Sunday, December 21, 2014

"She's gonna poke my eyes out!"

The teacher in my Elder's Quorum mentioned this today and I had to go look it up and I thought it was pretty good.

So you may know the parable of the unjust judge found in Luke:
1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.
 That part in verse five that reads "lest by her continual coming she weary me" is apparently very different if you read the original Greek. The word that is translated in the King James Version as "she weary me" is ὑπωπιάζῃ which literally means "to strike under the eye" (i.e. to give someone a black eye). As the teacher pointed out (in a former life he was a classics major) the connotation of the word ὑπωπιάζῃ is sort of what the Greek equivalent of WWF fighters do to each other by trying to gouge each other's eyes out.

So perhaps a better rendering of verse five might be:
5 Yet because this widow keeps getting in my face, I will avenge her, or else one of these days she's gonna come here and poke my eyes out.
I think the Bible is a tad bit more interesting if you learn a little Greek.

1 comment:

Michaela Stephens said...

Nice detail there. So I guess the implication of the verses is that while an unjust judge might avenge a wronged widow after a while out of fear of reprisals from her, God loves his Saints much more than that and will avenge His Saints speedily when the time comes, after He's given plenty of time for the wicked to repent.

Is that what you get from it?