by Kent Leslie ✉️
Everyone who does not do everything. Proof text #3 comes from
Dt 27.26: “ ‘Anyone who does not put the words of this law into practice is cursed.’ And all the people will say, ‘Amen!’ ”
So the text doesn’t quite match. And that’s not because Paul did a bad job of translating Hebrew into Greek: Sometimes he didn’t translate it himself. Sometimes he quoted the Septuagint. That’s what he did here.
The Septuagint was a very popular Greek translation of the Old Testament. It’s the one Pharisees used in Greek-speaking synagogues. It’s the one the Greek Orthodox Church still uses. (And English-speaking members of the Greek church translate the Septuagint into English for their bibles, rather than translate it from Hebrew.) It’s not the only ancient Greek OT; many Greek-speakers had taken a shot at translating the scriptures. (“Septuagint” comes from the Latin word septuaginta, “seventy,” and is often abbreviated
As the story goes: Back in the early 200s BC, King Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt decided he wanted a bible in the Library of Alexandria. So he got hold of 72 Israelis who knew both Hebrew and Greek—six from each of the 12 tribes—and had ’em all individually translate the bible. All their translations matched perfectly, and it was declared a miracle! Yeah, it}s likely fiction. It comes the Letter of Aristeas, some Jewish fanfiction from the 200s. (Why’d the Romans call it “seventy” instead of “seventy-two”? Probably because it’s easier.)
So here, and in many other Old Testament quotes, Paul quotes the Septuagint. It’s not a precise quote; Paul’s kinda doing it from memory. But the Septuagint version of
Dt 27.26
LXX : “Cursed is every person who doesn’t continue doing all the words of this Law. And all the people will say, ‘Absolutely!’ ”
Every and all just get ported into Paul’s loose bible quote, “Everyone who does not do everything,”
Is that what the original says? Not really. Is that what the original means? Maybe! It’s debatable. The general idea is the ancient Israelis were meant to obey the Law. The whole Law; they didn’t get to pick and choose and only follow their favorite commands, like we Christians usually do. If you obeyed “Rest on Sabbath,” but ignored “Honor your parents,” you didn’t just break “a little bit” of the Law; you broke the Law. Right? We still say that when people break American laws.
But there are commands in the Law specifically for Levites, which nobody else needs to follow. Like having to serve in temple twice a year. If you’re Levite like Barnabas, you gotta obey it; if you’re Benjamite like Paul, you never do. So you didn’t do all the words of the Law. Are you cursed? Probably not! Don’t be so literal! Use common sense!
Problem is, many Christians don’t use common sense, and we wind up with “bible difficulties” which aren’t really difficult at all. But that’s a whole other issue.
The righteous will live by faith. This is proof text #4:
Hb 2.4:
“Look, his ego is inflated; he is without integrity. But the righteous one will live by his faith.”
It comes from Habakkuk. If you’ve read the book, it’s about the prophet Habakkuk complaining about our messed-up, sinful world to God. God responds he’s quite aware of it, and does in fact have a plan. In chapter 1, Habakkuk wants to know why God puts up with evildoers and Chaldean invaders, and in chapter 2 God answers, and says you gotta be patient about when it’ll come to pass. Some folks don’t have that kind of patience. But righteous people will trust God.
Paul quotes this verse because it’s the only other Old Testament passage which has “righteous” and “faith” in it. You’ll find the idea of righteousness by faith all over the OT, and we can use lots of verses to put the ideas together. But sometimes you just want one verse that has both the actual words in it. Well, there are two of them, and Paul uses both of them. There ya go: Righteousness by faith. It’s biblical!
The one who does these things will live by them. Proof text #5:
Lv 18.5:
“Keep my statutes and ordinances; a person will live if he does them. I am the L ORD .”
Again, the verses don’t match in the
Lv 18.5
LXX :“You’ll guard all my edicts, and all my judgments, and do them. A person who does these things will live by them. I’m the Lord your God.”
Paul quotes this to prove the Law isn’t based on faith: You don’t have to trust it; you just have to do it. Same as American laws. Remember when marijuana was illegal? And it didn’t matter how you personally thought about marijuana; whether you thought it should be legal or not. (Likewise now that it’s legal.) You might have no faith in the law; you might think it’s ridiculous; but you still have to obey it. When it was illegal, you could be arrested and put in jail for a mighty long time—even if you had no faith in the law, nor the criminal justice system, nor anything. Same deal with Old Testament laws. No faith necessary!
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. “Redeemed” is
Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. (Proper grammar is “hanged on a tree.” Paintings and banners are hung; people are hanged. Well, maybe they can fix the
When the Persians invented crucifixion, they’d just nail people to whatever was around—a wall, a tree, a board—and just leave them there to die. Over time they came up with special poles and crosses to nail people to. Like when Haman decided to hang Mordecai from what the
Anyway, if Romans didn’t have poles or crosses handy, or they crucified so many people they ran out, they’d just nail their victims to a nearby tree. So people kinda equated the two. They’re both made of wood, after all.
And this brings us to proof text #6:
Dt 21.23: …you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the L
ORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.
In context, this passage is about executing a criminal by hanging him from the neck until dead. This person wasn’t cursed because he was hanged; he had committed a capital crime, and really he had cursed himself.
True, Jesus hadn’t done anything to deserve death. But an unjust death sentence is still kind of a curse! It’s not a curse Jesus brought upon himself by his own sins; it’s a curse someone else laid upon him. The Jews’ unjust trial and death penalty; the Romans unjustly and apathetically carrying it out. It’s everyone’s sin. It’s our sin.