For 5 decades now I've been teaching the language of the New Testament. Greek never gets old!
Today was no exception. All this month of December, I am reading through Matthew's narrative of the birth of the Messiah and producing my own fresh translation of the Greek. I feel like I'm feasting on God's word! Here's a snippet from today's notes on Matt. 1:20. But first, the context.
Joseph, the text says, was inclined to act mercifully toward Mary when he discovered that she was pregnant. "I'll hand her a bill of divorcement and that will be that." Apparently he wanted to avoid exposing Mary to public shame. Still, he must have wondered to himself, "And I doing the right thing?"
That's when we come to verse 20. Here we read that Joseph began to ponder in his mind his next steps when an angel of God suddenly appeared to him in a dream.
If you will look at the Greek text here you will see that the little particle idou precedes the words "an angel of the Lord appeared." Many modern translations ignore the word altogether. These versions include the CSB, CEV, GW, GNT, Phillips, TLB, MSG, NET, NIV, and NLT. The word itself can be rendered in any number of ways, including "behold," "look," "listen," "suddenly," and "just then" -- that is, in any way that arouses interest. Here the word seems to call attention to the startling nature of the angel's announcement to Joseph that Mary had conceived her child not in a natural way but in the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence my translation:
"But as Joseph was mulling these things over in my mind, you'll never guess what happened next! An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said ...."
Incidentally, Matthew's use of idou is a reminder that his Gospel contains many Semitic-style constructions. The idiom "behold" is not necessarily unGreek, but it occurs with greater frequency in Semitic languages than in Greek. (Its Hebrew equivalent hinneh occurs about 100 times in Genesis alone.) This seems to be a good time for me to remind everyone of the indispensability of the study of Hebrew (as well as Greek) for the proper interpretation of the Gospels. Semitic influence on the language of Matthew is apparent on every page. (I've summarized these Semitisms in an article in The Bible Translator in case anyone is interested.)
But this post is getting way too long. Back to writing! (I'm trying to finish a book on basic Bible study methods for layfolk.)