Correcting the Bible
For it is a day of the LORD of Armies, over all the proud and lofty and over all on high and lifted up. Isaiah 2:12 Robert Alter
Lifted up – Robert Alter’s translation comes with an explanation. “lifted up. This emends the Masoretic ‘lowly,’ which doesn’t seem plausible. This whole clause is repeated as a refrain in verse 17, underscoring the high-low theme of the entire poem.”[1] At least Alter tells us that he has changed the text. He doesn’t mean he has changed the translation of the text. He means he has altered the Hebrew, and this results in his translation. Other English Bibles aren’t so transparent. The NASB, for example, allows the reader to believe that the Hebrew text is behind this translation:
For the Lord of armies will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is arrogant and haughty, and against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be brought low. NASB
The Orthodox Jewish Bible does the same:
For the Yom L’Hashem Tzva’os shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low: OJB
So does the NIV:
The Lord Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled), NIV
These translations add quite a bit in order to accommodate what doesn’t make sense in the MT.
The Hebrew MT text reads like this:
כִּ֣י י֞וֹם לַֽיהֹוָ֧ה צְבָא֛וֹת עַ֥ל כָּל־גֵּאֶ֖ה וָרָ֑ם וְעַ֖ל כָּל־נִשָּׂ֥א וְשָׁפֵֽל
Literally, “for a day will have Lord of hosts against everyone arrogant and lofty all lifted up and lowly.” As Alter says, this doesn’t make sense. The same phrase occurs in verse 17.
וְשַׁח֙ גַּבְה֣וּת הָֽאָדָ֔ם וְשָׁפֵ֖ל ר֣וּם אֲנָשִׁ֑ים וְנִשְׂגַּ֧ב יְהֹוָ֛ה לְבַדּ֖וֹ בַּיּ֥וֹם הַהֽוּא
Chabad translates this as:
“And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day.” Yeshayahu 2:17 Chabad
The verb is šāpēl, which does mean “to be low, to sink, to be humbled.” If it is treated as a verb in verse 17, why wouldn’t it be a verb in verse 12? That’s the assumption behind most of the English translations. The problem is a grammatical one. You see, in verse 12 וְשָׁפֵֽל is an adjective. Translating it as a verb means ignoring the grammar. Alter emends the word to a verb in concert with verse 17. The other English Bibles pretend it is a verb even if the grammar says otherwise.
By this time you’re asking yourself, “Why do we care about such a minute detail?” The answer is this: translators do their best to make sense of passages that contain textual difficulties, but they usually don’t tell you that there is a problem. That means you think the text is sacrosanct as it is. After all, it’s exactly what God wanted, right? And at this point, theology replaces translation. If you knew that the MT sometimes needs correction, you might feel as if you couldn’t trust it, and therefore, you can’t trust the Bible you have in your hands. But this is an unwarranted conclusion based in theological fear rather than linguistic fact. The text of the Bible is a human creation. Oh, I am sure it is divinely inspired, but it was written down by men who had their own views about what God said, and sometimes these views mean changes in vowel pointing, small alterations, and additions. Scholars know this. Most believers have no idea. But faith doesn’t rest on these words. It rests on the experience of God’s actions in personal and communal history. The words are what we use to interpret the events, and sometimes they need a bit of reflective correction.
Topical Index: lifted up, šāpēl, brought down, textual correction, Isaiah 2:17, Isaiah 2:12
[1] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible Volume 3 Writings, p. 628, fn. 12.
I read Ehrman’s book, “Misquoting Jesus” – and he seemed to make mountains out of mole hills with his examples of textual change and inaccuracy. I thought, “if this is the best you’ve got…”, and came away in awe of how unpolluted the scriptures have remained throughout
the years. To borrow some phrasing from Os Guinness, I go to scripture to breath the oxygen of eternity, to find the values that are not time and culture dependent (of course some are), and to prevent myself from being a degraded child of my own time.
Stressing the Greek perfection of the text has led to misguided and uninformed theology, yes. However, stressing experience often leads to theology that happens to mirror whatever the unstable cultural values there are at the time. I don’t think you are trying to swing the pendulum the other way that far, but I hope you would agree we should be cautious.
My very general understanding of Emergent church theology is that it stresses the individual’s ‘real and immediate’ experience of the headship of Christ. Good and well. However, what is actually meant by them is that the old words no longer apply. In other words, Holy Spirit of the living God can now lead the church into a more progressive theology and ignore anything that modern western ethics considers embarrassing.
I hear you. Yes, caution. The evidence suggests we need to leave the doctrine of inerrancy behind, but that isn’t the same as saying the text is useless. It is still that record of our interaction with God. Relying entirely on the “Holy Spirit” is collective mysticism, and subject to all the fallacies that accompany that trajectory.
And by God’s own “advocate/councellor” this “reflective correction” is transformed from mere human language to the voice of God’s own spirit by which man’s understanding is illumined in the light of God’s own glory and presence in those whose faith in this selfsame God’s own faithfulness to his nature/character constitutes a living temple for God’s indwelling presence and power. The veil (of human flesh) was rent, whereby man may live in God’s presence, in virtue of the sacrificial death of his Christ— the lamb of God— on the cross, affirmed by Christ’s resurrection from the dead and his exaltation by ascension to the right hand of God whereby he now rules as the Sovereign Lord of life and truth… awaiting his return as judge of mankind and savior of his people, whom he knows altogether as the omniscient Lord.