Luke 19:1-10
He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
How far will you go to preserve a favorite assumption? If you’re anything like most biblical scholars, the answer is probably “pretty far.” Here’s what I mean.
You’ll notice that the verbs when Zacchaeus speaks are all in the future tense. That makes sense, as Zacchaeus is clearly pledging to amend his behavior: “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.”
Except for one thing: the verbs are actually written in the present tense. Zacchaeus isn’t repenting, he is rebutting his neighbors who started grumbling when Jesus decided go to his home. “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor already; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I always pay back four times as much.”
So if the verbs are in the present tense, why translate them as future? Because this is a case, as Greek grammar scholars contend, of a “future present tense” – that is, while it may look like the present it’s really about the future. Sound good?
Well, it might, except that this story of Zacchaeus is the only place in the Bible – or in any other literature written in Greek! – where this “future present tense” occurs. And you know what that means? It means that those grammarians made it up.
So back again to our question: why translate present tense verbs in the future tense? Because, I think, we are so convinced that a) tax collectors are a disreputable lot and b) repentance must always precede blessing that we assume right along with the crowd that Zaccheaus is a pretty awful fellow and in desperate need of repentance.
Fortunately for us, Jesus isn’t quite as concerned with good order as we are, and so he reaches out to this righteous tax collector just as he does with any and all who want to be with him…including even us.
So how far will we go to preserve our assumptions, judgments, and prejudices. Pretty far, but thankfully Jesus will go even further to reach out and save the lost.
Prayer: Dear God, help us suspend our judgments and simply bask in the grace we have received and see others receiving as well. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Dave — not so much responsive to Zacchaeus — but ties in with giving away, those giving away in the present. An organization you may have heard of and you might want to pass along to your blog followers. http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
Last month I was looking into this text on the source of all truth and knowledge(wikipedia)and read that the name Zacchaeus means righteous one. Is this true? I don’t know. If it is true it seems pretty significant the Jesus calls Zacchaeus by name. Jesus saw a good man (who also evidently knew he was good) but who was still lost and needed saving.
Zacchaeus seems much less the sinner and more of an outcast whom had been shunned him despite his best efforts to fulfill his difficult and unpopular task in a fair and honest way. Somebody was going to collect the taxes for the Roman government. Just think of the consequences of not paying your taxes to Rome. Better a good-but-lost son of Abraham than the alternative.
That is a really interesting fact. Translations are always subject to the biases of the translators and that makes it difficult for those who do not read stuff in the original-like me! I greatly appreciate it when scholars mention these variations and leave it ro us to decide if their choice was right!
I always find the sentence, “He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.” We’ve always assumed Zacchaeus was short in stature. But I wonder if he couldn’t see Jesus because Jesus was short and you couldn’t see him behind the crowds.
Meant to say that I find that sentence kind of funny.