Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Lectionary

  • Thinking about the Servant – Isaiah 50:4-9a

    I made a mental connection this morning while reading the lectionary passages for Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday. I’m not certain just how valid this is, but I thought I’d write about it. There are multiple views of the servant passages in 2nd Isaiah. Some see each passage separately, with some being prophecies of the Messiah, and others not. Others see a collective Israel that occasionally gets specified down to one individual.

    This passage, seen as Messianic by many Christians, is one that is frequently identified with the voice of the prophet himself, the writer of 2nd Isaiah. He has a message to give, it comes from God, and he is to present it in spite of opposition. (As an example, see Joseph Blenkinsopp, Anchor Bible: Isaiah 40-55, pp. 319-323.)

    Earlier in the day I wrote a devotional emphasizing that Philippians 2:5-11 addresses us collectively as a church (“you” is plural) and not merely as individuals. It seems to me that the collective and the individual commands are much less distinguished in scripture, i.e. the tasks to be performed by God’s people and those performed by God’s person tend to blend into one another. Thus an extremely “clean” interpretation is not particularly desirable. The focus can shift freely.

    I should note that I am already quite invested in a collective interpretation of the servant passages, with Jesus Christ presented in the New Testament as the ideal Israelite, not to mention ideal person, but I think this connection kind of gives me a better feel for how this works.

  • The Value of REB Eccentricity

    Or perhaps I should say REB uniqueness.

    One of the major reasons for using multiple Bible versions when studying the Bible in English (or any other language other than the originals) is to make yourself aware of alternate translations for particular passages. This goes beyond different ways of expressing the thought in English, to places in which the source language could be interpreted multiple ways, but even in the most literal translation, one must choose one or another option.

    This morning in doing my lectionary reading, I chose the REB, and quickly found two examples: Genesis 12:3b and Psalm 121:1-2.

    In Genesis 12:3, most translations use “in you will all nations of the earth be blessed” or something very similar. It is possible, however, to translate as the REB does:

    All the peoples on earth
    will wish to be blessed as you are blessed.

    Now it happens I prefer the option presented in most other versions, but most people would not be aware of the alternate possibility unless they check a footnote, or use the REB. This is a positive value for a version which is known for accepted readings that are a bit out of the mainstream. (Note that I love the REB for my own reading; I will disagree with any translation on various renderings, and I don’t let that concern me. As long as a reading is well supported technically, I would never count it against the translation.)

    The second one is in Psalm 121. Verses 1 & 2 are normally translated in a slightly ambiguous way. Is one looking to the hills for help? Is one rejecting the hills in favor of the Lord? This becomes more interesting when one seeks a Sitz im Leben for the passage. For example, if it is a processional song going toward the temple mount, looking to the hills could stand in for looking to the Lord.

    The REB, on the other hand, renders unambiguously (or less ambigously, if that is possible!):

    If I lift up my eyes to the hills,
    where shall I find help?
    My help comes from the LORD,
    maker of heaven and earth.

    In this case, I like the REB rendering slightly better. But my preference is not the point here. I think the REB can be a valuable addition to the library of the serious Bible student who does not know the source languages simply because it showcases some unusual readings. Of course, one hopes the student will be directed to the footnotes in all versions, as they often provide the same service.

  • Not Through the Law: Romans 4:13

    One of the major elements of the new perspectives on Paul is the changing view of justification. In a broad sense, one could say that justification involves not a moment of personal salvation, but rather a moment of incorporation into a broad community, known as the people of God, kingdom of God, or the body of Christ. One of the things that Jesus did was to make it possible for you to become part of that community, and it is that community that will eventually be glorified.

    The individual aspect of salvation is not eliminated, but is certainly pushed more into the background. There is less room here for the individual who has “prayed the prayer” and then never done another thing that appears related to being Christian. James might call on that person to show his or her faith by works.

    Lately, I have been trying to read passages in Paul with this option in mind just to see how it fits. I am not fully convinced of the change, but I am becoming more so. Today I was again reading Romans 4:13 (it’s part of this coming Sunday’s lectionary passages), and it hit me again:

    For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. (NRSV)

    Now if “law” generally refers to the Torah–and I think that’s not a bad suggestion for Romans and Galatians at least–then there’s something obvious going on here. The Torah came after Abraham. God inaugurated this whole thing without any such written body of law. Grace was the only option. Grace had to act before there was even any knowledge that things could be other than what they already were. Revelation comes to Abraham as a grace, and grace comes to him by revelation.

    This reminds me of an issue I have with some Christian apologetics that attempts to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the Christ, by means of tying a series of prophecies together that he fulfilled. Enough prophecies apparently should bring certainty. But how many prophecies did Abraham need? Did Moses have to fulfill a string of prophecies to prove he was anointed by God? No, each person comes through an act of God at the time. The prophecies are much more a case of tying Jesus back into the tradition stream–the community if you will–than it is a case of proving that he fits some specification.

    God can come and act without getting ducks in a row. “For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly” Romans 5:6 (NRSV).

  • Repentance and Rejoicing

    I’ve written a pamphlet, which I provide free on my Participatory Study Series site, titled Repentance and Rejoicing. With the current lectionary including Psalm 32, I thought I’d reprint it. It is outlined around Psalm 51, but much the same material can be taught using Psalm 32.

    But if we confess our sins to God, he can always be trusted to forgive us and take our sins away.
    – 1 John 1:9

    How can I confess my sins and receive forgiveness?

    Psalm 51 provides an example of repentance.

    1.  Acknowledge – verse 3

    I know about my sins, and I cannot forget my terrible guilt.

    Completely admit to what you have done wrong, without excuses.

    2.  Cleanse – verse 7

    Wash me with hyssop until I am clean and whiter than snow.

    Ask God to cleanse you and make you whole.

    3.  Restore – verse 12

    Make me as happy as you did when you saved me; make me want to obey!

    Ask to be restored to God’s favor.

    4.  Teach – verse 13

    I will teach sinners your Law, and they will return to you.

    You teach others by sharing your testimony about what God has done in your life.

    5.  Praise God – verse 15

    Help me to speak, and I will praise you, Lord.

    Praise God for what He has done. This has the additional effect of reminding you of what He has done and keeping you humble before Him.

    6.  Worship – verses 18, 19

    Then you will be pleased with the proper sacrifices, and we will offer bulls on your altar once again.

    Worship is the natural consequence of a relationship with God.

    I asked for forgiveness and still I feel guilty. What is wrong?

    There are several ways in which repentance can fail.

    • Making excuses instead of fully acknowledging guilt

    See the story of Saul in 1 Samuel 15, especially verses 20 and 21. Instead of acknowledging his guilt, he denies it and adds an excuse. Contrast David’s action in 2 Samuel 11.

    David vs. Saul
    2 Samuel 11-12 1 Samuel 13-15
    Murder and Adultery Disobedience
    Prophet sent Prophet sent
    Admits guilt Denies guilt and makes excuses
    Accepts punishment as just Complains about punishment
    Is accepted by God Is rejected by God

    Before I confessed my sins, my bones felt limp, and I groaned all day long. . . . So I confessed my sins and told them all to you. . . . Then you forgave me and took away my guilt.

    – Psalm 32:3-5

    • Not fully changing your mind about your actions

    To repent means to change your mind. If you are not determined to change, you have not really repented.

    • No desire for cleansing

    Forgiveness is followed by cleansing. If we don’t want the cleansing, we won’t receive the forgiveness.

    • Refusing joy

    Sometimes being sorrowful makes us feel important, so we refuse the joy of restoration.

    Repentance puts us back in line with the heavenly attitude. Refusing joy takes us back off the heavenly attitude.

    Jesus said, "In the same way there is more happiness in heaven because of one sinner who turns to God than over ninety-nine good people who don’t need to."

    – Luke 15:7

    • Unworthiness

    Feeling that you cannot possibly be cleansed or be fit for God’s kingdom. But God has made us fit for his kingdom.

    All of this shows that God judges fairly and that he is making you fit to share in his kingdom for which you are suffering.
    – 2 Thessalonians 1:5

    • Unbelief

    Either you don’t believe that God can forgive you or will forgive you. (See 1 John 1:9)

    If you forgive others for the wrongs they do to you, your Father in heaven will forgive you. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.
    – Matthew 6:14, 15

    • Unforgiveness

    Unforgiveness includes holding onto our resentments and grudges. We can fail to forgive because we have been hurt to much. We can also fail to forgive because we refuse to admit that we have been hurt.

    You know that you have been taught, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I tell you not to try to get even with a person who has done something to you.” – Matthew 5:38, 39a

    What is the unpardonable sin?

    One of the tasks of the Holy Spirit is to convict of sin. If we turn away the Holy Spirit so much that we no longer hear His voice, we will no longer ask for pardon and it will, in fact, be too late.

    I’m still having a hard time. Do I have to rejoice?

    One of the rewards of an ongoing relationship with God is a trust in what God is doing. When we trust God for the final result, we can have peace and joy even in trouble. (Romans 5:3-5)

    We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure. And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope that will never disappoint us.
    – Romans 5:3b-5a

    Scriptures marked “adapted” were translated and adapted by Henry E. Neufeld for this pamphlet.

    All other scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 buy the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

    (This material is available in the form of a pamphlet in PDF or Word format here.)

  • Theme for the First Sunday of Lent

    Not too surprisingly, it’s not hard to find a common theme through the lectionary passages for February 10. This makes a second week in a row, as the Transfiguration texts also displayed many common themes.

    The texts are:

    Genesis 2:15-17 (the command about the tree in the midst of the garden), 3:1-7 (Temptation and Fall). Putting these two texts together brings up some interesting possibilities in looking at the command and how it was shaped in the discussion with the snake. I also found a note in The Jewish Study Bible that mentions the difference in the Genesis 1 view of the first couple (dominion) and the view in chapters 2 and 3 where they are seeking dominion, to be like gods.

    In this connection I have mentioned previously that the priestly source (P) in Genesis doesn’t mention the fall directly until Genesis 6:11, if that is indeed a reference. Evil appears in the world without the detailed story. One could ask whether there are two ways of viewing the fall, one involving a single incident, and one involving a slower deterioration. Since we have no hint of any priestly comment on the arrival of sin, we don’t know, but it’s interesting to read the stories separately.

    Turning to the gospel (Matthew 4:1-11) next, because of its theme, we have the temptation of Jesus. The Spirit takes Jesus into the desert where he is tempted. If you combine the context of Matthew, in which Jesus comes from the “high” of his baptism and moves on to the “low” of the temptation with last week’s transfiguration texts which are a high heading into the crucifixion, there is a theme of the mountaintop experience followed by the time of testing. One could easily see the mountaintop as the preparation for the valley.

    What should we take from the mountaintop? That is the question for most of us. We attend various retreats and have a wonderful time spiritually, but then we get home and the world crashes back in and we lose the high. I think Jesus took a sense of peace and a sense of his Father’s approval and presence with him. That is something to strive for.

    Sin and redemption are the focus of Romans 5:12-19. If one preached or taught from this passage, the focus can be on the plan of redemption, the one man Jesus who undoes the work of the enemy over millenia.

    Psalm 32 makes it personal. It isn’t about the world, or long term plans. It’s about individual people and their sin. What can be done about it? That’s where you bring in the broad sweep. There is a way for God to forgive sin, so we can confess and expect to be forgiven.

  • Speaking from God – 2 Peter 1:16-21

    This passage in 2 Peter is one of the most commonly cited in discussions of Biblical inspiration, along with 2 Timothy 3:16, Hebrews 4:12 and Psalm 12:6. One of the interesting things that I notice about them all is that they are often used as though they obviously say something that, on closer examination, they don’t actually say.

    In fact, they are quoted in support of just about every view of inspiration that there is, and frequently supporters of one view or another simply quote these passages and then look expectantly at you, expecting you to acknowledge that the text completely states their doctrine. But no single text does, and it would be difficult for one to do so by itself. Even more, however, we need to look at how prophecy functioned in practice in scripture when we want to work out the details, rather than looking for doctrinal statements and then assuming that it works according to our interpretation of those statements.

    That general statement of method, of course, requires further discussion, and I do discuss the method extensively in my book When People Speak for God. Here, I simply want to look at this text from that point of view. The key question here is what does Peter (or the pseudonymous author of 2 Peter, if it was not written by the apostle himself) wish to convey? In other words, why is he talking about prophecy here? We can see rather immediately that his point is not to expound a doctrine of prophecy, but what is he doing?

    As an aside, let me note that the authorship of 2 Peter would be problematic under the doctrine of inerrancy. I have left the possibility that this is a pseudonymous letter rather than written by the apostle himself, yet if one holds the doctrine of inerrancy, this very passage would be in error, since it relies on the notion of eyewitnesses, and specifically an eyewitness who was on the mount of transfiguration. No person other than Peter, amongst potential authors of the book, suits that text.

    The key here is the reliability of the prophetic word in general, but more specifically about Jesus Christ. To restate this in a slightly less convoluted way, Peter is saying that he saw the prophecies about the coming Messiah fulfilled before his very eyes in Jesus. In particular, I believe, he’s invoking Exodus 24 and the image of Moses on the mountain as the type which met its antitype in the transfiguration. Because of this reliable connection, established by eyewitness testimony–that of the writer–the readers do well to pay attention to the prophetic word as it comes through those apostles and their successors.

    There are two subtexts to this. First, scripture does not come by human will. Second, scripture is not the result of, or the property of individual speakers of interpreters. I think these are critical things for us to notice today. One of the things I emphasize in my method of Bible study is sharing, and sharing in turn simply means that you do your Bible study in community. There is, of course, always a tension between one’s individual opinions and the community, but as long as there is contact, there is an additional measure of safety. The individual who goes off in a corner and feels unable to, or is unwilling to express his views is in much graver danger of error.

    To back this up a bit, here is my draft translation and notes. You will, of course, want to read other translations and compare. When one is expressing a particular interpretation of a passage, one is more vulnerable than usual to translating according to the interpretation. (Greek transliteration throughout is very loose as I’m not depending on grammatical details.)

    16It was not by relying on cleverly contrived tales that we told you about the power and the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. We witnessed his majesty with our own eyes.

    The key word in this passage is epoptes, referring to an eyewitness in this case. It occurs only here in the New Testament, though it does occur in the LXX a number of times. The term can also refer to an initiate (which might cover the apostle Paul) or to an overseer, though the latter two meanings do not fit the context here. Megaleiotes, used here for “majesty” can refer to things varying from grand to sublime or a combination thereof.

    The combined idea is that those who preached the message had seen the real thing with their own eyes, being allowed to watch Jesus through his ministry.

    17He received glory and honor from God the Father, and a voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved son. I’m well pleased with him.” 18And we heard this very voice coming from heaven, when we were with him on the holy mountain.

    That there was a voice is not quite the focus. That those who preached had heard the voice–that’s the key. They heard God affirm Jesus as His Son.

    19Now we have a more secure prophetic word, and you would do well to attend to it as a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star rises in your hearts.

    The security does not exist in isolation. It is intended to make the believers hold on until the appearance of Christ.

    20Knowing this first, that no prophecy in scripture came as a matter for private understanding.

    “Understanding” could be, and often is translated as “interpretation.” Between verses 20 and 21 scripture is clearly declared outside of realm of the individual and personal, and placed as part of a community operating in the will of God.

    21For no prophecy came by human will, but carried forward by the Holy Spirit human beings spoke [a message] from God. — 2 Peter 1:16-21

    People regularly use this passage to imply some form of verbal dictation, but the Greek simply says “spoke from God” and we must supply the object–what is being spoken. I would argue that the correct object is the message, the more sure word of Jesus come in the flesh and affirmed by God in fulfillment of scripture. This makes no comment on whether words are verbally dictated. A better place to discover the method at that level of detail is to look at actual scriptures. There we will find words that seem to be almost totally the creation of the writer, and also words that are the very words of God.

    Thus people are apparently carried along by the Holy Spirit in many different ways, not just a single one.

  • Perfective of Confidence or Prophetic Perfect

    One of the lectionary passages for this week is Isaiah 9:1-4. Those who don’t know Hebrew may miss out on an interest fact about this passage. It is one of the best examples of what is called the “prophetic perfect” or the “perfectum propheticum” for those who really like Latin titles. I got used to them in the years I used Gesenius-Kautzsch as my primary reference grammar.

    Bruce Waltke (An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, 30.5.1e/p. 490) does discuss this briefly and uses Isaiah 8-9 as an example. In fact, he points out the nice transition in Isaiah 8:23 in which both “humbled” and “honored” are in the perfect tense, and yet the first refers to the past and the second to the future. The passage continues with a series of perfect verbs talking about the future. I prefer to quote Gesenius, however:

    The prophet so transports himself in imagination into the future that he describes the future event as if it had been already seen or heard by him . . .

    The he cites our passage amongst others.

    What was interesting was that I noticed this passage the same day I was reading about hope in commentary on Hebrews. There St. John Chrysostom comments that “through hope we are already in heaven.”

    Does our Christian imagination, or our Christian hope suffice to make it seem that we are already in heaven? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get that sense of already being there in God’s promises?

  • Hope as an Anchor – Hebrews 6:19-20

    19We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, steadfast and firm and entering the inner side of the veil. 20Jesus entered there as a forerunner for us, becoming a high priest eternally according to the order of Melchizedek. — Hebrews 6:19-20

    When I joined the Air Force, my mother made me a quilt that had this text embroidered in it in Greek. That quilt stayed with me more than 20 years. Why “anchor” for someone in the Air Force? Well, two things. I had intended to joint he Navy, but then got a job closer to what I wanted with the Air Force, and then she thought my soul still needed an anchor–as indeed it did!

    Today, I was reading the Ancient Commentary on Christian Scripture (Hebrews), pages 93-94, [On the Epistle to the Hebrews 11.3] and I was very much struck by the comments of St. John Chrysostom. You can guess that I particularly appreciate his commentary on scripture by the number of posts I’ve made that consist mostly of a large quotation from him. In this case he talks about the importance of hope as an anchor.

    The foundation of this hope, the “meat” of it, is that God takes and oath and does not lie, and he says that we will be heirs. That’s the hope we’re talking about. Each of us needs some kind of hope. St. John Chrysostom notes that “we are already living amid God’s promises.” Then he adds: “. . . through hope we are already in heaven.” That’s intense hope.

    But some of us have a hard time holding onto hope. When things get discouraging hope gets weak! St. John points out that the apostle (he assumes Paul as the author) chooses his figure wisely. There are those who are founded on the rock as Jesus said (Matthew 7:24-27). Then there are the rest of us, who are not quite so steady. We need an anchor that holds us in place even though we are shaken. This is a message for the folks who don’t feel quite so anchored on a rock. Quoting again: “For the surge and the great storm toss the boat, but hope does not permit it to be carried back and forth, although winds innumerable agitate it, so that, unless we had this hope we should long ago have been sunk.”

    This passage fits especially well into the message of Hebrews, which is for people who have begun to follow Jesus but have been looking back because of hardships. The author repeatedly assures us that the goal is worth working for, but he also tells us that we must keep going. They weren’t people whose houses were fully founded on the rock. They were shaken, but they needed–and they had–an anchor so no matter how they were shaken, they would still end up in place.

    I think most of us are more like that. The house on the rock is a good ideal toward which we can strive, but I think we feel much more like an anchored ship weathering a storm. If that’s the case, Jesus still has the anchor to keep you safe. You’ll probably get wet, you’ll probably be shaken, but you’ll come out alright in the end.

  • Lectionary Texts for Transfiguration – Cycle A

    I want to make just a few remarks on the texts selected for Transfiguration Sunday, February 3. I like to find common themes in the lectionary texts even when they don’t seem all that coherent. In this case, the texts are quite carefully chosen.

    First is the story of the transfiguration from Matthew 17:1-9. There are a couple of things to note about the differences in the transfiguration stories in the various gospels. Working from Darrell Bock’s Jesus According to Scripture (p. 235), note that Luke is the only one who mentions that the disciples slept. Mark and Luke both tell us that Peter didn’t know what to say, while Matthew does not. Luke notes the fear when the cloud appears. Matthew has the disciples fall down in fear at the voice.

    Our Old Testament and Epistles readings bracket this event. Moses goes up to Mt. Sinai and into the cloud in Exodus 24:12-18. Quoting Bock, p. 235: “A new era and reality appear with Jesus and the glory that his presence represents.” This is an important point, and one could build a sermon around this shift of emphasis. One of the things I notice repeatedly in discussions of scripture between Jews and Christians is that while we generally argue verse by verse, especially asking whether this or that is a Messianic prediction, we rarely discuss the overall difference in view.

    For Jewish interpretation, the Torah (Pentateuch) is the heart of God’s revelation, and everything is interpreted in relation to that. In Christianity, the Torah appears practically to get dismissed, and Jesus is the central element of Christian interpretation. We interpret everything in the light of the cross, no matter how we view the cross itself. How we view it is important, but it remains central. In terms of scripture, that places the four gospels at the heart of Christianity as the Torah is at the heart of Judaism.

    If you look at our lectionary readings, and compare them to synagogue readings, you’ll see the same thing. We center around a gospel passage; they around a Torah passage. This particular scripture is partial justification for that Christian approach. Jesus is presented as a second lawgiver, and the command is given to listen to him.

    The epistle, 2 Peter 1:16-21, introduces a later testimony and also the explicit connection of transfiguration with a confirmation that Jesus fulfills (in the sense of “makes complete”) the scriptures of the Old Testament. That, of course, is a subject in itself. One sermon might be the topic of type-antitype-testimony, and the importance of the testimony to each event. Peter, James, and John saw Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. Only Joshua went into the cloud with Moses. The written testimony is important in carrying all this through.

    Those with a more critical mindset (and congregations to go with it) might discuss the different views of a passage such as this. The obvious construction tying themes from Hebrew scriptures into the life of Jesus suggests that the story is written precisely to make that particular connection. There are two extremes. On the one hand one can imagine that the story was created precisely for the purpose of presenting Jesus as the new lawgiver, and didn’t actually happen at all. It’s edifying Christian fiction. On the other hand, one can assume that the reason this happened is that Jesus is, in fact, the new lawgiver, thus God did for him something similar to what he did for Moses.

    Finally, Psalm 99 is simply a celebration of God’s presence, with a number of allusions, including the temple (“on/above the cherubim”, verse 1), the pillar of cloud (v. 7), and the holy mountain (v 9). It would make an excellent call to worship.

  • Isaiah 49:5 – An Insignificant Variant

    So why do I want to talk about an insignificant variant? The answer is simple. In many cases the reliability of Biblical texts is stated simply in terms of the number of variants that exist in the manuscripts. This number is quite high, but most of these variants are not significant. They may involve identical meanings, orthography or spelling, or be so unlikely to be the original text that nobody would claim they were.

    I’m sometimes asked just what such insignificant variants might look like. This is an example. First, however, let me mention the range of variants, in this case working from Hebrew scripture.

    1. Variant spellings; no matter what text you choose the meaning is the same.
    2. Variants in vowel pointing only. At least most Christian scholars place less emphasis on the vocalization than on the consonantal text. Some translations will alter the vocalization without a footnote, but require a note if they use something other than the Hebrew Masoretic consonantal text.
    3. Ketib / Qere variants. The Masoretes included notes in some cases indicating that a word included in the consonantal text (ketib) should be read (qere) as something else. Different scholars judge the value of these variants differently.
    4. Variants in the consonantal text over one or two words.
    5. Variants in whole passages.

    At some later date I may provide examples of each of these, but right now I just want to establish the range. Examples of each one do exist.

    Once someone hears that the vast majority of the textual variants are insignificant, they are sometimes tempted to believe that textual variants really aren’t important. But some of the variants are very significant.

    In this case, we have the Hebrew phrase, consonants only, WYSR’L L’ Y’SF,* in Isaiah 49:5. Now if I rendered this literally, without other considerations, it would read “and Israel not will-be-gathered.” A glance at the context will indicate that this is precisely the opposite of the intended meaning. If I then look in the margin, where the Masoretes provided me with a very useful note, I will find LW instead of L’. (For those not used to transliteration that’s lamedh-waw insteand of lamedh-aleph.)

    Now generally first year Hebrew students could translate the two words. LW means “to him,” and L’ means “not.” What is less clear, unless you know Hebrew, is that both are pronounced the same. The probability is so high that the intended meaning is “to him” (And Israel will be gathered to him), that normally that is simply translated without any note. I checked all the translations in which I expect to find notes, and there was none. And that is as it should be.

    Nobody makes a case for the alternate rendering because the evidence is so strong. Besides the logic of the passage, ancient versions also translated this as do modern versions. Translators should not convey every such instance, and they don’t.

    *I am not distinguishing samekh from sin, as that does not impact this point.