Making a way in Mark 2.23.

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Ben C. Smith
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Making a way in Mark 2.23.

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Much fuss has been made over the wording of Mark 2.23, whereby the disciples are said to "make a path" or "make a way" around a grain field:

Mark 2.23-28: 23 And it came about that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain [καὶ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἤρξαντο ὁδὸν ποιεῖν τίλλοντες τοὺς στάχυας]. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to Him, "See here, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" 25 And He said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and became hungry, he and his companions: 26 how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he gave it also to those who were with him?" 27 And He was saying to them, "The Sabbath [τὸ σάββατον, singular] was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath [τὸ σάββατον, singular]. 28 "Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath [τοῦ σαββάτου, singular]."

An initial reaction to the Greek is perfectly understandable. We would expect the middle voice, ποιεῖσθαι, here, but what we get is the active, ποιεῖν. Zerwick explains this at two different spots in his grammar book:

Maximilian Zerwick, Biblical Greek (translated by Joseph Smith):

227. The verb ποιεῖν is in classical usage put in the middle voice where it has for object a noun denoting action, with which it forms a periphrasis equivalent to a simple verb, e. g. (for the NT also) πορείαν ποιεῖσθαι for πορεύεσθαι, μνείαν ποιεῖσθαι for μεμνῆσθαι, ἀναβολὴν ποιεῖσθαι for ἀναβάλλειν, δέησιν ποιεῖσθαι «to pray» as distinct from δέησιν ποιεῖν, which would mean «compose a prayer» (object independent of verb).
It is said that this distinction between simple action (middle voice) and action resulting in production of the object (active voice) is no longer strictly observed in the NT (cf. DEBRUNNER 310,1 along with the «Nachtrag») and many examples are alleged with ποιεῖν where (it is said) ποιεῖσθαι was to be expected. On careful examination, however, the use of the active can generally be accounted for, and this is especially true for Luke. Thus the middle voice is regularly used in Lk 5,33; 13,22; in Acts 1,1 τὸν μὲν πρῶτον λόγον ἐποιησάμην (hence not «I composed the former discourse» which would have the active, but «I discoursed on the former occasion»); 15,3 ἐποίουν χαρὰν is «gave rise to joy» (and not «made merry»!) so that the active is correct; so too 23,12 ποιήσαντες συστροφὴν, not «rioted» but «stirred up a riot», whereas just after this we have (23,13) οἱ τὴν συνωμοσίαν ποιησάμενοι, i.e. not «instituted a conspiracy» but «conspired». So too 24,12 Paul says he has not been found ἐπίστασιν ποιοῦντα ὄχλου, i.e. «stirring up...» and 25,3 ἐνέδραν ποιοῦντες does not mean «lying in wait» but «installing an ambush»; and again the middle regularly used 27,18.

228. All this suggests that Luke found it natural to distinguish the voices in such expressions, and since Luke's Greek is a truly κοινή, vernacular (cf. its confusion between εἰς and ἐν), it would seem that in the Greek of which it is representative the distinction was still observed, which makes it likely a fortiori that it was still observed in the rest of the NT in general. In fact, an examination made by J. Smith, and too long to be reported here in full, of all the revelant texts, shows that the distinction can practically always be supposed to have been observed, with the exception of πόλεμον ποιεῖν (four times in Rev: 11,7; 12,17; 13,7; 19,19) and leaving out of consideration the difficult text Mk 2,23: «... His disciples began ὁδὸν ποιεῖν τίλλοντες τοὺς στάχυας».*

* The variant readings show that this text caused difficulties from the beginning. Ὁδὸν ποιεῖν according to the rule given above should mean not «make their way = go forward» (which would have the middle voice) but, with independent verb and object, «make a path», a sense which of itself seems unlikely both because such a path is hardly made by «plucking the ears» and also because Jesus in his answer does not speak of work forbidden on the Sabbath, but of eating what is forbidden; such a sense can however perhaps not be entirely excluded owing to the incertitude shown by Mt and Lk and the manuscript tradition concerning what is said to be forbidden by the Pharisees: «to pluck and eat» (Mt), «to pluck and eat, rubbing (the ears) with their hands» (Lk), «to make their way plucking» or rather, as has just been said «to make a path by plucking» (Mk). It is further to be noted that the sense «make a path» accounts for the fact that the principal verb is «began (ὁδὸν ποιεῖν)» and «plucking» is expressed by a participle: «began to make a path (by) plucking the ears», whereas if the sense were «make their way» one would have expected «began to pluck the ears as they made their way» rather than «began to make their way plucking the ears», though the expression of the principal action by a participle and a concomitant one by a main verb, unusual as it is, is not impossible (cf. 376).

....

376. Occasionally puzzlement, and sometimes perhaps also exegetical difficulty, is caused by the expression in a participle of what is the principal notion, while the finite verb expresses what is but a circumstance, e. g. Mk 2,23 the disciples started ὁδὸν ποιεῖν τίλλοντες τοὺς στάχυας, where if ὁδὸν ποιεῖν meant simply «walk» one would have expected «started τίλλειν τοὺς στάχυας ὁδὸν ποιούντες» ; KLOSTERMANN suspects that an underlying parataxis (ὁδὸν ποιεῖν καὶ τίλλειν) has been awkwardly rendered («ungeschickte Wiedergabe einer aram. Parataxe») (but cf. note to 228 above); so too Lk 13,28; Rom 4,19: «μὴ ἀσθενήσας in faith regarded his body as dead», on which W. BAUER (Wörterbuch) remarks «wie oft, der Hauptbegriff durch das Partizip ausgedriickt». For a similar phenomenon in ancient Greek cf. 263.

377. Here and in many other cases there would seem to be an underlying Aramaic circumstantial clause which although subordinate is expressed paratactically, waw + pronoun + verb, cf. Mk 1,19: He saw James... and John... «and they preparing their nets» as an Irishman might have said (καὶ αὐτοὺς... καταρτίζοντας). Note how Mk does not render literally the Aramaic circumstantial clause (which would have given καὶ αὐτοὶ καταρτίζοντες) but as a concession to Greek syntax makes the participle depend on the principal verb εἶδεν, putting the αὐτούς in the accusative. Similarly Lk 13,28. Cf. M. Black, An Aramaic Approach..., 1954, P. 63f.

Essentially, in Greek, ὁδὸν ποιεῖσθαι (middle voice) means to make one's way, as in simply making a journey or taking a trip, while ὁδὸν ποιεῖν (active voice) means to actually make a path, to create one where one was not before. Exceptions to this rule have been sought in the New Testament, on the presumption that this distinction may have broken down by the time the NT was penned, but by far most of the exceptions have been disarmed. The remaining ones are πόλεμον ποιεῖν in the very rough Greek of the Apocalypse of John and ὁδὸν ποιεῖν in Mark 2.23, where the problem is simply that one cannot in any meaningful way create a path by plucking the tops of grain stalks. It seems like what Mark meant was ὁδὸν ποιεῖσθαι, but what he wrote was ὁδὸν ποιεῖν, thus keeping the biblical grammarians in business.

But I think that this dilemma is easily resolved. Unless I am mistaken, ὁδὸν ποιεῖν is readily explicable in two different ways: both as a Semitism and as a Latinism (there are a few cases in which Semitisms and Latinisms overlap, and this is one of them).

First, as a Semitism:

Judges 17.8: 8 Then the man departed from the city, from Bethlehem in Judah, to stay wherever he might find a place; and as he made his journey [לַעֲשׂוֹת דַּרְכּוֹ, "to make a way," LXX τοῦ ποιῆσαι ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ], he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah.

The LXX shows us exactly what we find in Mark, the active voice of the infinitive of ποιέω used with the accusative ὁδὸν to express the idea of making one's way or taking a trip. (That Judges 17.8 has the aorist infinitive and Mark 2.23 has the present infinitive is a matter of simple aspect, and is of no consequence to the current discussion.)

Second, as a Latinism:

1 Samuel 28.22: 22 "So now also, please listen to the voice of your maidservant, and let me set a piece of bread before you that you may eat and have strength when you go on your way [תֵלֵ֖ךְ בַּדָּֽרֶךְ, Vulgate iter facere]."

The Latin expression iter facere, "to make a way," simply means to go on a journey. The infinitive facere is active. A simple, uncritical translation of iter facere into Greek would yield ὁδὸν ποιεῖν.

Mark is full both of Latinisms and of Semitisms elsewhere. Why should we be surprised to find the occasional example which could qualify as either a Semitism or a Latinism? Unless I am missing something, either of these explanations would explain Mark's weird expression easily.

Ben.
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