Friday, August 8, 2014

Jesus Christ in Habakkuk

I was praying Morning Prayer in Latin this morning and a couple lines from the Old Testament Canticle (Hab. 3) stood out to me:

Egresses es in salutem populi tui
in salutem cum christo tuo.
...
Ego autem in Domino gaudebo,
et exultabo in Deo Iesu meo.

The reference to Christ in the Old Testament doesn't surprise me anymore, as this appears all the time in the books of Kings, as it referred to the Anointed One. For example, when David is counseled to attack Saul, he responds by saying, "The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's Christ." This also appears many times in the Psalms.

The second verse that stood out, "I will exalt in God my Jesus," was far more surprising as it used the proper name of Jesus. Then I remembered that the name "Jesus" means "Savior" and "God my Savior" is by no means an unfamiliar Old Testament phrase. Let's look at the Hebrew!
 וַאֲנִי בַּיהוָה אֶעְלֹוזָה אָגִילָה בֵּאלֹהֵי יִשְׁעִֽי׃

Here is my shoddy transliteration:
Waaniy Bayhwah Elovah Agiylah Belohe Yishiy

So that last word there is derived from Yesha' which means "Salvation" and roughly transliterates to the Latin Iesu.

"And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." (Luke 24:27)

No comments:

Post a Comment