Sunday, January 16, 2022

M.J.J. Menken on the use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15

  

(a) Internal criterion. A messianic interpretation of this prophetic utterance is implausible if one takes its immediate context into account: the son who has been called out of Egypt, is the people of Israel, as is evident from the preceding clause (“when Israel was a youth, I loved him”) in combination with the plurals used in what follows. Hosea 11 as a whole concerns God’s love for Israel in spite of their unfaithfulness, a love that starts with the exodus from Egypt. A messianic interpretation of the clause just quoted is possible only by isolating it completely from its context.

 

In this case, there are relevant differences between the versions. Matthew’s revised LXX agrees with the Hebrew text (וממצרים קראתי לבני) and also with Aquila’s translation (there is only the minor difference that Aquila has απο where Matthew has εξ), but the unrevised LXX differs in giving a Greek translation with a plural object (και εξ Αιγυπτου μετεκαλεσα τα τεκνα αυτου), either because the translator reads a Hebrew text with לבניו, or because he himself interpreted the clause on the basis of its context. In any case: this translation excludes a messianic interpretation. There is another tradition of translation in which “my son” is taken as a predicate. We find it in, for instance, Theodotion’s translation: εξ Αιγυπτου εκαλεσα αυτον υιον μου, “since Egypt I have called him my son” (see also Symmachus, Tg., Syr.) (in this translation, the preposition has to be taken in the temporal sense. The Tg. Has a plural object, as the LXX). As long as the clause is isolated from its context and has a singular object, this type of translation also allows a messianic interpretation but Matthew, who considers Jesus as the Son of God from his conception (see 1,18.20), could not possibly use it.

 

(b) External criterion. Apart from Matthew’s quotation and Christian texts influenced by it (e.g., Gos. Naz. Frg. 1), there is no evidence for a messianic interpretation of Hos 11,1b. Early Jewish references to the righteous one as a son of God (e.g., Wis 2,13.16.18), or to the Jews as sons of God (Sib. Or. 3,702) may well have been influenced by OT passages such as Hos 11,1b, but they do not constitute messianic interpretations of the clause.

 

(c) Conclusion. As far as I can detect, Matthew was the first one to interpret Hos 11,1b in a messianic sense. He could do so only by isolating the clause from its context and by using a text of the clause with a singular object. (M.J.J. Menken “Messianic Interpretation of Greek Old Testament Passages in Matthew’s Fulfilment Quotations,” in M.A. Knibb, ed., The Septuagint and Messianism [Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 195; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006], 467)