ʿι πτπχοī τῷ πνΕύματι has been given a number of interpretations due to the number of different meanings that have been attached to the two terms in the phrase. No attempt is made here to give an exhaustive discussion of earlier work, but rather a new interpretation is tentatively suggested.
page 255 note 1 § 197. Robertson, , A Grammar of the Greek N.T. in the Light of Historical Research, p. 523,Google Scholar takes it as a locative; this seems to presuppose the conception of spirit as a localized part of man which developed later. Moule, C. F. D., An Idiom Book of.N.T. Greek, p. 46,Google Scholar takes the phrase to ‘mean “the poor” used in its spiritual (i.e. religious) connotation’. It is very doubtful if pneumna possessed at that time in a Jewish Christian community the connotation ‘religious’ which it possesses today in English; in the parallels which he adduces (Col., ii. 5;Google ScholarPhil., iii. 3) while πνΕμαπ means ‘spiritual’ it does not mean ‘religious’.Google Scholar
page 256 note 1 The attempt to make this refer to the Divine Spirit seems indefensible.
page 256 note 2 The formation of a construct with ruach is good Hebrew, : Isa. xxix. 24; lvii. 15; liv. 6;Google ScholarProv., xxlx. 23;Google Scholar I Sam., i. 15 Ps. xxxiv. 19; I QSxi. I; I QMvii. xi. 10; xiv. 7.Google Scholar
page 256 note 3 Cf., E. Bammel, πτωχός, T.W.N.T. VI, 888 ff.Google Scholar
page 256 note 4 The word thus carries within itself the meaning which Moule supposes it to receive through the addition of τῷ πνΕύματι. Note Isa. lxvi. 2 where mach is added to but not to.
page 256 note 5 Cf., Millar Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 95f.; Schubert, K., The Dead Sea Comonity, pp. 137–9. Before the discovery of the Scrolls there were no known Hebrew or Aramaic instances of the phrase.Google Scholar
page 257 note 1 Gaster, T. H., The Dead Sea Scriptures.Google Scholar
page 257 note 2 Cf., H. E. del Medico, The Riddle of the Scrolls, p. 293, who renders: ‘he (God) grants…a firm foot and a stout heart to those…whose spirit has been brought low’.Google Scholar
page 257 note 3 Verses 11 and 12 have not the same form as the earlier Beatitudes and represent an addition.
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