what Matthew himself cites! The point is that Matthew’s narrative does not follow the citation of Zechariah that he himself provides. If the same person who wrote Matthew’s narrative also translated Zechariah from the Hebrew and his point was to show that the narrative was a literal fulfillment of the Hebrew of Zechariah, wouldn’t you expect him to produce greater correspondence between his narrative and his translation of Zechariah?
I dont understand, matthew uses ὄνον and πῶλον in both the quote from Zech and in his story about Jesus?
This is what we call grasping at straws: when the facts don’t fit your initial hypothesis, add additional hypotheses to explain away the facts that don’t fit, rather than adopting the simpler hypothesis that already explains all of the facts. Again, if Matthew was really only concerned with the ending of the verse from Hebrew Zecharaiah, why wouldn’t his translation from Hebrew Zecharaiah better correspond with his own narrative?
as above – I dont understand, matthew uses ὄνον and πῶλον in both the quote from Zech and in his story about Jesus?
Someone translated from the Hebrew or indirectly from Aramaic, but there’s no indication that Matthew translated directly from the Hebrew. None. And several indicators that he didn’t. In addition to what’s already been said above, Matthew does not even indicate that this citation even comes from Zechariah. Is that because he knows it is someone’s mix and editing of multiple passages? Or does he not even know where the citations come from? Elsewhere, he misidentified a citation of Zechariah as coming from Jeremiah.
See Ulrich Luz’ Hermeneia commentary, vol 61C, p 7:
Matthew does not say from which prophet the following quotation comes, presumably because he does not know.34
34 Only Isaiah and Jeremiah are mentioned by name in the introductions to the fulfillment quotations, not Micah (see Matt 2:5), Hosea (see Matt 2:15), or the author of the Psalms (see Matt 13:35). That Matthew is not familiar with the book of Zechariah is clear from the incorrect attribution of Zech 11:13 to Jeremiah in 27:9.
His greek quote of Zech partially corresponds to the greek of Zech in the “LXX” – and disagrees with the greek but corresponds with a more direct translation from the Hebrew. This suggests the author has the usual greek translation but is also capable of translating direct from hebrew when the need arises.
In Matthew 27:9 what is being fulfilled is the purchase of the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners, not the taking of the thirty pieces of silver.
The purchase of the field is not from Zech – but could be taken from Jeremiah – eg 19:4,11 “For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent … This is what the Lord Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room.”
Robert said
But why do you think Matthew had a specific need for translating from the Hebrew here? He could have just as easily decided that Zechariah was speaking of two different animals in a Greek version or in an Aramaic targum as in the Hebrew text. In fact, this misunderstanding is much more likely in a Greek translation. If Matthew had a good understanding of the Hebrew, he would have been much less likely to miss and delete all obvious Hebrew literary parallelism in the text of Zechariah. If he wanted to be faithful to the Hebrew, why would he have deleted all of the other obvious elements of Hebrew literary parallelism?
The greek Zech πραῢς καὶ ἐπιβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ὑποζύγιον καὶ πῶλον νέον can be understood as “lowly riding upon a beast of burden even a new colt.”
Matthew’s main change is to add a second ἐπὶ to increase the sense of riding upon two separate animals. Here the hebrew/aramaic serving him better than the greek.
He doesnt want to remain faithful to the hebrew to have a prophecy consistent with riding upon two animals. He may have intentionally deleted the earlier parallelism to lessen the chance of parallelism being read into the last line. Displaying a sophisticated understanding of literary hebrew.
You are ignoring what Matthew actually says Jeremiah said:
τότε ἐπληρώθη τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ Ἰερεμίου τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος· καὶ ἔλαβον τὰ τριάκοντα ἀργύρια …
This is nearly identical to what the old Greek of Zechariah says: καὶ ἔλαβον τοὺς τριάκοντα ἀργυροῦς …
See also the continuation of Zechariah 11,13 and how it compares with Mt 27,3.5
… καὶ ἔλαβον τοὺς τριάκοντα ἀργυροῦς καὶ ἐνέβαλον αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν οἶκον κυρίου
ἔστρεψεν τὰ τριάκοντα ἀργύρια τοῖς ἀρχιερεῦσιν καὶ πρεσβυτέροις … καὶ ῥίψας τὰ ἀργύρια εἰς τὸν ναὸν
As in our passage, Matthew is conflating multiple texts from the Jewish scriptures. He fails to cite Zechariah in both Mt 21 or Mt 27, ‘though he is obviously relying in part on Zechariah, but there’s no indication that he was directly aware of the Hebrew text of Zechariah.
Yes the thirty pieces of silver being thrown into the temple is taken from Zechariah – but the prophecy being talked about is this money then being used to buy the potter’s field, which becomes known as the field of blood.
This part is not taken from Zech but is loosely taken from Jeremiah.
Robert said
So, it seems as if you are now (inadvertently?) agreeing with my original point. In its original context, Zechariah’s text should be read as obvious Hebrew literary parallelism. Matthew, if he were reading the original Hebrew, as you want to believe, would have presumably purposefully destroyed the parallelism of Zecharaiah’s Hebrew text, in order to get the stripped down prophecy he wants.
The question has been whether it is obviously literary parallelism (with a subtext of whether Matthew displays ignorance of Hebrew). The argument has always centered on whether than last line can be sensibly understood as referring to two different animals.
Matthew wants to read this as sensibly referring to two animals but he may also be displaying an awareness of the possibility of it being read as literary parallelism. He may be editing out the earlier parallelism to lessen the possible reading of parallelism in the important final line.
This then doesn’t help in deciding whether the Zech prophecy is obviously parallelism nor in deciding on Matthews supposed ignorance of hebrew.
You’re still ignoring what the text of Matthew actually says. He claims to be providing a direct quote from Jeremiah, but he is first quoting Zechariah.
… Ἰερεμίου τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος· καὶ ἔλαβον τὰ τριάκοντα ἀργύρια …
I don’t think that necessarily means a direct quote – he’s neither quoting Zechariah nor Jeremiah directly.
He could say “Jeremiah says the thirty pieces of silver, mentioned by Zechariah, was used to buy the potter’s field“. In which case he is still referring to a Jeremiah prophecy and he shouldn’t be accused of not knowing where his quotes are coming from.
Robert said
Again, our discussion from the start has been whether or not Zechariah 9,9 should be understood as an obvious example of Hebrew literary parallelism. You’ve wanted to focus merely on the last line of the text, out of context, but that is just plain dumb (sorry). If you (earlier in the thread) or Matthew (in your more recent argument) needs to change and delete parts of the text and thus put the last line of the text in a very different immediate context in order to read the line differently, you simply are not reading the same text.
No the point is if the last line is to be read sensibly as two separate animals (and this reading was the intention of the original author) then the earlier literary parallelism of the verse would serve to lead readers to the incorrect conclusion that the last line should also be read as parallelism.
It is not required that the earlier parallelism is removed in order to be able to read the last line as two separate animals. Nothing needs to be read out of context. Everything depends on whether the last line can be read sensibly as two separate animals.
You simply do not understand how direct discourse is formulated in Greek. Matthew is presenting this as a direct quotation from the prophet Jeremiah, but the first words he thinks he is quoting actually come from Zechariah. Matthew is extremely consistent in this manner of presenting direct discourse, I could show you over 70 examples of Matthew using this formula for direct discourse and never ever using this formula for indirect discourse. Don’t confuse the accuracy of the quotation with the manner of presenting a quotation.
Ok sure, but the point with 27:9 is that Matthew has not quoted Zechariah and mislabeled it Jeremiah. Zechariah 11 is about the thirty pieces of silver and how they were thrown back to the potter. Matthew 27:9 is about what was subsequently done with this money “They took the thirty pieces of silver … “
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