7 And regarding the angels He says,
“HE MAKES HIS ANGELS WINDS,
Psalm 104:4
AND HIS MINISTERS A FLAME OF FIRE.”
Psalm 104: 1-9 from the Masoretic Text [Hebrew Old Testament]
1 Let all that I am praise the LORD. O LORD my God, how great you are! You are robed with honor and majesty.
2 You are dressed in a robe of light. You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens;
3 you lay out the rafters of your home in the rain clouds. You make the clouds your chariot; you ride upon the wings of the wind.
4 The winds are your messengers; flames of fire are your servants.
5 You placed the world on its foundation so it would never be moved.
6 You clothed the earth with floods of water, water that covered even the mountains.
7 At your command, the water fled; at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away.
8 Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed.
9 Then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so they would never again cover the earth.
Psalm 104:1-9 . . .
Psalm 104:1-9 in the Septuagint [Greek Old Testament]
1 Bless the Lord Oh my soul. Oh Lord my God, You are very great. You have clothed Yourself with praise and honour.
2 You clothed Yourself with light as with a garment; spreading out the heavens as a curtain.
3 The One Who covers his chambers with waters, You make the clouds your chariot; You ride on the wings of the wind.
4 Who makes your angels spirits and your ministers flames of fire.
5 Who establishes the earth on a sure foundation; so it would never be moved.
6 You clothed the earth with floods of water, water that covered even the mountains.
7 At your command, the water fled; at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away.
8 Mountains rose and valleys sank to the boundaries You appointed.
9 You set a firm boundary for the seas, so they would never again cover the earth.
Psalm 104:1-9 . . .
I need to explain what I have done here before I receive howls of protest. Yes I have given you the first nine verses of Psalm 104 in two different versions. “But Ian, Psalm 104 has 35 verses.” I am well aware of that. Some of you have complained already about being given the full quote from the passage in Deuteronomy 32:1-43. “Don’t you think that is overkill Ian, when the verse in question is the only one in focus?” Yes, but I wanted you to see for yourself the two patterns: the varying references to God and the Son and the repetitious lines highlighting Israel’s abandoning God by worshipping things that are not God. This time I have only given you the first nine verses because that seemed a good place to stop. The first nine verses outline the macro level of God setting the limits at creation. Even though the psalmist goes on to highlight more features of God’s creative acts, the main point he wanted to make was that the angels are messengers, spirits; poetically like the wind and fire.
The writer of Hebrews quotes from the Septuagint text not from the Hebrew Old Testament. So I thought it would be a good for me to make that clear to you by giving you both texts, at least for the first nine verses. You can see clearly how we are dealing with two translations of the same text. In this case the original text comes through the Hebrew language, but we also have a Greek translation of it.
“Look at that Ian! That is what makes me wary of translations. On the very verse the writer quoted we have a problem. One translation reads wind and the other angels. You just can’t trust translations.”
“No, chill out! Allow me to point out to you what is going on here.”
In actual fact we have consistency here even though it might not look like it. Just as the other verses in Psalm 1-9 (and all the way to verse thirty five in reality) are acceptable variations in translation. So too verse four; the one in focus in the mind of the writer. In fact the matches or parallels are:
- messengers ~ angels
- winds ~ spirits
The apparent mismatch is found in winds and spirits. But that too is entirely biblical, actually in both languages which is rare occurrence.
Ruach (Hebrew) and Pneuma (Greek) are packaged the same way in terms of their lexicons or dictionaries. I am sure you are aware that when translating from one language to another the problem is found in the meanings of the words. Words are not packed the same in terms of their primary and secondary meanings across languages. A single word can be used in different ways by virtue of its multiple meanings. That is why we can end up making puns or plays on words because a single word can have more the one meaning. But it is hard to find examples where the multiple meanings stay the same across languages. Normally, if there are three meanings for a word in one language, you might be able to match two of them perfectly but you will lose the third meaning. In this case the meaning of both ruach and pneuma have the same meanings between these two languages of the Bible. (In fact all three Biblical languages: Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic)
- Spirit
- Wind
- Breath
That is remarkable! What is more remarkable are the plays on words that are possible between the meanings of these words ruach and pneuma. I am not going to say anymore but will leave you with the thrill of finding the depth of meaning and the word plays which are possible across the Bible from these words. Why would I spoil your fun and rob you of the excitement of finding them for yourself?
But now let’s return to the the quote from Hebrews 1:7. The writer of Psalm 104 has painted a very graphic, poetic picture of God’s creative act and in the Septuagint (LXX) translation the word play is brought into focus. It is that which the author of Hebrews is seeking to draw our attention to by quoting the Septuagint version, which is actually his standard version anyway, in order to highlight the difference between THIS SON and angels. It is highly likely that both wind and spirit are placed together here.
Enough said.
Now you can go away and spend the next _____ unpacking it.
Now in order to offset any more potential howls of protest: No, I have not continued to plumb the depths of the complication from the previous Gem. I told you I would leave it for now for us all to think more about. I will pick it up again when we come to Hebrews 2:7.
I will leave you now with ten choice quotes based on word plays and double meanings.
He who slings mud generally loses ground.
Ian
Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.
Robert Ludlum
The Providence of God is like Hebrew words – it can only be read backwards.
John Flavel
We have dental floss for things hung in our teeth. I wish we had mental floss for things stuck in our brain.
T F Tenney
No matter what your problem is – don’t nurse it, don’t curse it, don’t rehearse it. Just call on God and He’ll reverse it.
(Yes Jussar, second time in seven Gems)
Jussar Badudu
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package!
Louie Giglio
If you want to be a bridge, expect to get walked on.
Max Lucado
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
Winston Churchill
Suffering from Truth decay? Brush up on your Bible.
Seen On a T Shirt
Some people get lost in thought because it’s such unfamiliar territory.
Rick Godwin
The fact that the words ruach and pneuma have the same meanings across three different languages is truly amazing.