LUKE has a way with words. In the Candlemas Gospel, v.35 stands out: “a sword will pierce your individual soul, too.” We recognise that poignancy in our own close relationships, through which every starting of joy — reminiscent of a “child born into the world” (John 16.21-22) — brings with it, sooner or later, a final parting, and the grief that comes with loss.
But wait. Whose poignancy is that this — Luke’s, or the translators’? Both the AV and the RSV keep the order of Luke’s original Greek. If the NRSV (and the NIV) did the identical, it will read like this: “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be an indication that shall be opposed — and a sword will pierce [“go through” in Greek] your individual soul, too — in order that the inner thoughts of many shall be revealed.”
When Mary’s pierced soul is made the ultimate phrase of Simeon’s speech, pain (the value of human love) becomes the culmination of his prophecy. That is misleading. But the pierced soul may be misleading, if we leave it in the center, as within the Greek. I needed to punctuate rigorously to indicate that it’s a parenthesis (a remark logically separate from the remainder of the sentence). Luke means the phrase “in order that the inner thoughts of many shall be revealed” to follow on from opposition to Christ. The revelation of inner thoughts is effected not by the soul-piercing sword, but by the kid.
This is the third time that Luke has associated Mary with prophecy. There was the angel, Gabriel (1.30-32); then, a heavenly host (2.16-17); and, now, a Spirit-filled human being. It has cost Simeon something to be a prophet. Costly obedience appears to be God’s preferred way with those that speak his words (Jeremiah 20.2, 40.1; 1 Kings 22.24, etc.).
Simeon had waited into old age, but God had no must make him wait in any respect. He could have given Simeon his revelation on the day of purification itself. Yet there may be “a stature in waiting”, as W. H. Vanstone once put it: Simeon’s recognition of Jesus is a blessing to himself, in addition to to Christian posterity.
What concerning the sword? Luke uses the term rhomphaia. It is a bladed weapon with a single edge, not a double-edged sword (xiphos), or a machaira, which could have a single edge (for cutting) or a double edge (for thrusting and piercing).
It seems odd that Luke writes of a single-edged sword. A two-edged blade can be more practical for piercing. I wondered concerning the ragged wounds left by such weapons as pointing to human pain as being more haphazard than surgical. But that’s imagination, not exegesis. In any case, he could simply be using romphaia as a general term, like “firearm”.
There continues to be that “too” in v.35 to be tackled. We might detect a parallel between the suffering of the Son on the Cross, and his mother at its foot: then “too” would mean “Your soul shall be pierced as Jesus’s side was pierced.” But the piercing of Jesus’s side, and Mary’s presence where it takes place, are found only in John (19.26, 34). Luke doesn’t include either fact in his account of the Passion; so it’s unlikely that he’s alluding to them here.
Help comes if we turn over again to that single-edged blade, the romphaia. It will not be a stabbing weapon, just like the lance in John’s Gospel. A rhomphaia is for cutting things in two, for cleaving. It enacts a division, as in Solomon’s famous judgment concerning the baby (1 Kings 3.16). Luke’s word for “piercing” does mean “going through”, however the movement is vertical, not horizontal. We should picture the blade as coming down from above, not thrusting forward, when it “goes through” Mary’s soul.
A sword will cleave her soul, and ours. Inside and outdoors will change places, because the shell that we hide behind vanishes, while our secret interior is shockingly exposed. The “two-edged sword” of Hebrews 4.12 can each cleave and pierce: it represents the Word of God, which divides “soul and spirit, joints and marrow”. So, Hebrews 4.13 completes Simeon’s lesson: “Before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.”
In the top, the kid, and the sword, and the Word are one.
