Letters

⁸ Let us pass on to other passages, for the brief limits of a letter do not suffer us to dwell too long on any one point. The same Matthew says:— “Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel.” The rendering of the Septuagint is, “Behold a virgin shall receive seed and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel.”

If people cavil at words, obviously 'to receive seed' is not the exact equivalent of 'to be with child,' and 'you shall call' differs from 'they shall call.' Moreover in the Hebrew we read thus, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.” Ahaz shall not call him so for he was convicted of want of faith, nor the Jews for they were destined to deny him, but she who is to conceive him, and bear him, the virgin herself. In the same evangelist we read that Herod was troubled at the coming of the Magi and that gathering together the scribes and the priests he demanded of them where Christ should be born and that they answered him, “In Bethlehem of Judæa: for thus it is written by the prophet; And you Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of you shall come a governour that shall rule my people Israel.” In the Vulgate this passage appears as follows:— “And you Bethlehem, the house of Ephratah, art small to be among the thousands of Judah, yet one shall come out of you for me to be a prince in Israel.”

You will be more surprised still at the difference in words and order between Matthew and the Septuagint if you look at the Hebrew which runs thus:— “But you Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel.” Consider one by one the words of the evangelist:— “And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah.” For “the land of Judah” the Hebrew has “Ephratah” while the Septuagint gives “the house of Ephratah.”

The evangelist writes, “art not the least among the princes of Judah.” In the Septuagint this is, “art small to be among the thousands of Judah,” while the Hebrew gives, “though thou be little among the thousands of Judah.” There is a contradiction here— and that not merely verbal— between the evangelist and the prophet; for in this place at any rate both Septuagint and Hebrew agree. The evangelist says that he is not little among the princes of Judah, while the passage from which he queries says exactly the opposite of this, “You are small indeed and little; but yet out of you, small and little as you are, there shall come forth for me a leader in Israel,” a sentiment in harmony with that of the apostle, “God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” Moreover the last clause “to rule” or “to feed my people Israel” clearly runs differently in the original.