Just Let Me Do This

 

(1 Samuel 9:15-10:1; Acts 7:30-43)

Luke 22:39-51

⁴⁹ When his followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we use our swords?” ⁵⁰ One of them struck at the slave of the cohen hagadol and cut off his right ear. ⁵¹ But Yeshua answered, “Just let me do this,” and, touching the man’s ear, he healed him.

There were several things that struck me in each of the readings for today, and they all had to do with wonky translations. (Wonky as far as I can tell— I don’t read Hebrew or Biblical Greek, but I have access to what are called “interlinear” texts that put the translation right next to the original language, in between the lines.)

The Hebrew in the reading from 1 Samuel doesn’t mention a bed being made for Saul on the roof at all.  It only says that Saul and Samuel ‘spoke’ or ‘communed’ on the roof. The reading from Acts has a subtle but important difference in the phrasing of the quotes from Amos at the end. The majority of translations make God sound whiny: “Did you offer to me slain victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? ⁴³No; you took along the tent of Moloch, and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; so I will remove you beyond Babylon.” The more accurate translation reads: “People of Isra’el, it was not to me that you offered slaughtered animals and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness! ⁴³ No, you carried the tent of Molekh and the star of your god Reifan, the idols you made so that you could worship them. Therefore, I will send you into exile beyond Bavel.” The more accurate translation puts the ball squarely in the Hebrews’ court, making it clear that they were going to have to lie in the bed that they made with their very own hands.

I wouldn’t mention the discrepancies in the first two readings, except that the last one, from the Gospel of Luke, really grabbed me hard. I wanted to show that the rendition in Luke was not the only offbeat translation.

So, most of the translations have Jesus saying, “Stop! No more of this!”. I found one translation that was really close to the Greek: “Suffer ye them thus far,” (American Standard Version) except that the Greek doesn’t have any pronouns in the phrase at all. If I change it to “Suffer this thus far,” it’s nearly an exact translation.

I came up with several possibilities for a literal rendition which didn’t sound so archaic and stilted: “Allow even this.” “Let this happen.” “Leave it be.” “Put up with this for now.”

Here’s the thing though: If it hadn’t been for the way that the phrase was translated in the Complete Jewish Bible, I wouldn’t have understood that what Jesus was talking about was the whole awful course of events. He wasn’t saying “Cut it out! No more cutting off of ears!”

No, he was saying, “Let them take me; let all these awful things happen; let it hit rock bottom.”

 

The phrase, “Just let me do this,” tolled through me like a funeral bell—

 

 

 

Let me finish what I’ve started.

Let it go on to the bitter end.

This has been coming since the very beginning.

Please don’t try to stop me now, I’ve barely got the strength to go on.

I’m all alone now, and there’s nothing you can do.

 

 

—Just let me do this.