Glory to God in the highest heavens! Peace on earth to people so well favored!
Luke 2:14
Kalamazoo Mennonite Fellowship
Advent 4
December 20, 2009
Will Fitzgerald
Luke’s telling of the Christmas story is full of odes and prophecies, visions and miracles. One of the most delightful passages of all of Scriptures is the appearance of the angel of the Lord to the shepherds in Luke, chapter 2.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
I want to focus on that last verse, Luke 2:14. It has an incantation-like rhythm, and I’m not sure I’ve ever paused to think about it. As it turns out, a number of the Bible scholars and webloggers I read have been discussing a proper translation of this verse, and it’s been very interesting to read their comments and to meditate and think through what is going on in these few words. Please remember that I’m not a Greek scholar, and so we will have to proceed tentatively. But I hope what I’ve learned and thought about will help you in your Advent and Christmas meditation.
The first thing I want to say is that we need to approach this verse as poetry and blessing. This is clearly not a description (like “There were … shepherds abiding in the field.” This is an hymn, or ode, and the angels are singing, or chanting or reciting this. I say this obvious thing because I believe, at the end of this “teaching” what I hope is not that you will know more, but that you will be able to sing this song or recite this poetry better; with more empathy and a deeper delight, with more gratitude and praise. Remember that we are explicitly told the reason the heavenly host is singing: they are praising God. Let’s keep this in our minds and open our hearts to a deeper appreciation for the praise here, and a deeper desire to praise our God.
In the Greek, there are ten words. Some are small, and all are deep. Let’s look at a few of them.
The first word is “δόξα” (doxa). This is the word translated “glory,” and the word from which we get the English word “doxology.” In the past few months, I have been on a quest for a better word than “glory,” because it seems like one of those religious words that are not that common in English. But I’ve given up that quest, because I think I was wrong. It’s very natural for us to say that a day is glorious, or a victory in battle, or a piece of art. It has, in English, lots of hints about fame and renown, and brightness and excellence. A glorious victory is decisive and brings fame to the victors. A glorious day is very bright, or very windy, or very mild: it’s very very.
The second phrase is ” ἐν ὑψίστοις” (en upsistois). Literally, this is “in the highest,” (and that’s how is shows up in the King James Translation). This is perfectly normal Greek (of course), but it’s strange English. Joel M. Hoffman suggests that we might translate this as “the heights,” and I think we can understand this to mean “in the highest heavens,” where God and the angelic beings dwell. That the beings singing this hymn are a “heavenly host,” I think this is a very natural understanding. In fact, I think we can read an implied “heavens” and make the passage make a bit more sense to our English ears: Glory to God in the highest heavens.
The third word is the little word “and,” (καὶ, kai). This word here introduces a parallel expression: on the one hand, “Glory to God in the highest heavens,” and one the other … well, let’s see.
The fourth expression is “ἐπὶ γῆς” (epi ges), or “on the earth.” And so we see that the parallel expression will have some contrast in it. Above, there is glory to God, Meanwhile, down here on earth something else is happening. And that thing is our fifth word, “εἰρήνηἐν” (eirenen), or “peace.” The heavenly hosts chant “Glory” to God, and “Peace” to the earth. This hymn is about two things: glory and peace.
The last expression is perhaps the hardest to understand, or (at least) to translate. This is “ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας,” (anthropois eudokias). We might recognize the first word, “ἀνθρώποις” (anthropois), as being related to “anthropology,” the study of human systems, or “misanthrope,” (someone who doesn’t like people). In older translations, this is translated as “men.” But you’ll probably agree that these days it’s hard to argue that “men” means “men and women,” or “males and females.” Whether you think this is a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just not what English is doing these days. I’d argue that it never really mean men and women taken together, but that’s a discussion for a different time. Unfortunately, we haven’t been left with very many short, poetical words to us. The King James’s “good-will to men” is so beautiful, but we’ll have to content ourselves with “humankind” or “humanity” or “people.” The second word in the phrase is “εὐδοκίας” (eudokias) is really quite a cool word, and it really adds to the poetry of the hymn. Remember that the first word was “δόξα” (doxa); now the last word is “εὐδοκίας” (eudokias), eu-dokias, or, literally, “good glory.” So the hymn is bookended with this literally glorious word. (I thank Kurt Gayle for noting this, and the general poetic and parallel structure of the hymn). Unfortunately, English doesn’t really have a good parallel word here, though I really commend the King James translator for “good-will;” he got the “good” out of it, anyway.
But an important thing here is that “εὐδοκίας” (eudokias) is an adjective that describes “ἀνθρώποις” (anthropois). That is humanity or people or humankind are well-favored, or blessed, or somehow given this good thing. I’ll use the word “well-favored,” because it keeps a bit of the King Jamesian “good,” and when you favor someone, you are giving them renown or glory, yes?
Now, there is (to my mind) a bit of a strange controversy going on over this expression. Some want to translate it as something like “just those people with whom God is pleased,” or “just those people whom God favors,” and some what to translate it as “all people, whom God has blessed.” It like if I said, “My brother from Florida,” vs. “My brother, from Florida.” In the first case, I’m telling you which brother I mean—the one from Florida. In the second case, I’m just giving you a little additional information about my brother—he’s from Florida. So, it is “people with whom God is pleased” or “people, with whom God is pleased”? Well, the thing is—this is a distinction being introduced by putting the ‘well-favored’ after ‘people,” which is not even what is happening in the Greek. There’s no long phrase here: just an adjective and a noun. If I say, “My Florida brother,” I can’t make the distinction I can make with “my brother, from Florida” and “my brother from Florida.” And the Greek is just the same here. We just don’t have a great word to use, but I think “well-favored” will in fact work: “well-favored humanity” or “humanity, so well-favored.”
So now we have this beautiful parallel hymn:
Glory to God in the highest heavens! Peace on earth to people so well favored!
The heavenly host call out to all the citizens of heaven to give glory to God. The heavenly host call out to God to bring peace to earth, to the people God has favored by sending “a Savor, who is Messiah, the Lord.” And really, we need some exclamation points, because you can tell that this hymn is being sung, or recited, or chanted very loudly, and they are excited by this good news.
I feel compelled to say, though it breaks the flow a bit, that some Greek manuscripts of Luke are slightly different, and (in particular) the manuscript used by the King James translators uses a slightly different version of the last word. In this manuscript, the last word is “εὐδοκία” (eudokia) instead of “εὐδοκίας” (eudokias). This changes the word from an adjective to a noun, from “well-favored” to “good favor,” or even the King James’ “good will.” With what little I know, I think there is reasonable evidence for both, though the “well-favored” tradition is more likely. But if the “good favor” tradition is right, then we still have a very nice parallel contrast, with an internal parallel similarity in the second part:
Glory to God in the highest heavens! Peace on earth! Good will to humankind!
So, what a delightful hymn!
The heavenly multitudes swell to pronounce the glory and renown of God, and call on all of heaven to join in praising the God who brings salvation to the world though this tiny sign, a baby wrapped in a manager. The heavenly multitudes call out to God to do the very thing God has set out to do: to bring a peace to the earth through this Savior. This is a great blessing, and humanity is surely “well favored,” by this act.
I hope that this week you will spend some time praising God, and giving God the glory: to bring down to earth a bit of the heavenly music. I hope that this week you will remember how God has blessed you and all humankind in sending this baby Savior. I hope that you will look for ways to live the peace that God brings to the earth, and will pray that God will spread the peace of Christ throughout the regions of the world: to bring peace and reconciliation between God and humanity, and to bring peace and reconciliation among people, both individuals and nations.