LEXICONS CAN BE WRONG, II

Hugo McCord

A previous article, “Lexicons Can Be Wrong,” dealt with a mistake in the justly celebrated A GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, a translation and a revision of Walter Bauer’s German lexicon by William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich in 1957, and with a mistake in the second edition edited by F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker in 1979.

In reference to the mistake in the second edition, I said that the lexicon

had gone too far in saying that psallo “in modern Greek [that is, since the Old Testament] means ‘sing’ exclusively ... with no reference to instrumental accompaniment” (p. 891).

However, a friend says I misinterpreted the lexicon’s phrase “in modern Greek” as meaning “since the Old Testament.” He says the lexicon only meant “in current Greek.” If he is correct, and I believe that he is, the lexicon errs in failing to show that, in New Testament Greek, psallo means both “sing” (Romans 15:9; 1 Corinthians 14:15 twice, James 5:13) and “play” (Ephesians 5:19), the playing being figurative, plucking the strings of the heart, making melody in the heart.

Grateful are all those who reverence the holy Scriptures for the years of labor Greek scholars expend in producing dictionaries (lexicons) for us readers in English. Joseph Henry Thayer spent twenty-two years translating and revising the monumental work of C. L. Wilibald Grimm before publishing his A GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT in 1886. Readily Professor Thayer would have said that he wrote “in words taught by human wisdom,” not “in words taught by the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:13), which means his massive dictionary is not mistake-proof.

Thayer made the same mistake mentioned above in the A-G-D lexicon in failing to show that, in New Testament Greek, psallo means both “sing” and “play.” Accurately he cited New Testament verses meaning “sing” (Romans 15:9; 1 Corinthians 14:15 twice, James 5:13), but he went too far by citing Ephesians 5:19 as meaning “sing” (p. 675).

In Thayer’s clear distinction between agapan, a love “founded in admiration, veneration, esteem,” and philein, a love “prompted by sense and emotion,” it appears he made three non-valid differences (p. 653):

(1) Thayer wrote that “men are said agapan God, not philein.” But if men are philein God’s Son (John 16:27), the distinction by the respected lexicographer is only technical, not real, since the Father and the Son are one (John 10:30), and no Christian would ever say that he does not have a love for God “prompted by sense and emotion.” Every true Christian has both a philia affection and an agape commitment both to the Father and to the Son.

(2) Thayer wrote that “God is said to agapesai” the world (John 3:16), “and to philein the disciples of Christ (John 16:27).” But in Titus 3:4 God’s philia love for the world is in Paul’s word philanthropia, and in 2 Corinthians 13:13 God’s agape love for the disciples of Christ is in Paul’s word agape.

(3) Thayer wrote that “love as an emotion [philia] cannot be commanded, but only love as a choice.” On the contrary, “love as an emotion [philia] is commanded (Romans 12:12; Titus 2:4; Hebrews 13:1).

In addition to Thayer’s three minor errors about agape love and philia love, he also errs in holding that the spirits, both of the righteous and of the unrighteous, are in “Hades,” describing it as “the common receptacle of disembodied spirits,” citing supporting Scriptures as Luke 16:23 and Acts 2:27, 31.

Luke 16:23 does place the disembodied spirit of the rich man in Hades where he is being tormented “in this flame” (v. 24). But Luke 16:23 does not place the disembodied spirit of Lazarus in Hades, nor in a sub-division of Hades.

On the surface, Acts 2:27, 31 prove that Hades was the receptacle for Jesus’ disembodied spirit:

For You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. ... His soul was not left in Hades, neither did His flesh see corruption (NKJV).

If there is a pleasant compartment in Hades called “Paradise” (where Jesus’ spirit went the day he died, Luke 23:43), one wonders why Jesus rejoiced that God would not “leave” (egkataleip, abandon, desert, forsake) his “soul” in such a pleasant place. He looked forward to a release from Hades!

Such a wonder disappears when one remembers that the word “soul” (nephesh in Hebrew; pseuche in Greek) does not always mean a disembodied spirit, as it does in Revelation 6:9. Sometimes a surprising but substantiated meaning of the word “soul” is that of a “dead body,” a corpse (Numbers 5:2; 6:6; 9:6, 7, 10; 19:11, 13).

Then one remembers that the word “Hades” (She’ol in Hebrew; Haides in Greek) literally means a hollow place, a cavity, a cavern, but in Scripture is “the belly” of the fish that swallowed Jonah (1:17), and is “the pit” when “the earth opened its mouth and swallowed” Korah and his fellow rebels (Numbers 16:31-32), and is a “the grave” (its most usual meaning, Genesis 37:35; 42:38; 44:29, 31; Psalm 88:3-5), and (in one citation) a place of flaming torment (Luke 16:23-24).

With those two unusual but biblical definitions of “soul” and “Hades” in mind, one does not wonder why Jesus looked forward to his dead body (his “soul”) coming out of the grave {“Hades”), for, as Thayer (p. 11) correctly pointed out, Hades is “a dark (Job 10:21) and dismal place.”

In addition, when one turns to the context of the words “soul” and “Hades” in Acts 2:27,31, he finds that the meanings “dead body” and “grave” are the only ones that fit:

for you will not abandon my corpse in the grave, neither will you allow your holy one to see decay. ... he was not left in the grave, neither did his flesh see decay.

The King James Version of 1611 leaves the impression that Jesus’ “soul” (his spirit), when he died, went to “hell”:

Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. ... his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption (Acts 2:27, 31).

But the meaning “hell fire” (accurate in Matthew 5:22, KJV, from geenna) was not in the minds of the King James translators in Acts 2:27, 31. In Acts 2:27, 31 they were translating haides, Hades, a word that refers to an unseen place (a privative and idein, “not to be seen,” Thayer) of fiery torment only once in the Bible (Luke 16:23). As shown above, the usual meaning of Hades is the grave, which is the meaning the KJV translators had in mind when they used the word “hell,” for the literal meaning of the word “hell” (derived from the German word Hohle, a hole, a covered place) was a place of concealment (from ME. helle; AS. hel, Webster).

The following chart represents the larger biblical context depicting Hades, not consisting of two compartments (one for the righteous, one for the unrighteous), but with two unpleasant meanings: (1) a place for all dead bodies, and (2) a place for the punishment of conscious disembodied spirits waiting for the judgment: