Matthew 18:21-22

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When Peter asks Jesus if we should forgive up to seven times most translations have Jesus responding that we should forgive seventy times seven times. This is also how I always heard people say it. Other translations have Jesus responding that we should forgive seventy-seven times. I realize that both translations underlying meaning that our forgiveness should be limitless is more important than the literal number. However I’m curious which one of the translated versions is closest to the original Greek scripture.
 
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Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (NABRE)

Seventy-seven seems to be the correct translation. Jesus’ words in this passage in Matthew are clearly an echo of Lamech’s words in Genesis 4:24: “If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times” (NABRE). The Greek is the same in both cases, according to the Septuagint OT text on the New Advent website:

Gen 4:24: ὅτι ἑπτάκις ἐκδεδίκηται ἐκ Καιν ἐκ δὲ Λαμεχ ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά

Matt 18:22: λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς: οὐ λέγω σοι ἕως ἑπτάκις, ἀλλὰ’ ἕως ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά.
 
Cool ! I would of never of guessed that.
Seventy seven - sounds more like Jesus - NOT the mathematician stuff .
 
Something else I just found on the internet.

The idea that Jesus’ meaning in this verse is “seventy times seven” dates back at least as far as St. Jerome. In his homily on Psalm 119 he quotes Jesus’ words in Matt 18:22 and adds his own explanation (in the top two lines on p. 231 in this edition):
  • Dico tibi, non septies, sed septuagies septies, hoc est, quadringenties nonagies.
I say to you, not seven times, but seventy [times] seven times, that is, four hundred [and] ninety times.

archive.org

Tractatus sive homiliae in psalmos : Jerome, Saint, d. 419 or 20 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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I suppose St. Jerome and other bible translators wanted to emphasize the limitless nature of forgiveness. I’ve even heard on occasion in sermons and commentators on television say seventy times seven in a day. I’ve never seen it translated that way.
 
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Zach said:
underlying meaning that our forgiveness should be limitless is more important than the literal number.
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As you observed in your OP, the underlying meaning is more important than the literal number. That makes it all the more puzzling that Bible translators from Jerome onward should have spent so much time and effort on weighing the comparative merits of “seventy-seven” and “seventy times seven”.

Yet another anomaly I just spotted. In Matt 18:22, both the KJV and the DR give “seventy times seven.” But in Gen 4:24 they disagree: “seventy times sevenfold” in the DR against “seventy and sevenfold” in the KJV.

Curiouser and curiouser.
http://biblehub.com/genesis/4-24.htm
http://biblehub.com/matthew/18-22.htm
 
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Interesting question, but I agree that the underlying meaning is more important.

It’s supposed to represent such a large number that it means we are to forgive without reserve and without limit, not tallying up someone’s sins but forgiving them each time, just like Christ forgives us.
 
Zach said:
I’ve even heard on occasion in sermons and commentators on television say seventy times seven in a day.
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Either they (or you) are conflating this with the similar passage in Luke 17, in which the assertion is “seven times in one day.”
 
Ah yes. Probably a bit of both they and myself conflated the passages. I recall at least in one occasion hearing someone say seventy times seven in a day.
 
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Here’s an attempt to put all these bits and pieces together to form a coherent whole. It’s still only a hypothesis, though.
  1. In Gen. 4:24 the Hebrew Bible says שִׁבְעִ֥ים וְשִׁבְעָֽה (shivim ve-shivah), seventy-seven.
  2. Back in Alexandria in the second century BC, the translators of the Septuagint wrote, in Greek, ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά (hebdomekontakis hepta), “seventy times seven”. Why did they do this? That’s a separate question. Let’s leave it alone for the time being.
  3. It has been demonstrated that whenever Jesus or anyone else in the NT quotes or alludes to “the Law and the Prophets,” i.e. the Sacred Scriptures as they existed in the Herodian period, they habitually use the Greek form of the scriptural text rather than the Hebrew form. So also here: Jesus says “seventy times seven”, quoting the Septuagint.
Now we can draw these three threads together. Present-day Bible translators use the Hebrew text as their primary source for the OT, which is why “seventy-seven” is often seen in our English translations of Gen 4:24. The translators are aware, however, that Jesus’ reply to Peter is an echo of Lamech’s saying in Genesis, and there are two things they can do to ensure that this echo will not be lost. Either they can make Jesus use Lamech’s (Hebrew) number “seventy-seven” or, alternatively, they can make Lamech use Jesus’ (Greek) number “seventy times seven”. Some translators do one thing, some do the other—while there are others yet, as we have seen, who do neither, leaving “seventy-seven” in Genesis and “seventy times seven” in Matthew.
 
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It’s good to know what Jesus actually said regardless of the different translations . By the logic of your number 2 and number 3 points it definitely follows that, as you say, “Jesus says “seventy times seven”, quoting the Septuagint”
 
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Zach said:
It’s good to know what Jesus actually said regardless of the different translations .
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Well, there’s a difficulty there, which has to do with a separate question of translation. When Jesus spoke to the disciples, presumably the language he used was either Aramaic or Hebrew. But the four evangelists were writing in Greek, which meant – in Matthew’s case – either that he had to translate Jesus’ words himself or that he was drawing on an existing translation by somebody else. I suppose there is always the possibility that Jesus said “seventy-seven” in Aramaic but whoever translated his words into Greek, recognizing the allusion to Lamech in Genesis, decided to use the standard Greek scriptural form of Lamech’s saying rather than a literal translation.
 
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But if Jesus was quoting Genesis 4:24 he most likely was referencing the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew. I guess the question is whether he quoted Genesis 4:24 directly or just alluded to it.
 
@Zach, I hope you realize that I’m not a Biblical scholar of any kind! It just so happens that I noticed a few days ago that some English Bibles use “seventy-seven” in Jesus’ answer to Peter, while – like you – I was familiar with the other form, “seventy times seven”. I’d even been thinking of starting a thread myself asking the same question, but you beat me to it!
 
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Well it seems we were on the same wavelength in our thinking but I beat you to it. 🙂 Do you know any ancient Greek or Hebrew.? You had some quotes in those languages.
 
In high school I had Latin for several years – it was the usual thing back in those days – but no Greek or Hebrew. A few years ago I did a short beginners’ course in modern Israeli Hebrew, but that’s all. I don’t have any specialist Biblical knowledge of any kind. I wish I had!
 
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BartholomewB said:
In Gen. 4:24 the Hebrew Bible says שִׁבְעִ֥ים וְשִׁבְעָֽה ( shivim ve-shivah ), seventy-seven.
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@BartholomewB,

I can’t lay claim to any real knowledge of Hebrew, so given what you’ve written here, I have a question for you. It all comes down to whether the Hebrew says ‘seventy-seven’ or ‘seventy-fold seven’, right? I notice the number 77 appears in Ezra 8:35, and the pointing is slightly different. Is there any change in meaning due to the variation in writing?

In Genesis 4:24, I see:
שִׁבְעִ֥ים וְשִׁבְעָֽה׃
and in Ezra 8:35 I see
שִׁבְעִ֣ים וְשִׁבְעָ֔ה

So… any difference in meaning there, or just punctuation/orthography difference?
 
Gorgias said:
In Genesis 4:24, I see:
שִׁבְעִ֥ים וְשִׁבְעָֽה׃
and in Ezra 8:35 I see
שִׁבְעִ֣ים וְשִׁבְעָ֔ה
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The differences there are not actually in the vowel points, which are identical, but in additional signs used only in the Bible to indicate the stressed syllable or the place to pause when reading aloud. Why they should be different in Genesis and Ezra I have no idea. Perhaps if @Moses613 should see this he will be kind enough to explain.
 
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BartholomewB said:
The differences there are not actually in the vowel points, which are identical, but in additional signs used to indicate the stressed syllable or the place to pause when reading aloud.
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Cool. In the translations I’ve read, though, the Genesis is rendered “seventy times seven” or “seventy-seven fold”, whereas the Ezra doesn’t have this notion – it’s just “seventy-seven.” Where does this notion of multiplication come from, in the text? (At first blush, I guessed that, in the “seven-fold” that’s earlier in the verse, the suffix is what gave it this meaning, but I don’t see that suffix in the “seventy-seven” part…)
 
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