Luke 12 - Indepthbible.org

2534 2535 2536 2537 2538power to cast into Valley of Hinnom. Yes, I say to you people, fear this One. 12.62534The infinitive verb evmbalei/n, "to cast (or 'throw') into," is changed to the shorter verbbalei/n, "to cast (or 'throw')," by P45, Bezae (with a different word-order), W and Marcion (2ndcentury A.D., according to Tertullian, who died after 220 A.D., Epiphanius of Constantia, who died403 A.D., and Clement of Alexandria, who died before 215 A.D.; in Ex Theodoto). The change tothe shorter form of the verb makes no difference for the teaching of Jesus, since the verb is followedby the preposition eivj, "into."2535Here Luke includes a word used by Jesus, th.n ge,ennan, ten geennan, which we aretranslating as “the Valley of Hinnom." This word would hardly be understood by Luke's intendedaudience in Rome, leading them to call for clarification. It obviously means that following thedeath of the physical body, God has power to inflict further disastrous consequences--but whatthat consists of is not made clear by this warning.See the following passage from Mark 9:43-47, which makes the meaning much clearer:"And if your hand should entrap you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into the life crippled,than having the two hands, to go away into the Valley of Hinnom, into the inextinguishable fire.And if your foot entraps you, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into the life lame, than havingthe two feet, to be thrown into the Valley of Hinnom. And if your eye should entrap you, throw itout. It is better for you to enter into the Kingdom of God one-eyed, than having the two eyes, tobe thrown into the Valley of Hinnom, where 'their worm doesn't die, and the fire is not put out'."It is obvious from this terrifying warning, that the "Valley of Hinnom" means a place ofpunishment following physical death, characterized by "inextingushable fire," where wormscontinually feed upon the rotting corpses, and the fire is not put out--a terrifying thought thatreminds us of Dante’s Inferno or Milton’s Paradise Lost.Gilmour comments that "A medieval commentator on the Psalms (Kimchi, about A.D.1200) says that Gehenna ['Valley of Hinnom'] was used as a garbage dump for Jerusalem andthat a fire burned there constantly. Many modern scholars accept this statement without question,but there is no early evidence for fires in the valley except those connected with the Molechcult." (P. 222)What does Jesus mean by the accusative noun th.n ge,ennan, "the Valley of Hinnom"?This word in Greek has been taken over and shortened from the Hebrew, ~NO=hi-ynEb. ygE, gebeney hinnom, "Valley of Hinnom's Sons," the small valley running from west to east on thesouth side of Jerusalem, emptying into the Kedron Valley. As far as biblical literature is concerned,this exact word th.n ge,ennan first appears in the language of Jesus (Nolland commentsthat "There are no known Jewish uses of the term that definitely predate the Gospel uses" 2, p.678).It occurs twelve times in the New Testament, eleven times in sayings of Jesus (seeMatthew 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9 (in each of which English translations have “hell”; parallel to1225(continued...)