Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

Idioms in the Bible - Part 7

There are, loosely speaking, two types of statements that Jesus makes in the gospels. The one kind consists of those statements in which Jesus lays out his own teaching, such as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). The other kind consists of statements made in controversy with his Jewish opponents. There is obviously a certain amount of overlap between these two types of statements, but they can usually still be distinguished. In Matthew 11, Jesus is speaking to the crowds concerning John the Baptist. He begins by commending the interest in John’s ministry (vss 7-15). But he then moves into a rebuke of those who have rejected both the message of John and the message of Jesus. He summarizes his critique with a brief poetic statement saying, "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn" (vs 17). Lamsa identifies this as an idiom that means, "we have tried to inform, to induce you to come out." Unfortunately, Lamsa at this point is wrong on two counts. First, the statement is not an idiom, even in Syriac. Second, Lamsa seems to miss Jesus’ own explanation of his words. Jesus is not using an Aramaic/Syriac idiom, though the lines do sound like they might have been a common saying. As a saying, the obvious point is that those who are being critiqued have not been pleased by anything that has been offered to them. The point of Jesus’ use of the saying is that the crowds have not been satisfied regardless of what God’s messengers (John and Jesus) have done. John came in a severe manner with a severe message, and the Jewish leaders rejected him. Jesus has come in a light manner with a healing message ("for my yoke is easy and my burden is light" vs 30), and the Jewish leaders have rejected him as well.

One difficult aspect of the gospel accounts is Jesus’ exorcising of demons. Matt 12:43ff refers to an unclean spirit going out of a person and then returning with seven others even more evil. Lamsa explains the unclean spirit as "an evil inclination; a demented person." Now unclean spirits are mentioned a number of times in the gospels, and Jesus’ treatment of them is as if they had real existence. In driving out demons, Jesus’ always spoke directly to them as to personal entities. Thus it is unlikely that "unclean spirit" is simply an idiom for an evil inclination, or for mental illness. It is interesting, however, that outside of the gospels, the New Testament rarely mentions demons or unclean spirits. There seems to be something to the view that demonic activity during the ministry of Jesus really was a response of spiritual evil to the inbreaking of the kingdom of God, and hence was distinctive to the ministry of Jesus and the apostles (see Matt 12:28, "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.") The interested reader can find more in the article "Demon, Demoniac, Demonology" in the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol 2, pp 92-101, or in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1979), "Demonology," vol 1, pp 919-23.

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