Wisdom 18 • Light, the night of deliverance, and the halted plague — Greek text and reception
Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.
Chapter 18 • Light, the night of deliverance, and the halted plague
Light for God’s holy ones
Verse 18:1
Greek–English Saints Priority
But for Your holy ones there was very great light;
hearing their voices but not seeing their forms,
the others called them blessed because they had not suffered likewise,
Textual & Reception Notes
‘The others’ supplies the contrasting group confined in darkness. The hearing/not seeing distinction is explicit.
Verse 18:2
Greek–English Saints Priority
and thanked them because, though previously wronged, they did not harm them,
and begged pardon for having been at variance.
Textual & Reception Notes
The final phrase with διενεχθῆναι is rendered as a request for reconciliation after disagreement. Its exact construction remains a review point.
Verse 18:3
Greek–English Saints Priority
In contrast, You supplied a fire-blazing pillar,
a guide for an unknown journey,
and a harmless sun for a glorious sojourn abroad.
Textual & Reception Notes
The pillar is both guide and harmless sun in the imagery. Φιλότιμος can concern honor or ambition; glorious is adopted for the journey.
Verse 18:4
Greek–English Saints Priority
For those deserved to be deprived of light and imprisoned in darkness
who had kept Your sons shut up,
through whom the incorruptible light of law was to be given to the world.
Textual & Reception Notes
The sons are the mediating people through whom the law’s light is given.
The night known beforehand
Verse 18:5
Greek–English Saints Priority
When they planned to kill the infants of the holy ones,
and one child had been exposed and saved,
You took away their multitude of children as a rebuke
and destroyed them together in violent water.
Textual & Reception Notes
The source brings the child-killing plan, the rescued child, and destruction in water together. It does not name the child or reduce the statement to only one event.
Verse 18:6
Greek–English Saints Priority
That night was known beforehand to our fathers,
so that, knowing securely the oaths in which they trusted, they might take courage.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 18:7
Greek–English Saints Priority
Your people awaited
the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of enemies;
Textual & Reception Notes
Both expected outcomes are explicit.
Verse 18:8
Greek–English Saints Priority
for by the very means through which You punished the opponents,
You glorified us, calling us to Yourself.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 18:9
Greek–English Saints Priority
For in secret the holy children of good ancestors offered sacrifice,
and in unity established the divine law:
that the saints would share alike in the same good things and dangers,
already singing beforehand the praises of the fathers.
Textual & Reception Notes
‘Ancestors’ supplies the implied noun with ‘good.’ The shared good and danger and the ancestral praise are all retained; no formal liturgical title is invented.
Verse 18:10
Greek–English Saints Priority
But the discordant cry of enemies echoed back,
and a pitiful sound spread abroad as children were mourned.
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 18:11
Greek–English Saints Priority
Slave and master were punished together by the same judgment,
and the commoner suffered the same things as the king;
Textual & Reception Notes
The two social contrasts remain distinct.
Verse 18:12
Greek–English Saints Priority
all together, under one name of death,
they had countless dead;
for the living were not even sufficient to bury them,
since in a single moment their most honored offspring had been destroyed.
Textual & Reception Notes
‘One name of death’ is a close rendering of the unusual phrase; the collective calamity and sudden timing are explicit.
Verse 18:13
Greek–English Saints Priority
For though they disbelieved everything because of their sorceries,
at the destruction of the firstborn they acknowledged that the people were God’s son.
Textual & Reception Notes
The collective people are called a singular son of God; the translation does not turn it into plural individual sons.
The all-powerful word descends
Verse 18:14
Greek–English Saints Priority
For while quiet silence surrounded all things
and night was midway through its swift course,
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 18:15
Greek–English Saints Priority
Your all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from royal thrones,
a stern warrior, into the midst of the doomed land,
carrying Your unfeigned command as a sharp sword;
Textual & Reception Notes
The divine word is personified as a warrior; the source does not here supply a separate personal name. ‘Unfeigned’ renders ἀνυπόκριτος, without pretense.
Verse 18:16
Greek–English Saints Priority
standing there, it filled all things with death;
it touched heaven while standing upon the earth.
Textual & Reception Notes
The word remains the grammatical subject. Its reach between heaven and earth is retained.
Verse 18:17
Greek–English Saints Priority
Then at once apparitions of dreadful dreams disturbed them,
and unexpected fears came upon them;
Textual & Reception Notes
Verse 18:18
Greek–English Saints Priority
one here and another there, hurled down half-dead,
made known the reason why they were dying.
Textual & Reception Notes
The distributive expression is retained as one here and another there.
Verse 18:19
Greek–English Saints Priority
For the dreams that troubled them had announced this beforehand,
so that they would not perish without knowing why they suffered.
Textual & Reception Notes
The negative purpose clause is preserved.
Prayer and incense stand between death and life
Verse 18:20
Greek–English Saints Priority
But a trial of death touched the righteous too,
and a breaking of the multitude occurred in the wilderness;
yet the wrath did not remain long.
Textual & Reception Notes
Θραῦσις is a breaking or destructive outbreak; the plague setting emerges in the following intervention.
Verse 18:21
Greek–English Saints Priority
For a blameless man hastened to fight for them,
bringing the weapon of his own ministry:
prayer and propitiation by incense.
He opposed the wrath and put an end to the calamity,
showing that he was Your servant.
Textual & Reception Notes
Ἐξιλασμός retains the project’s propitiation terminology in this ritual context; expiation or atonement expresses overlapping aspects. The man is not named in the running text.
Verse 18:22
Greek–English Saints Priority
He conquered the anger, not by bodily strength,
not by the activity of weapons,
but by a word he subdued the punisher,
reminding him of the fathers’ oaths and covenants.
Textual & Reception Notes
Both negatives and the verbal reminder are explicit. The punisher’s identity is not expanded with a supplied angelic name.
Verse 18:23
Greek–English Saints Priority
For when the dead had already fallen in heaps upon one another,
he stood between them and checked the wrath,
and cut off the path to the living.
Textual & Reception Notes
The interposition and interruption of death’s route are separately preserved.
Verse 18:24
Greek–English Saints Priority
For upon his ankle-length garment was the whole world,
and the glories of the fathers upon the engraving of four rows of stones,
and Your majesty upon the diadem of his head.
Textual & Reception Notes
The garment’s cosmic symbolism is explicit. The source says glories and four rows of stones; a list of inscribed names or gemstones is not supplied.
Verse 18:25
Greek–English Saints Priority
To these the destroyer yielded, and these he feared;
for the trial of wrath alone was enough.
Textual & Reception Notes
The demonstratives refer to the preceding sacred signs; the destroyer’s response is not attributed to ordinary military strength.