Attitude isn’t everything, but it cannot be replaced by anything! I don’t know who said this, but whoever it was, I agree with her/him one hundred percent. Before you jump to conclusions about today’s message, I’ll tell you it isn’t what you think! It is not about Esau’s attitude, the man being spoken of in the focus text. Rather, it is about our attitude toward God’s word and the attitudes of those who handle it in critical capacities.
I invite you to read carefully the following four excerpts from today’s focus text (Hebrews 12:17). Again, the context will show that the pronoun he refers to Esau, a man who had bartered away his birthright to his younger twin, Jacob. (1) “…He found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.” (New King James). (2) “He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears.” (New International Version). (3) “…He found no chance to repent, even though he sought the blessing with tears.” (New Revised Standard). (4) “…He found no place for a change of mind [in his father], though he sought it diligently with tears.” (American Standard - 1901).
I do not ask you to agree with me on the meaning of these phrases; that is inconsequential so far as today’s message goes. What I do want you to agree with me on is the attitude that we should possess when we handle God’s Holy Word. Note again the subtle differences in the translations of this verse. In the first and fourth versions, Esau sought “it” (a pronoun whose antecedent the reader is left to decide). In the second and third versions, Esau sought “the blessing”. Question: Did the biblical writer (the person who penned the original words which the translators are supposed to translate), write the Greek equivalent of “it” or did he write the Greek equivalent of “the blessing”? Answer: The inspired writer wrote the Greek equivalent of it! Why then would anyone take it upon himself to steal the right of interpretation that belongs to every reader of a biblical text? Can you see that when the translator presumes that the pronoun “it” must refer to “the blessing”, he takes away the reader’s ability to interpret what the writer meant?
Note one more matter from the same text. In translation number 1, the version says that Esau found “no place of repentance.” In version number 2, he “could bring about no change of mind.” Version three says that he “found no chance to repent.” Finally, version number 4 states that Esau “found no place for a change of mind [in his father].” Question: What was it that Esau could not find? My own thinking is that he could not bring about a change of mind in Jacob after the blessing had been bestowed. The Old Testament record bears this out. Again, however, the matter before us is not what does the text mean, but the attitude we ought to have when we approach the text. The translators of version number 1 left it open for us to interpret what was meant when Esau sought the “place of repentance”; version number 2 seems to lean toward my thinking on the verse; the folks behind version number 3 simply inserted their own thinking when they said that Esau could not even find “a chance to repent”; and, version number 4 conveys what I believe about the verse but they do so with the intellectual honesty of putting their thoughts in brackets – “He found no place for a change of mind [in his father].”
Before I swallow the words of any translator or interpreter, I owe it to myself to determine the attitude that person has towards the word of God. When one sees the Bible as anything less than what it claims for itself, the least that person can do is be honest with the listener/reader and say, “I do not believe this book is the very word of God.” Attitude is not everything, but it cannot be replaced by anything!
Questions:
1. Does every person have the right to interpret the Bible for him/her self? Does anyone have the right to secretly substitute his/her own thoughts in place of the word of God?
2. If one will be unfaithful in smaller matters (such as replacing the pronoun it with a possible antecedent), what might that same person do regarding weightier matters (see Luke 16.10)?
3. When the ASV translators put their words "in his father" in brackets [ ], what does that show about their attitude toward the book they were translating?
4. When the NRS translators inserted their words "a chance to repent", what does that show about their attitude toward the book they were translating?