Are the Mariological Verses Well Translated?

When we speak of problems in translating Scripture, we encounter a barrier that arises quite naturally with regard to the biblical-Marian theology of the Old Testament. All the manuals and treatises devoted to this field of Sacred Scripture give special attention to the prophetic announcements of Gen 3:15, Is 7:14, among others. The Second Vatican Council teaches that the Mother of the Redeemer:

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Prophetically foreshadowed: a truly felicitous expression! Thus the Council indicates the presence of the Mother of the Redeemer in the field of the proto-evangelium of Gen 3:15. But in the immediate continuation of the same paragraph, with the adverb likewise (similiter), the same hermeneutical clarification is extended to Is 7:14.

By what paths did the authors of the New Testament arrive at a renewed understanding, one that is also Mariological, of the prophecies mentioned?

Following the chronological order of their writings, we first find Matthew, who interprets Is 7:14, and the last will be the Johannine tradition of Revelation, which goes back to Gen 3:15 when he contemplates the Woman clothed with the sun.

Let us allow ourselves to be led by the hand of the evangelists, and under their guidance we will learn to search out the features of Mary as the dawn that heralds the beneficent rays of Christ, the Sun of justice (Mal 3:20).

On Genesis 3:15

From a strictly exegetical point of view, we must acknowledge that the earliest interpretations of the pericope are not Mariological. Moreover, the difficulties that this text has always posed to the scrutiny of scholars are well known. First of all, there is its literary formulation, which, according to the witnesses available to us, proves problematic in several respects, so much so that we could even speak of three parallel texts: the Hebrew, that of the Greek translation of the LXX, and that of the ancient Western versions, which later merged into the Vulgate.

LXX: The most important Greek version of the Old Testament is called the version of the Seventy because, according to a legend, it was made by seventy (or seventy-two) scholars who worked unaware of one another. According to Jewish tradition, it was commissioned by Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 BC) for his famous library in Alexandria. Although it appears to be the joint work of many translators, it was probably completed later: around the year 132 BC. On some important points, it differs from the Hebrew Bible. Certain books that are not even found in the Hebrew Bible (such as Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and Baruch) were introduced into the Septuagint, while some books (for example, Esther) appear in a longer form. These traditional books and passages, called Apocrypha in the Protestant tradition, are regarded as “deuterocanonical” by Catholics and Orthodox. When quoting the Old Testament, the authors of the New Testament generally follow the Septuagint rather than the original Hebrew. Many of the early Fathers of the Church regarded the Septuagint as the official version of the Old Testament. 

Latin Vulgate: This name derives from vulgata editio (Lat. “popular edition”) and refers to the most widespread Latin translation of the Bible. When he felt the need for a common translation in Rome, Saint Jerome (c. 340-420) undertook to revise some already existing Latin translations of the New Testament. Forced to leave Rome, Jerome learned Hebrew and began to translate the Old Testament as well. By around 404, he had finished translating (or revising existing translations of) the entire Bible. In 1546, the Council of Trent declared the Vulgate to be the authentic translation of the Bible (DH 1506).

Let us look at the texts

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A)      who crushes?

The problem that emerges from these three possibilities concerns both the relationship between the serpent and the woman and, above all, the relationship between the serpent and the offspring/seed of the woman.

In the Hebrew text, the offspring (zar·‘āt: masculine) is the protagonist of the struggle and of the victory. It is not specified when or how, but a decisive victory of the woman’s offspring over the serpent is clearly indicated. The woman’s offspring is interpreted in a collective and a personal sense at the same time. They are, in fact, those who observe (or do not observe) the law of Moses. We are, therefore, in the context of the people of Israel, for whom there will be irreversible salvation against the snares of the serpent with the appearance of the Messiah. In practice, then, the woman of Genesis and her descendants come to be identified with the community of Israel on the path of messianic redemption. More simply: the chosen people with their Messiah. We are not far from the message of Revelation 12!

The LXX translation explicitly emphasizes the offspring: the form αυτός corresponds to the masculine tū of the Hebrew text, but it is in strident grammatical dissonance with the aforementioned offspring of the woman (του σπέρματος αυτής), which is neuter + feminine. There is a grammatically violent transition from the neuter [offspring] to the masculine [He]. A literary phenomenon of this kind suggests that among the woman’s offspring there will be a specific person who will lead the progeny, first understood in a generic sense, to the final victory in the irreversible overcoming of the serpent’s snare. This clearly attests to the expectation of a messianic person. The discrepancy between the third-person masculine pronoun he and the neuter noun seed confirms that for the Jews contemporary with the LXX version the Messiah was an individual, a single person, not a people in general.

The Vulgate translation assigned a leading role to women. It will be the woman (ipsa) who will be able to crush (conteret) the serpent’s head. The victory, therefore, is attributed not directly to the offspring, but personally to the woman.

The exegetical interpretation of Genesis 3:15 oscillates, we may say, between the Hebrew text and the Greek translation of the LXX. Today there is an insistence on returning to the roots. The woman is set as the beginning of the offspring and is never separated from it. This offspring finds its essential point of reference in Christ. Therefore, that the offspring understood in a general sense should be polarized and concretized in one person, αυτός, and that this person should be Christ, is an ecclesial datum that is exegetically justified.

B)     elements of the text

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,” said the ancient oracle of Genesis, known as the protoevangelium. The woman can only be Eve, that is, the woman of whom the author had been speaking up to that point. This is required by the definite article (the), which presupposes a link with the preceding narrative.

“Between your seed and her seed”. The seed of the serpent designates those who make the seducer’s deception their own, thus becoming his children, his followers, following his incitement to evil (cf. Wis 2:24; Jn 8:44).

By exclusion, the seed of the woman consists of those who remain faithful to the ways of God:

“It [= the seed] will crush your head, while you will strike it on the heel”. As we have already said, according to the Hebrew text, the one who will crush the serpent’s head will not be the woman, but her seed. How are we to discern, within this seed or offspring, the one who brings the final victory?

A collective (the seed of the royal house of David?),

A group or an individual?

The answers are hesitant and, strictly speaking, do not fall within the formal limits of our inquiry. Nevertheless, the fact is that the serpent’s defeat is fatal, for its head is crushed. God takes the side of man (I will put enmity). Israel knows that it can count on God’s promises.

The immediate context

The exegesis of this passage is extremely complex. Strictly linguistic elements, redactional elements, and elements of style all contribute to making it so. First of all, compared with the present formulation of the text, there was a gestation that must have been laborious.

The interpretations that have been proposed advance in a crescendo toward a position:

a) naturalist: perennial hostility between man and the serpent, as an effect of the divine curse.

b) ethical: the struggle takes place between man and the serpent as a symbol of evil.

c) salvific sense.

 This last interpretation, the salvific sense, has in its favor the decisive fact that it fits appropriately into the broad context of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. The contextual requirements, as they emerge from the first 11 chapters, which were probably already present at the redactional stage, postulate a certain unity, an articulated concatenation among the various elements, without empty spaces and without repetitive overlaps.

Bearing all this in mind, we see that the whole story of the second creation narrative can be connected with the first, since it is possible to overcome the mentality that it represents and expresses. At the same time, we cannot stop at God’s condemnation; that is, the history of the redaction, with its requirements of unity, must be reassessed, so as not to get lost in the archipelago of the analysis of individual elements, regardless of their scope.

Insisting on what Genesis wishes to express to us, which concerns the history of humanity in general, from the point of view of a dialectical development of its history in a salvific perspective, there resonates a reading of the text that feels the need to express the synchronic threads adequately.

The rereading of Gen 3:15 in Revelation 12

Can it be said that the Virgin was foretold in the proto-evangelium of Genesis?

 In response, it must be said that the Mariological aspect of this prophecy becomes intelligible only on the basis of the New Testament, that is, thanks to chapter 12 of Revelation. Let us see how. The preliminary question is this: who is the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars? (Rev 12:1b).

We are in the presence of a great sign (1a). As such, it must be decoded.

What is the identity of the female figure that fills the field of vision?

a) A multiple symbolism
The Woman of Revelation 12 gathers a polyvalent symbolism that, at the same time, recalls Eve, Israel, and the Church.
Eve Although the Woman has no name, the reader easily discerns the figure of Eve struggling with the serpent (Gen 3:15). In fact, the dragon is described as “the ancient serpent, whom we call the Devil and Satan, who seduces the whole earth” (Rev 12:9; cf. Gen 3:15). He is waging open war against women. He is there, ready to devour her Son as soon as she has given birth to Him (Rev 12:4). Since his attempt is thwarted by divine intervention, which snatches the newborn up to God and His throne (v. 5), he does not give up pursuing the Woman, who has fled into the desert: he runs after her (v. 13) and spews out a river of water, which, however, is promptly swallowed up by the earth as it opens (vv. 15-16). The wrath of the snake against the Woman then pours out “against the rest of her offspring, against those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus” (v. 17).

Israel The twelve stars with which the Woman is crowned (Rev 12:1) symbolize the twelve tribes of the people of Israel (cf. Gen 37:9). We are, therefore, in the presence of the Woman-Bride of the old Covenant. In her is portrayed the whole community of Israel, the people of God, which at the end of the first century AD venerated Eve as the first of its mothers, and in a messianic perspective.

The Church The Woman, in fact, is the one who brings forth the Messiah, raised to the throne of God (Rev 12:5), and she is also the mother of those who live the divine commandments, bearing witness to Jesus (v. 17). At the end of the book of Revelation we find a further confirmation of the ecclesial-communal value of the Woman. This is proven by the fact that she reappears in the guise of the “Woman-Spouse of the Lamb” (21:2, 9). In her we have the Holy City, the new Jerusalem (21:10), which includes both the twelve tribes of Israel (21:12) and the twelve apostles of the Lamb-Christ (21:14). In other words: this Woman, one and the same, gathers and synthesizes the whole people of God, of the first Covenant, ratified at Sinai, and of the second, which arose from the paschal mystery of Christ.

Does the Woman of Revelation 12 also represent Mary?

Was the mother of Jesus present to the seer of Patmos when he delivered his book of revelation to the seven churches?

The great majority of exegetes answer: the Woman of Revelation 12 directly represents the Church, that is, the people of God of the Old and New Testaments. Within the context of the Church, it is also legitimate to glimpse Mary, the mother of the Messiah Jesus, in this same Woman.

a. The Woman’s childbirth: this is a symbolic reenactment of the passion and resurrection of Christ. Once this point is established, the reader’s mind turns spontaneously to Jn 19:25-27. That passage tells us that when Jesus passed from this world to the Father, the messianic community (or the faithful remnant of Israel) was represented by three or four Women and the beloved disciple. Among these, a prominent role is recognized as belonging to the mother of Jesus, who was constituted mother of all the disciples.

The difference between Rev 12 and Jn 19:25-27 lies here: while the scene of Revelation is ecclesial in tone, that of the Fourth Gospel is centered on the person of Mary. But this is a complementary difference. Thus chapter 12 of Revelation confirms the ecclesiological significance of Mary beside the cross. And, vice versa, the presence of Mary beside the Crucified One makes possible the Mariological extension to the Woman of Revelation struggling with the dragon.

The Mariological extension to the Woman of Revelation is not only possible but obligatory, and precisely at the level of the literal sense. In fact, the “Woman-Church” of Rev 12, presented as the mother of the Messiah and of all His followers, is the symbolic transcription of the “Woman-Mary” who was truly the mother of Jesus and, by the will of Jesus Himself, became the mother of all His disciples. Precisely because the mother of Jesus lived concretely within the Johannine Church, the author of Revelation was able to create the scene of chapter 12, which extends and applies Mary’s mission to the Church. In other words: the exemplification of the Church is Mary.

The great images of ch. 12 are incomprehensible without reference to the historical role of Mary. The ecclesial and Mariological senses are in no way alternatives, as is often thought, but complementary; indeed, they postulate each other: the Church without Mary would lack a concrete point of reference and a qualifying dimension. Mary without the Church would be a sudden and inexplicable meteor in the sky of Revelation, a foreign presence difficult to justify.

b) The Woman of Rev 12 is, then, the same Woman who will be glorified in the new heavens and the new earth of the heavenly Jerusalem, as the “Woman-Spouse of the Lamb” (Rev 21:1-22:5). In the eschatological reflection on this final goal, the community of the faithful lifts its gaze to the mother of Jesus, “assumed” into heavenly glory beside her Son. In her person, redeemed in the physical and spiritual integrity of her being, the Church joyfully greets the first fruits of the perfect salvation that the risen Christ will pour out upon every creature.

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Original context of Is 7:14

Isaiah’s prophecy is part of the events connected with the Syro-Ephraimite war against the kingdom of Judah. We are in 734-733 BC. In this year, Jotham, king of Judah, dies in Jerusalem. He is succeeded by his son Ahaz, only twenty years old. The king of Damascus (Rezin) and the king of Israel (Pekah) wage war against the young sovereign because he refused to join them in the coalition against Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727), king of Assyria. The armies of the two besiegers are already pressing at the gates of Jerusalem.

Ahaz, frightened, decides to call on Tiglath-Pileser for help. At this point the prophet Isaiah enters the scene and tries to dissuade Ahaz from his plan: allying himself with the Assyrian monarch was tantamount to acknowledging even the false deities he worshiped, but this was in stark contrast with the first commandment of the covenant: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3). Since Ahaz, in practice, rejects Isaiah’s warning, the prophet addresses his oracle to the house of David, so gravely threatened (Is 7:13).

And he says that the young wife of Ahaz (Abijah; cf. 2 Kgs 18:2) will give birth to a son (Hezekiah), on whom she will bestow the auspicious name of Emmanuel, which means God with us (Is 7:14). The child to be born will eat milk and honey (v. 15a). That is, he too will have to feed on these scarce products of herding, the only ones that remain in a land impoverished by war and among a people forced to abandon agriculture (cf. Is 7:22-25).

This diet, however, will last until the child “learns to refuse evil and choose good” (v. 16a). This phrase (taking into account the valuable parallel it has in Is 8:4) means: “before the child knows how to say father and mother”. These are the first signs of discretion (cf. Gen 4:11). They can also appear at around two years of age. At the end of this period, the prophet declares, the two kings who inspire such fear in Ahaz will be defeated (v. 16).

The immediate course of events confirmed the truth of the prophecy. In 733 Tiglath-Pileser conquers Samaria, and in 732 Damascus falls into the hands of the Assyrians. Hezekiah was born in the winter of 733-732, according to the most reliable calculations. When he was little more than a year old, the threat of the Syro-Ephraimite league had thus been averted. Hezekiah then succeeded Ahaz, and his good government truly showed that “God is with us”, that is, with His people (Is 8:10).

The house of David, to which the Lord had promised perennial stability through the mouth of Nathan (2 Sam 7:8-16), survived thanks to the person and work of Emmanuel-Hezekiah. This interpretation of the famous oracle of Is 7:14 is called indirectly messianic, since it regards Hezekiah as the type of Christ. It is the most ancient prefiguration, and it is regaining broad assent even among today’s exegetes.

However much one may wish to put it off, it will never be possible to confine the prophet’s perspectives within the limits of the kingdom of Judah or the court of Ahaz. Isaiah has before him more than an invasion, a liberation, a sign. In his mind, therefore, the time and the addressees of the respective threats and promises must also be clear.

Otherwise, the oracle would be contradictory (with salvific and punitive intimations, relating to the present, “before the child distinguishes good from evil”, and to an unspecified future, “on that day”), disproportionately emphatic (so much solemnity would be inexplicable merely to announce a historical event), even confused, being contrary to the usual style of the prophets, and therefore also superfluous.

Interpretation of Is 7:14 in Mt 1:22-23

Matthew, after narrating the virginal conception of Jesus (1:18-21), concludes: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, who shall be called Emmanuel, which means God with us’”.

The oracle to which Matthew refers is that of Is 7:14. Let us first look at the original context of this famous prophecy, and then at the Christological-Marian rereading that the First Evangelist makes of it.

Mt 1:22-23 reinterprets Is 7:14 in a messianic and Mariological sense. The evangelist has just narrated the virginal conception of Christ and affirms that, despite the exclusion of any man, Jesus descends from the Davidic dynasty. In fact, it is Joseph, son of David (Mt 1:20), who confers legal paternity on Him (Mt 1:21, 24), thus inserting Him into Jewish society as “son of David”. In the light of this extraordinary event, Matthew thinks of the circumstances of the prophecy of Is 7:14 and concludes that they draw their full meaning now that Mary has conceived Christ by the work of the Spirit.

How? 

We could say that the Matthean rereading of Is 7:14 has two aspects: one concerns the Messiah, the other the mother of the Messiah.

A) the Messiah

Just as at the time of the Syro-Ephraimite war the survival of the Davidic dynasty was ensured by the birth of Emmanuel-Hezekiah, so too the birth of Christ from the line of David guarantees, on God’s part, the stability of the Davidic line, which is now prolonged in the Church. The figure of Hezekiah, greatly celebrated by the prophet (Is 7:14-15; 8:5-10; 9:5ff.), is a typical prefiguration of Christ. Jesus is the true and perfect Emmanuel, the “God with us”: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of time” (Mt 28:20).

The new house of David is now the Church of Christ (cf. Mt 16:18: “I will build my church”). She enjoys perpetual stability because Jesus lives in her. The forces of evil will not prevail (cf. Mt 16:18). Love conquers death. In the risen Christ, at work in the Church, the omnipotence of God, of the “God with us”, is revealed.

B) the mother of the Messiah

The Mariological significance of Isaiah’s prophecy, according to Matthew’s citation, lies in the person of the mother of Emmanuel-Hezekiah. Just as she gave birth to a son who guaranteed the continuity of the house of David, Mary gives birth to a Son who will reign forever on the throne of David, in the house of Jacob, in the Israel of God (cf. Mt 16:18; 28:20; Gal 6:16; 2 Sam 7:16). Note the queenship of the two mothers. Moreover, just as the birth of Hezekiah had the character of a prodigy, since it was foretold by the prophet as a sign, the birth of Christ was supremely prodigious, since He was conceived by a virgin through the Spirit alone (Mt 1:18, 20).

In summary: Is 7:14 is the first of the Old Testament oracles to be understood in a Mariological sense as well by a New Testament author. The Virgin Mary is “prophetically outlined” (Lumen Gentium 55). If several Fathers, such as Justin, related this prophecy directly to Christ and Mary, this probably happened under the influence of the controversy with Jewish circles, which denied any Christological content to the Old Testament. Respecting, however, the dynamic and theological economy of revelation, we see that only on the basis of Matthew’s testimony is it possible to see the figure of the Savior and His mother behind the veils of the typical figures of King Hezekiah and the queen mother Abijah.

What happened in the time of King Ahaz now reaches its perfect and definitive fulfillment in the mystery of the virginal conception of Christ, “son of David” (cf. Mt 1:20) and “God with us” (1:23).

The New Testament completes the Old, going beyond it. Jesus will say: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill” (Mt 5:17).

The rereading of the prophetic announcements of Is 7:14 and Gen 3:15, as reread by the evangelists Matthew and John, is one more step toward understanding the role that God assigned to the Virgin in the preparatory history of the Old Testament. The figure of the mother of the Messiah gradually took shape in the half-light of the prophetic word. The expectation of the chosen people is now aware that His Mother, too, must be united with the Savior, at His side.
Alongside the current that prepares the Messiah, the Old Testament presents a lower but parallel current that prepares the messianic community. It is precisely the feminine personification of the Virgin Daughter of Israel, or Daughter of Zion. It is legitimate to think that this secondary current flows toward Mary, just as the main current flows toward Jesus. Although in different ways, both carry within themselves the destiny of the Messiah and His people.

Prof. Dr. Daniel Afonso

Prof. Carolline Muniz

To study the Mariological verses and their theological interpretation in greater depth, consult the encyclical Redemptoris Mater of John Paul II, which analyzes the fundamental biblical texts on Mary with exegetical and theological rigor.

Delve deeper into your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian apparitions, and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.