30th October 2022, Proper 26 (31)

Luke 19:1-10

[1]Καὶ εἰσελθὼν διήρχετο τὴν ῾Ιεριχώ· [2]καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀνὴρ ὀνόματι καλούμενος Ζακχαῖος, καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν ἀρχιτελώνης, καὶ οὗτος ἦν πλούσιος, [3]καὶ ἐζήτει ἰδεῖν τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν τίς ἐστι, καὶ οὐκ ἠδύνατο ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου, ὅτι τῇ ἡλικίᾳ μικρὸς ἦν. [4]καὶ προδραμὼν ἔμπροσθεν ἀνέβη ἐπὶ συκομορέαν, ἵνα ἴδῃ αὐτόν, ὅτι ἐκείνης ἤμελλε διέρχεσθαι. [5]καὶ ὡς ἦλθεν ἐπὶ τὸν τόπον, ἀναβλέψας ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς εἶδεν αὐτὸν καὶ εἶπε πρὸς αὐτόν· Ζακχαῖε, σπεύσας κατάβηθι· σήμερον γὰρ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ σου δεῖ με μεῖναι. [6]καὶ σπεύσας κατέβη, καὶ ὑπεδέξατο αὐτὸν χαίρων. [7]καὶ ἰδόντες πάντες διεγόγγυζον λέγοντες ὅτι παρὰ ἁμαρτωλῷ ἀνδρὶ εἰσῆλθε καταλῦσαι. [8]σταθεὶς δὲ Ζακχαῖος εἶπε πρὸς τὸν Κύριον· ἰδοὺ τὰ ἡμίση τῶν ὑπαρχόντων μου, Κύριε, δίδωμι τοῖς πτωχοῖς, καὶ εἴ τινός τι ἐσυκοφάντησα, ἀποδίδωμι τετραπλοῦν. [9]εἶπε δὲ πρὸς αὐτὸν ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς ὅτι σήμερον σωτηρία τῷ οἴκῳ τούτῳ ἐγένετο, καθότι καὶ αὐτὸς υἱὸς ᾿Αβραάμ ἐστιν. [10]ἦλθε γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ζητῆσαι καὶ σῶσαι τὸ ἀπολωλός.

Luke 19:1-10

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Jesus and Zacchaeus

19 He entered Jericho and was passing through it. ² A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³ He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. ⁴ So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵ When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶ So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. ⁷ All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” ⁸ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹ Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Comments

In the first two-thirds of the pericope (vv. 1-7) the successive independent sentences are linked by the connective conjunction καί, which recurs 12 times. The parataxis reflects the style of vernacular storytelling and oral narrative in general. St Luke here writes much as a 1st century speaker of Greek would have narrated the episode before hearers. For an extensive example of colloquial narrative parataxis see Mark 4.1-8.

 In vv. 8 and 9 Luke switches to the conjunction δέ. In v. 8 it has a continuative force (‘Now, Zakhaios stood…’).    

[2]καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀνὴρ ὀνόματι καλούμενος Ζακχαῖος: ἰδοὺ is attested in classical Greek, but esp. freq. in the LXX and NT; of all  NT authors, Matthew and Luke use this word most often (Matth. 62 times, Luke 57). It is an interjection that gives dramatic point in oral speech, the equivalent of ‘look here’,‘behold’, aha, ‘voilá’(M.), and the Hebrew hinneh הִנֵּה  

Now for the grammar:

 ἰδοὺ < εἴδω (an unrecorded vb = ‘to see’): ἰδοὺ is the 2^nd pers. sg. imperative of  εἰδόμην, 2nd aorist, middle voice. This imperative is used absolutely, i.e. without an obj., It is has an adverbial force, and can also be classified as a ‘demonstrative particle’ (Exegetical Dict. of the NT, eds H. Balz & G. Schneider [henceforth EDNT])—i.e. a deictic word that points to something of note or signals another stage in the narrative.

 ὀνόματι: dat. of respect (‘with respect to his name’), essentially a dat. of manner (‘by name’). Luke could have omitted καλούμενος (‘called’).     

[2] ἀρχιτελώνης: compound nouns prefixed by ἀρχι-(‘chief’, head’) seem to be common in Hellenistic Greek; an indication of hierarchical occupations and functions.

 [3]καὶ ἐζήτει ἰδεῖν τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν τίς ἐστι: < ζητῶ (έω), ‘I seek to do’ + inf. (a classical usage). as ἰδεῖν < ὁρῶ (άω) ‘Ι see’. ἐζήτει is a ‘conative imperfect’ expressing an attempted action.

τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν τίς ἐστι: τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν is the obj. of the inf. ἰδεῖν; note that ᾿Ιησοῦς is a Hebrew name declinable in Greek.

 τίς ἐστι (‘who is he’) is in indirect discourse introduced by the interrogative pronoun τίς. Though the action is situated in the past, the vb of the indir. question is expressed in the present tense for the sake of vividness. (Ιn classical Greek the indir. question could also have been introduced by the relative pronoun ὅστις, and ἐστι could have been replaced by the optative εἴη; the optative became obsolete in koine.)  

The proleptic construction ‘he sought to see Jesus who is he’ is typical in classical Greek: the obj. of the main vb becomes in effect the subject of the indirect question.

ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου: the preposition ἀπὸ + genitive can be used to denote cause. (In modern Greek ἀπὸ is construed with the acc.)

 τῇ ἡλικίᾳ μικρὸς: dat. of respect.

[5] ἀναβλέψας: aor. part. ἀναβλέπω, ‘Ι look up’ (as in classical Greek). Τhe prefix ἀνα- connotes upward motion, cf. ἀνίσταμαι, ‘I rise’.

κατάβηθι: 2^nd pers. sg. aor. imperative < καταβαίνω, ‘I descend, come down’. The prefix κατα- connotes downward motion.

δεῖ με μεῖναι:  the impersonal vb δεῖ + inf., ‘it is necessary’, ‘I must…’.

[6] κατέβη: 2nd aor. < καταβαίνω.

ὑπεδέξατο αὐτὸν χαίρων: ὑπεδέξατο < ὑποδέχομαι, mid. voice, + acc. pers., ‘I receive in (or into) my house’, ‘I welcome’ (class. Greek); see LSJ & M.

Zakhaios may have simply welcomed Jesus now; or he may have received him into his house, in which case the scene has changed.

[7] διεγόγγυζον: < γογγύζω, ‘Ι grumble’; the prefix δια- in the compound διεγόγγυζον (imperfect) takes on the meaning ‘ they grumbled, muttered among themselves’. γογγύζω is onomatopoeic as ‘grumble’. One can hear the undercurrent of grumbling and murmuring in the crowd, the ὄχλος. See also EDNT, s.v. γογγύζω.

καταλῦσαι: aor. inf. < καταλύω, ‘Ι lodge’, ‘I rest’. This compound (κατά + λύω) mainly means ‘I dissolve’, ‘I destroy’ (in class. & NT Greek; cf. English ‘catastrophe’).  Only Luke uses the vb in the special sense of ‘I lodge’; see EDNT, s.v. This meaning goes back to Homer (lit. ‘I unharness’,  ‘I unyoke a horse’, Od. 4.28), and in class. Greek κ. could be used intransitively to mean, as here, ‘I take up lodging’ (M.). Like Joseph and Mary in Luke’s Nativity account, travellers unharnessed their pack animals before ‘checking in’ to an ‘inn’, or κατάλυμα, a Hellenistic term. A literal-minded reader might wonder whether Jesus arrived in Jericho on a pack animal.

 [8] σταθεὶς: aor. part., pass. voice, ἵσταμαι, ‘I stand’. Zakhaios, short of stature, stood upright.

τῶν ὑπαρχόντων μου: gen. plural < τὰ ὑπάρχοντα, ‘possessions’, ‘belongings’ (cf. LSJ, s.v.). ὑπάρχω can mean ‘I belong to’ in class. Greek.

δίδωμι τοῖς πτωχοῖς: ‘I customarily, routinely give’. The present tense refers to a repeated action.

τοῖς πτωχοῖς: < πτωχός,‘poor’ (adj. & noun).

εἴ τινός τι ἐσυκοφάντησα: < συκοφαντῶ (έω) τινός τι (+ gen. pers. + acc. obj.), ‘I extort something (with false charges or by fraud) from someone’ [M.]. σ. is classical Greek.

 εἴ τινός τι ἐσυκοφάντησα, ἀποδίδωμι τετραπλοῦν: this sentence contains a simple condition (εἰ + indicative mood of any tense) which may or may not be true; the apodosis, or conclusion, is formulated in any mood. Thus Zakhaios does not perforce imply that he has defrauded anyone in the past; but if  he has, he is ready to make manifold amends.   ἀποδίδωμι τετραπλοῦν: now Zakhaios uses the compound ἀποδίδωμι, ‘I give back’, ‘pay back’ (a debt, a penalty, etc.). The vb here is a volitive present (= ‘I am willing to pay back’). This type of present occurs in vivid, emphatic statements.

τετραπλοῦν: < τετραπλοῦς, ῆ, oῦν (adj.), quadruple, fourfold; the neuter adj. τετραπλοῦν is used here as an  adverb. Cf. English ‘tetraplegic’.

[9] σωτηρία τῷ οἴκῳ τούτῳ ἐγένετο: ἐγένετο, 2^nd aor. < γίνομαι (koine for γίγνομαι), ‘come about’, ‘happen’ (see EDNT, s.v.).

 τῷ οἴκῳ τούτῳ: dat. of place or interest

[10] ἦλθε γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ζητῆσαι καὶ σῶσαι τὸ ἀπολωλός: ζητῆσαι καὶ σῶσαι are infinitives of purpose construed with ἦλθε. The construction vb + inf. to express purpose is common in NT Greek; in class. Greek a participle in the future tense would be used instead.

τὸ ἀπολωλός:  acc.neuter perf. participle < ἀπόλλυμαι, middle voice; the middle pf. ἀπόλωλα = ‘Ι am lost’. ‘The lost one’ (neuter) presumably refers to a sheep (πρόβατον).