Luke 17:11-19: The cleansing of the ten lepers
[11] Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι αὐτὸν εἰς ῾Ιερουσαλὴμ καὶ αὐτὸς διήρχετο διὰ μέσου Σαμαρείας καὶ Γαλιλαίας. [12] καὶ εἰσερχομένου αὐτοῦ εἴς τινα κώμην ἀπήντησαν αὐτῷ δέκα λεπροὶ ἄνδρες, οἳ ἔστησαν πόρρωθεν, [13] καὶ αὐτοὶ ἦραν φωνὴν λέγοντες· ᾿Ιησοῦ ἐπιστάτα, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς. [14] καὶ ἰδὼν εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· πορευθέντες ἐπιδείξατε ἑαυτοὺς τοῖς ἱερεῦσι. καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ὑπάγειν αὐτοὺς ἐκαθαρίσθησαν. [15] εἷς δὲ ἐξ αὐτῶν, ἰδὼν ὅτι ἰάθη, ὑπέστρεψε μετὰ φωνῆς μεγάλης δοξάζων τὸν Θεόν, [16] καὶ ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον παρὰ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ εὐχαριστῶν αὐτῷ· καὶ αὐτὸς ἦν Σαμαρείτης. [17] ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς εἶπεν· οὐχὶ οἱ δέκα ἐκαθαρίσθησαν; οἱ δὲ ἐννέα ποῦ; [18] οὐχ εὑρέθησαν ὑποστρέψαντες δοῦναι δόξαν τῷ Θεῷ εἰ μὴ ὁ ἀλλογενὴς οὗτος; [19] καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· ἀναστὰς πορεύου· ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε.
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
— NRSV (updated edn)
Comments
Now (as opposed to last week’s reading) St Luke’s Greek starts sounding a little unclassical, at least in some constructions and verbs.
[11] Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι αὐτὸν εἰς ῾Ιερουσαλὴμ καὶ αὐτὸς διήρχετο διὰ μέσου Σαμαρείας καὶ Γαλιλαίας: This verse is a good example of parataxis, indeed of a type that occurs in Greek poetry and prose but is very common in the Gospels and LXX, though not in Acts. This syntactical construction (ἐγένετο/ ‘it came to pass’…+ [= καὶ] another independent sentence) is characteristic of Hebrew.
Parataxis is a joining of independent sentences by means of conjunctions such as καί (‘and’), ἤ (‘or’), μέν-δέ (‘on the one hand, on the other’), or ἀλλά (‘but’). In this particular type, the second sentence (διήρχετο/ ‘he was going through’) may be thought to be more important than the first.
ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι αὐτὸν: the infinitive πορεύεσθαι is used here with the preposition ἐν, which always takes a dative. An infinitive is a neuter verbal noun; when used with an article as here (τῷ) it is called an ‘articular infinitive’. αὐτὸν (accusative case of the personal pronoun αὐτός/ ‘he’) is the subject of the infinitive.
ἐν τῷ + infinitive, common in the NT & LXX, expresses ‘contemporaneous time’, i.e. it is the equivalent of ‘while’. Hence ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι αὐτὸν = ‘while he was walking to’, ‘while he was going to…’. NRSV, ‘On the way to…’ is compressed but elegant.
[12] εἰσερχομένου αὐτοῦ: the participle (< εἰσέρχομαι) is a genitive absolute expressing time (NRSV, ‘as he entered’).
ἀπήντησαν αὐτῷ δέκα λεπροὶ ἄνδρες: aorist,3rd person plural < ἀπαντῶ (άω), ‘I meet, encounter; fall in with’, a classical Greek verb. It takes an object in the dative case, as here, or can be used absolutely, i.e. without an object. (In modern Greek the verb means ‘I answer’.)
λεπροὶ is an attributive adjective defining ἄνδρες. The company of lepers (λεπροὶ ἄνδρες, lit., ‘ scaly men’, ‘mangy men’) came across Christ (NRSV, ‘approached’), but were careful or obliged to be socially distanced.
ἔστησαν πόρρωθεν: ἔστησαν, 2nd aorist, 3rd person plural < ἵσταμαι. Lit., ‘they stood afar’, ‘they stood at a distance (πόρρωθεν)’. NRSV, ‘Keeping their distance’ sounds fine. Their desperate need for a cure and their physical distance from Christ explain why they appealed to him in a loud voice. Thus:
[13] ἦραν φωνὴν: Lit., ‘they lifted (up) their voice’. In classical Greek you can raise your head, eyebrows, eye or hand but not, it seems, your voice (to cry out). The expression αἴρω φωνήν is in fact a Hebraism, as Dr Demetrios Alibertis, an Aramaic and Hebrew specialist, informs me per litteras.
It is recorded in the Septuagint, in the Book of Judges:
καὶ ἦλθεν ὁ λαὸς εἰς Βαιθὴλ καὶ ἐκάθισαν ἐκεῖ ἕως ἑσπέρας ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἦραν φωνὴν αὐτῶν καὶ ἔκλαυσαν κλαυθμὸν μέγαν (Judges 21:2)
The Hebrew expression is: וַיִּשְׂאוּ קוֹלָם
The verb וַיִּשְׂאוּ is from the root נשׂא (ne śâ’ or nes-aw’), which means:
‘to lift’, ‘bear’, ‘take’, ‘carry’
a. (P’al) ‘to take’;
b. (Ithpael) ‘to make a rising’, ‘make an insurrection’
The LXX passage confirms that Luke’s lepers ‘cried out’ to Jesus; cf. NRSV, ‘they called out’. Why has St Luke strayed from normal Greek? Most probably (in my view) not out of incompetence, but because he is deliberately echoing the LXX, with which his readers were acquainted.
Ἰησοῦ ἐπιστάτα, ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς: Hebrew names are not declined in Greek, but ‘Jesus’ (Ἰησοῦς) is one of the exceptions. According to the punctuation of the Greek text, ἐπιστάτα, thevocative of ἐπιστάτης (‘head’, ‘commander’; ‘supervisor’ in classical Greek), is the title of Jesus and forms a unit: ‘Master Jesus’ (which may recall Κύριε Ἰησοῦ, ‘Lord Jesus’) or (why not?) ‘Rabbi Jesus’ (as suggested by the venerable dictionary of ancient Greek, Liddell-Scott-Jones [henceforth ‘LSJ’].
ἐλέησον ἡμᾶς: 2nd person singular, aor. imperative < ἐλεῶ (έω), ‘I pity’, ‘I have pity on’ someone. (The verb occurs in this sense already in the Iliad and the Odyssey.) One can hear the lepers crying in unison, ‘Master Jesus/ Rabbi Jesus, have pity on us!’ (Cf. NRSV, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’)
[14] καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ὑπάγειν αὐτοὺς ἐκαθαρίσθησαν: note again the Hebrew construction ἐγένετο + another verb (ἐκαθαρίσθησαν) [this time without the connective καί], as in v. 11 above.
ἐν τῷ ὑπάγειν αὐτοὺς: see above on the articular infinitive of contemporaneous action in v. 11, ἐν τῷ πορεύεσθαι αὐτὸν. The construction in v. 14 denotes ‘while they were going’.
ὑπάγω by the 1st c. AD means simply ‘ I go’.
Jesus cures from a distance. Indeed, all ten were cleansed while walking away from him.
ἐκαθαρίσθησαν: the climax of the sentence; this verb, the aor. passive, 3rd person plural < καθαρίζομαι, ‘Ι am cleansed, purified’; καθαρίζω is attested in LXX, NT, and the early Church Fathers (according to Montanari’s Dictionary [henceforth ‘M.’). Cf. classical Greek καθαίρω and English ‘catharsis’.
[15] ἰδὼν ὅτι ἰάθη, ὑπέστρεψε: ἰδὼν = 2nd aor. participle of ὁρῶ (άω), ‘I see’. The participle is ‘circumstantial’, and here is the equivalent of a subordinate temporal clause (‘when he saw’).
ἰάθη: < ἰῶμαι (ἰάομαι), middle voice, ‘I heal’; passive voice, as here, ‘I am healed, cured’. Cf. ἰατρός, ‘healer’, ‘physician’ (already in Homer); also Ἰάσων, ‘Jason’.
The leper in question (like the others) saw that his skin was clear of the scaly patches of the disease.
ὑπέστρεψε: < ὑποστρέφω, intransitive, ‘turn or turn back’ (M.), as in classical Greek.
[16] εὐχαριστῶν αὐτῷ: εὐχαριστῶ, ‘Ι am thankful, I am grateful’, without an obj., is classical. From the Hellenistic period on, the verb can take an object (in the dative), ‘I thank someone’, as here. Cf. English ‘Eucharist’.
[17] οὐχὶ οἱ δέκα ἐκαθαρίσθησαν;: A rhetorical question. It is a direct question, i.e. an independent sentence in which the speaker poses a question. Indicated by the negative οὐ (οὐκ, οὐχ, οὐχί or another word or words), the question anticipates a ‘yes’ answer, as here.
[18] So also the question in v. 18 is rhetorical, and calls for an (embarrassed) ‘yes’ answer.
ἀλλογενὴς: lit., ‘of another race, another stock’, a non-classical word, first found in the LXX. The Samaritan is an outsider.
[19] ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέ σε: second person, singular perfect < σῴζω = ‘I save’, ‘I preserve’, ‘I protect’ (M.). The verb can also mean ‘I rescue’ (M.). Judging by an instance of the passive voice of the verb in Hippocrates and a 1st c. BC inscription (in LSJ), St Luke’s sense is probably ‘has healed’: ‘Your faith has healed you.’ NRSV: ‘Your faith has made you well.’
Christ’s climactic statement hisses with a row of sibilants (no less than six sigmas). Unlike English, Greek is not fond of alliteration except for special effects. Here the alliteration seems to be fortuitous, abetted as it is by the reduplicated pf. σέσωκε.
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 