Lost in Translation: Matthew 22:38-40
This article is part of a series explaining the secrets hidden in Greek in Jesus’s most popular verses. See this article for the beginning of this series.
The context for Matthew 22:38-40 is Jesus’s answer when a Pharisee asked him what the greatest commandment was. We covered the first verse in his answer last week. It was Matthew 22:37,
NIV: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Jesus’s answer differed from Moses’s in Deuteronomy 6:5 by adding a different ending, which was his trick of creating surprise punchlines. He does something similar in these following verses. They each have their own little tricks that are lost or hidden in translation.
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Putting the First Last
In English translation, we read Matthew 22:28 as:
It doesn’t look like there is any humor here, but Jesus’s precise meaning is lost in translation. First, he doesn’t say “greatest.” He didn’t use any superlatives at all. He says “the great.” Of course, calling this “the great commandment” isn’t faint praise. And saying “the greatest” puts other commandments in the same class, something Jesus didn’t do. For him, this was THE Great Commandment. I capitalize THE because, in English, we devalue the power of the Greek “the.” See this article.
The English translators also reverse the order of the adjectives. Does this matter? Only because one of them is “first.” The translators do the obvious thing, which is to put the word "first" first, but Jesus doesn't. He says "great" first because this THE Great Commandment, and he put "first" second because, sometimes, being first is secondary. What Jesus said was:
Listeners Heard: This is the great and first command.
Notice how rephrasing it makes this commandment sound even greater than “the greatest.”
Another Old Testament Quote
This brings us to Matthew 22:39:
NIV: And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
In the first part, the language looks dull, but Jesus uses some surprising words here. The Greek doesn’t say “the second” but “a second,” adding it but not ranking it with the great commandment. The translators also mistranslate the word “it” in the phrase at the end, “like it.” The word means “itself.” The ending of “like itself,” is a setup for the ending of the next phrase in this verse.
The rest of this verse is a phrase from Greek from the Septuagint’s Leviticus 19:18.
NIV: ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
The word translated as "love" is also not as abstract in Greek as in English. The sense of it it is caring for others as we care for dependent family members. See this article for more.
As explained in an earlier article, the Greek word translated as “neighbor" is much narrower than how it is taught in Christianity today. Seeing everyone in the world as our neighbor is a very modern ideology and it was not the concept at the time. Jesus only used the word for neighbor in five verses. It means "close" and physically "near." It is an adjective. It also means “close to” in relationships, including family relationships. Our neighbors are those who we see around us, even if we don’t know them by name. Just because we see the world on TV doesn’t make everyone our neighbor. We cannot reach out and touch them. It is easier to pretend we care about people everywhere instead of taking action with our own hands. Of course, many of us would also like to forget that some family members are also our neighbors by Jesus’s definition.
Jesus cuts off the last line of Leviticus, making the “as yourself” this verse’s end words, that is, its punchline. Notice that this “as yourself” echoes the “like itself” at the end of the first phrase.
What Jesus said was:
Listeners Heard: A second is like itself: You should care for those nearby as yourself.
Hanging on the Law
This brings us to the final verse, Matthew 22:40.
NIV: All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
If the word "hang" seems odd here, it is because it is a good translation of the Greek. Jesus chose it to be surprising. The English translations, however, seemingly makes the point that from these two commandments, we get all of the rest of the law, but that is not what Jesus said. He only uses this verb meaning “hang” twice. It means to "hang up," "hang," and, interestingly, "crucify.” The only other time Jesus uses this verb is to talk about a millstone hung around someone's neck when they are tossed into the sea for corrupting children (Matthew 18:6).
This “hang” is the key to this verse, which is the punchline of all four verses. I applaud the translators for accurately representing it. The Greek word has two implications. These two commands are higher than the law because they hold everything else up, not as a foundation, but by suspension. This makes these two commands are the judge and jury which can execute as in kill, all other lesser laws. The people of Judea and Galilee had six hundred and thirteen biblical laws to obey. These 613 must be ignored if honoring them violates the two laws above them.
Jesus said:
Listeners Heard: On these, these two commandments, the entire law hangs itself and those prophets.
Notice how “those prophets” is added at the end, creating an image of the prophets being hung, that is, executed. Of course, many of them were killed.
Sharing Jesus’s Meaning
Do we not, like Jesus, want to put what is great first? There have always been people who put themselves first, but do we consider them great? If we look at history, who has shaped it? Those who thought only of themselves or those who honored values and powers greater than themselves?
How do we improve this world? Is it by telling ourselves and others that we love all humanity? Or is it by serving those around us in some tangible way? Which is more real: our idealistic claims or what we act upon in our daily lives? If we don’t care about those we come in contact with every day, isn’t it an excuse to claim that we care about the billions of faceless people? Or do we truly do good by caring for those we can really touch?