Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 2:4a
What have I to do with thee. A Hebrew idiom carried word for word into Greek.
John 2:4, in every translation this tool compares.
What's that got to do with me? English has almost the same idiom and it can be sharp or merely distancing depending entirely on who says it and how.
Because the English reads as a rebuke to his mother and the phrase is a fixed Semitic expression about shared business, which is a different kind of sentence.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.
Versions read what have I to do with thee, woman what does this have to do with me, or woman why do you involve me.
τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί ti emoi kai soi
Ti emoi kai soi, literally what to me and to you, renders Hebrew mah li walak. It appears in the Septuagint and in the mouths of demons at Mark 1:24. The range runs from hostile to merely marking a separation of concerns.
English has no fixed phrase with the same neutral-to-hostile range, so a translator has to pick a tone the Greek does not specify.
When a Greek sentence is ungrammatical or odd word for word, check whether it is a Hebrew phrase transported whole. The New Testament is full of them.
Why do you involve me is what most modern versions settle on. All versions agree the tone is uncertain and none footnotes how wide the range is.
- mah li walak: Judges 11:12; 2 Samuel 16:10; 1 Kings 17:18
- ti emoi kai soi on demons' lips: Mark 1:24; 5:7
- Septuagint renders the Hebrew idiom word for word
