See and Seen

Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.  Exodus 34:23  NASB

Are to appear – You probably know about this requirement.  According to Jewish practice, three times a year all Israelite males had to appear before the Lord.  In the days of the Temple, this command was understood as a requirement for all the males to come to the Temple at least three times a year.  But neither requirement is exactly what the text says.  This text, in both translation and the original, has been altered to fit a theological prerequisite.  Tucker comments:

“The Hebrew text of Exodus 23:17 and especially Exodus 34:23 attests to an original belief that ‘three times a year all males shall see the Lord.’  Certainly by rabbinic times, this was revised to ‘shall be seen’ by revocalizing the word YR’H without changing the written consonantal text.  (It should be noted, however, that the presence of et, the accusative particle, makes the passive vocalization, though traditional, grammatically untenable.)”[1]

Let’s look at the Hebrew.

שָׁלֹשׁ פְּעָמִים בַּשָּׁנָה–יֵרָאֶה כָּל-זְכוּרְךָ אֶת-פְּנֵי הָאָדֹן יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל

I’ve highlighted the two crucial words.  The first (reading right to left, of course) is the verb rāʾâ (to see, to look at), read as a Nif’al imperfect, that is, as a passive verb.  Accordingly, the action happens to the subject, in this case, all Israelite males.  But this reading, as Tucker points out, depends on the vowel points added to the text.  Unfortunately, the presence of the second crucial word, et, makes this reading impossible because et tells us that the object of the verb is not the Israelite males but rather YHVH.  Grammatically, the text must read, “Three times a year all males will see God.”

Now you recognize the problem.  According to rabbinic teaching, the transcendent Holy One cannot be seen.  The grammatically correct text violates a theological principle.  What is the solution to this problem?  Simple: revise the text!  It is the theology that really matters; the theology that controls the meaning of the text, even if by following the theology we make nonsense of the textual grammar.  We believe that no man can see God and live.  But this text says otherwise.  Why do we believe this?  Because somewhere along the way we have been taught that no man can see God and live.  The question is, “Who taught us this and why?”  And now we discover that perhaps the original text didn’t really hold to this idea.  The theological text does.

The implications are astounding.  All this time we thought that Christian theologians altered the text in order to support their anti-Semitic views and give credence to the Christian claims about the Trinity.  Now we discover that the rabbis did the same thing.  They presented a theologically motivated text—and taught that this is what Moses said.  It seems that men are the same regardless of their religious orientation.  They all want God’s word to support whatever they themselves have concluded, and they’re willing to change His word to meet their demands.  Unfortunately, English translations of the Hebrew text follow rabbinic (Masorite) vocalization and no one is the wiser.

Topical Index: see, appear, et, rāʾâ, Nif’al, rabbinic theology, Exodus 34:23

[1] Gordon Tucker, in Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations (ed. and trans. by Gordon Tucker, Continuum International Publishing Group, New York, 2007), p. 270, fn. 24.