[B-Greek] Heb. 1.7: PNEUMATA-FLOGA
Harold Holmyard
hholmyard at ont.com
Tue Feb 6 15:54:34 EST 2007
I wasn't going to send this, but Carl's uncertainty suggests any
thoughts might be appreciated, however uncertain they are.
Elizabeth Kline wrote:
> Having received some significant help with this off list (thank you
> Iver), I will now return to the question of linguistic evidence in
> regard to identifying the objects and predicates in Heb 1:7.
>
> HEB. 1:7 KAI PROS MEN TOUS AGGELOUS LEGEI:
> hO POIWN TOUS AGGELOUS AUTOU PNEUMATA
> KAI TOUS LEITOURGOUS AUTOU PUROS FLOGA,
>
> Should we understand TOUS AGGELOUS and TOUS LEITOURGOUS as the
> objects or the predicates of POIWN? Several of the serious
> commentators make dogmatic pronouncements on this question without
> IMO bringing to bear lucid and compelling evidence.
>
> Borrowing from the field of cognitive linguistics, relevance theory
> and specially R.DeBlois' treatment of cognitive frames, I have
> divided the solutions to this problem into two camps (admittedly an
> over simplification).
>
> The first camp takes the words hO POIWN TOUS AGGELOUS AUTOU PNEUMATA
> KAI TOUS LEITOURGOUS AUTOU PUROS FLOGA and places them within a
> cognitive framework of first century Judaism, specifically the idea
> of the mutability of TOUS AGGELOUS who are created daily and return
> to the "fire" after giving a days service. TOUS AGGELOUS and TOUS
> LEITOURGOUS are understood as the objects with PNEUMATA as PUROS
> FLOGA the predicates.
>
> The second camp takes the same words and places them within a
> cognitive framework of a storm theophany, a common theme in the
> Psalms and OT prophets. Thus PNEUMATA and PUROS FLOGA are understood
> as the objects with TOUS AGGELOUS and TOUS LEITOURGOUS as predicates.
> This approach places more emphasis on the cognitive framework for
> Psalm 104.
>
> This illustrates a theme within recent linguistics (last 30 years)
> that semantics is not just about the meaning of words. You cannot
> solve a problem like this one if you limit your notion of meaning to
> lexical sense and reference.
>
HH: There are one or two grammatical arguments to be made for the
former, at least in my mind right now. First, in Hebrew, when you make
something into something, the word order seems to have what you make it
into as the second of the two accusatives. See, for example, Ex 32:4;
Num 11:8; Judges 17:4; 1 Kings 18:32; Gen 27:9; Isa 44:15; Hos 8:4
(though one item precedes the verb here). This order even seems to occur
in Ps 104:3, where God makes the clouds his chariot. I would like to see
some other examples of a reversed order in order to have more confidence
in the second interpretation you offered.
Second, it seems more natural to speak of making your messengers a flame
of fire than to speak of making a flame of fire your messengers. If it
were the latter, one would expect a singular "messenger": "One who makes
a flame of fire his messenger." However, it is possible that Hebrew
"fire" was capable of being understood as a collective consisting of flames.
Angels made into winds might seem to conflict with the creation of
nature setting of Psalm 104, but it is as least plausible there, and it
is, it seems to me, the only interpretation that fits the context of
Hebrews 1. There is a conceivable suitability to the idea in Psalm 104,
for God clothes himself with light. It is as if he were altered into the
natural form of light, or that he appeared in the light. So God might
prepare his angels for the natural world by turning them into winds and
a flame of fire. It is possible that the author of Hebrews altered the
meaning of Psalm 104, but that seems less likely than his preserving it.
I don't think borrowing from first century Judaism has to govern this
imagery, since the psalm was probably written long before the first
century (I know you have in mind the author of Hebrews). The psalm could
speak of the natural form in which angels perform their service in this
world.
On the other hand, if God made the clouds his chariot, it is natural to
think he might make the winds his messengers.
Yours,
Harold Holmyard
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