what were the first words?

Originally posted on April 11, 2009 – by Andre Piet

What were the first words that Jesus spoke on the day of His resurrection (Matthew 28:9)?
According to the Statenvertaling: “hail”;
According to the NBG-51: “hail”;
According to the NBV: “… and greeted them”.

According to the interlinear (=word-for-word rendering) of ISA the reading is:

So: Jesus met them, saying: be rejoicing!

Let us, with the help of the mentioned ISA program, apply a ‘concordant view’ to the Greek word in question (chairete), then we see how this is translated in all other ten occurrences (NBG-51).

Note: 7x “rejoice”, 2x “be glad”, 1x “be joyful”. Only in Matthew 28:9 does it sound rather meagerly “hail”. While precisely on this day there was ultimate reason for festive joy! Jesus rose as Firstfruit from among the dead and brought “life and incorruption to light”. On this day the whole of humanity received the guarantee that death will ultimately be abolished completely! The first word that the Prince of Life therefore spoke was nothing less than a jubilant cry:
BE REJOICING!!!

Delen: