Philippians 2:6

Alex / Ali alexali at surf.net.au
Fri Dec 24 05:04:47 EST 1999


I notice in the daily digest received today that Edgar Foster took up some comments I made yesterday in regard to Philippians 2:6, particularly in relation to hUPARCWN's being taken as causal or concessive.   I thank Edgar for citing these;  my intention had been mainly to identify hUPARCON as yet one more element in the mix that makes this verse difficult, and particularly to indicate the outworking of that in translation (since Grant Polle's initial post indicated that his interest had been aroused in part through his noting the range of translations).  I think that if we were to present to non-Greek readers some understanding of the difficulties behind the verse, three factors come to mind:  1. hARPAGMOS.  The difficulty of this word is borne out yet again in the posts of the digest I've just read (including those from Rod Decker, Jeffrey B. Gibson, Greg Stafford, Edgar Foster, Jon R. Venema).  Despite Rod's apparent confidence (shared by Moises Silva [Philippians, in The Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary series, p118 and fn 38 on that page] who says, "Hoover's essay, which reflects thoroughness and a clear-headed method, must be regarded as having settled this particular question"), I'm not sure we can 'nail it down', and this because the evidence we have of it is simply too thin.  To my mind, the very fact that the literature on the verse so often resorts to the analogy of the word's cognates is indicative of the paucity of evidence available to us.  In this regard, I would take up a point made by Grant Polle in his saying of hARPAGMOS, "Notice some of its verb meanings", simply to say that it can be misleading to assume the meaning of a noun based on its cognate verb (sometimes they may take unexpected and divergent paths).  That is particularly true in a case such as this where our knowledge of a specific word is based on very few examples, for the reliance on etymology and the meaning of cognates can give us an unwarranted confidence.   2 The understanding of MORFH.  3 The possibility of understanding hUPARCWN in different ways, including the concessive and causal senses, while acknowledging that the nuances derived from it such as "because he was" or "although he was" are *not* dictated by the form.
 
Edgar cited Professor Gerald Hawthorne as taking HUPARCWN in a causal sense, and Richard R. Melick Jr and Moises Silva as favouring the concessive (I didn't understand Edgar to be necessarily citing with approval either the one or the two).  Part of Edgar's message read:
 
>Richard R. Melick Jr. (NA Commentary) critiques Hawthorne's idea as follows:  "Hawthorne, Philippians, 85, takes the participle causally: "Precisely because he was in the form of God." The idea is attractive, but the text speaks of giving up what one has, and the concessive emphasizes that more" 
(Melick [1991] ).
 
I myself think that Melick's point that "the text speaks of giving up what one has" in fact argues *against* taking hUPARCWN concessively, because of the position the adversative ALLA at the beginning of verse seven.  Verse six establishes the magnitude of what was given up by Christ Jesus, "who being in the form of God did not consider equality with God as robbery";  then the adversative ALLA is in its proper place to give emphasis: "*but* he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant 
".

Moises Silva [fn 11, p105] quotes a remark made by Morna D Hooker in the broader context of verses 6-11 with which we can perhaps all relate to:  "I myself have produced six or seven different analyses - and found each of them convincing at the time!"
 
It being only three hours before Santa attempts to crawl down the chimney here (I have never quite got the hang of working out the time for most of you over there in America), I must close with my best wishes to all.
 
Dr Alex Hopkins (Melbourne, Australia)
 
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