The Meaning of Kolasis in Mat. 25:46
By Jonathan Mitchell
How the Greek noun, kolasis, is translated seems to be determined by the translator's view of the ultimate destiny of a person. This determination is also qualified by the translator's view of the adjective that modifies this noun, in this context. That adjective is aionion, from the Greek noun, aion.
Aion originally meant "a lifetime," which, of course, is an undetermined period of time. It was a "time" word. It came to mean: an undetermined period of time; an age; an era; an eon. It stands to reason that an adjective does not have a greater force, modification or meaning, than the meaning of the noun from which it is derived. A wooden chair is one that is made of wood, and which has the qualities of wood. The adjective, aionion, in our text, has been difficult to render into English. Since we have the English word, eon, to represent the Greek noun, I have chosen the adjective, eonian, as has the Concordant Literal New Testament. Others have spelled this word "aionion," which is a transliteration of the Greek term.
Here is my translation of Mat. 25:46, which includes inserted options for both kolasis and aionion:
"And so, these folks will continue going off (or: coming away) into an eonian pruning (a lopping-off which lasts for an undetermined length of time; an age-lasting correction and rehabilitation; a pruning which brings more and better fruit, and which has its source in, and its character from, the Age; a cutting off for an era, or during the ages), yet the fair, just and rightwised folks who are in right relationship with people and are in accord with the Way pointed out [continue going off or coming away] into eonian Life (or: indeterminate, unspecified, unrestricted, Life; Life which has its source and character in the Age [of the Messiah]; life pertaining to the Eon; era-lasting, or lifelong, Life; or: the life of and for the ages). [cf Lam. 3:1-36; Lu. 12:32; Acts 4:21; 2 Pet. 2:9; Jn. 15:1-2]
The common versions render the word kolasis as "punishment." Our investigation will now proceed to the uses of kolasis in the OT, via the LXX (the Greek translation of the Heb. OT, made in the third century BC), and will consider its use there. We find its first use in Jer. 18:20. The context is a response, by Jeremiah, to what the people had said regarding him, in 18:18,
"Come let us devise a scheme against Jeremiah... let us strike him with the tongue..."
To this, Jeremiah appeals to Yahweh, v. 19, and in v. 20 he says,
"they have together spoken utterances against my soul, and they have hidden their kolasis with regard to me (or: for me)..." (LXX, JM)
In v. 22 he explains,
"for they took in hand an idea to capture me,"
and v. 23 tells us that this plot was for Jeremiah's death... they wanted to cut him off (kolasis) from their society; to be rid of him.
Now the noun, kolasis, is derived from the verb, kolazo, which was a common agricultural verb which meant to prune a tree or to trim a vine - and this was done by lopping-off branches in order to curtail undesirable growth. The idea was to get rid of what was not wanted... in the above verse: to get rid of Jeremiah. They did not just want to "punish" him.
We next find kolasis in Ezekiel. It is the only other canonical OT book that uses this word. It is used three times in the passage of 14:3-8, each time referring to a kolasis which some of the elders of Israel placed before their eyes, and v. 4 refers to this as being,
"the things with which his mind is entangled."
Verse 3 speaks of them as being thoughts and imaginations which they had "set upon their hearts," and terms them,
"the kolasis of their injustices and wrongdoings,"
or of their
"disregard for what is right,"
or their
"lack of the Way pointed out"
- which they set before their eyes.
The Heb. word which kolasis translates, in this passage, means "a stumbling block." In the Heb. text, vss. 3-5 inform us that what the LXX refers to as a kolasis are, in fact, idols. Ezekiel was indicting certain elders in Israel of engaging in idolatry. The LXX translation makes sense when we read 14:7, where Yahweh speaks of those of the house of Israel "separating themselves" (= cutting themselves off) from Him, via their taking idols into their hearts. The Heb. text of v. 8 explains that Yahweh will,
"cut them off from the midst of My people..."
THIS is what Christ does to the kids (immature goats - the diminutive form in the Greek text of the Mat. 25 parable). Likewise, in Ezk. 14:9, Yahweh says that He will remove any prophet that leads His people astray.
Idolatry and stumbling blocks do bring God's judgment. Christ's decisions about the sheep and the kids (Mat. 25) were judgments for both groups. One was positive, the other was "corrective" - a cutting off from the herd. Little, immature kids needed a different dealing of God in their lives than did the sheep who were just automatically bearing the fruit of the Spirit (Love) in ministering to the needs of other people. The folks represented by the kids were not His sheep. But kids and goats are "clean" animals and were used in Israel's sacrificial cultus (e.g., on the Day of Atonement).
Ezk. 14:8, in the LXX, instructs us about the judgment for a person who separates himself and sets a kolasis before his eyes (v. 7):
"And so I will fix My face upon that person, and I will progressively place (set; put) him into a wilderness (desert; desolate place), and into an absence of manifestation (a situation of being out of sight), and thus, I will proceed leading him out from the midst of My people..." (LXX, JM)
The leading of them out from the midst was a kolasis - a cutting them off from the people, so that they would not be a bad influence on the people.
Another place, in Ezekiel, where we find kolasis, is in 43:6-11a. The setting of the vision was the inner courtyard of the House, or temple, which was full of the Lord's glory (v. 5). It was (v. 7) the place of God's throne, and the place of His footprints (tracks), within which His Name will continue settled down and taking up quarters (be encamping) in the midst of the house of Israel... on into the midst of the Age (Eon; Era). The rest of v. 7 speaks of the whoring and murder which Israel's leaders were committing, and v. 8 continues with other transgressions.
In Ezk. 43:9-11, Yahweh gives Ezekiel instruction:
"So now, let the folks leading them away from Me at once thrust away their whoring and the slaughters (murders), and the I will proceed settling down and encamping within the midst of them, on into the midst of the Age (Era; Eon). Now you, O son of man, point out and show the House to the house of Israel, and they will proceed growing weary, will abate and then cease from their sins (deviations) - even its appearance and its disposition (plan; deployment; thorough arrangement).
And they will proceed receiving (taking in hand) their kolasis (pruning; lopping-off) concerning all of which they did, and you will proceed diagramming and delineating the House and its preparations... and you will continue diagramming it before them and in their presence, and then they will continue keeping all the effects of my rightwised instructions and all the effects of My face-to-face set and ordered arrangements (or: orders), and they will habitually do (produce; practice) them." (LXX, JM)
Notice the positive outcome of their receiving their kolasis.
Ezk. 44:10-12 speaks of how the Levites departed from the Lord and gave service to idols before the people, and so brought a kolasis because of their wrongdoing (or: a lack of the Way pointed out; from acts of injustice. In 44:13, we read what this kolasis was:
"They will not continue coming near Me to minister to me as priests, nor approach the holy things of the children of Israel, nor My Holy of Holies; but they shall bear THEIR DISHONOR, for the error of which they have been guilty." (LXX, JM)
Notice that their kolasis was dishonor and loss of the privilege of functioning as priests.
These passages parallel the loss which the Judean leadership experienced, in AD 70, of which many of Jesus' parables set forth prophecies about them. We suggest that the kids in Mat. 25 were a figure of that very Judean leadership. They had been branches which did not bear the Fruit of the Spirit (Jn. 15:2; Rom. 11:17). The kingdom of God was taken from them, and given to Christ's sheep (Mat. 21:43).
In Wisdom 11:13, we have this:
"For when they heard [that] through their own kolasis (plural) they had become, and were now being, benefactors to, and for, others, they perceived, and took notice of, the Lord (or: they had feelings from, and perceptions of, the Lord)." (LXX, JM)
Wis. 14:10, regarding idols and those who make them, we find the verb form:
"For you see, even the thing being practiced, made or done will be curtailed (verb from which kolasis comes), together with the person practicing or doing [it]." (LXX, JM)
In reference to worshiping animals (living creatures), in Wis. 15:18, Wis. 16:1 says,
"Because of this, through similar or like [creatures], they were worthily curtailed (or: cut off in a deserved manner), and through swarms of wild animal and vermin, they were tested." (LXX, JM)
Wis. 16:24, offers this:
We find kolasis in 2 Macc. 4:38b, and just before this (38a), the antecedent act by Antiochus was that
"he removed the bloodthirsty fellow [Andronicus] from the world."
He "cut him off," from the land of the living. In 4: Macc. 8:9, "terrible kolasis (pl.)" is used in conjunction with tortures. Here, the image of kolasis is not simply "punishments," but gives a mental picture of having body parts "pruned off," one at a time. The agricultural metaphor holds as the proper rendering of the term.
Let us now turn to the New Testament, Acts 4:38,
"So, after projecting menace and adding threats, they released them - continuing to find nothing [to solve] "the how" (= the means) [so that] they could prune or curb them (= cut back their activities) - on account of the people, because they were all continuing in glorifying God (adding to God's reputation) [based] on the thing (= the healing) having occurred, with lasting results (or: having come to be, and now existing)."
Next, we find the noun in 2: Pet. 2:9,
"[The] LORD (=Yahweh), having seen, thus knows to (or: knows how to) continuously drag out of danger (or: rescue; [cf Ps. 34:17-22]) a reverent person (one standing in devout goodness, in awe and in virtuous conduct with ease and well-being from relationship with God) from out of the midst of a trial (or: ordeal; [other MSS: trials; cf 1 Cor. 10:13]), yet to constantly keep in custody, guard, watch over and maintain unjust folks (people who live contrary to the Way pointed out; unrightwised folks) [who are] being repeatedly pruned (or: being progressively corrected), [which is leading] unto a day of evaluating for making a decision [about their progress] (or: of judging [condition])"
And finally, 1 Jn. 4:18,
"Fear - in the sense of terror, dread or alarm - does not exist within the Love, but rather perfect Love (mature and complete love; love having reached its goal) repeatedly (habitually; progressively) throws this kind of fear outside, because this fear constantly has and holds a pruning (a curtailment; a checking; restraint; a lopping off - thus, a correction). But the person habitually fearing with dread, alarm, or terror, has not been perfected or brought to completion, within the Love (has not been brought to the destined goal of maturity - in union with Love), and continues not yet in the state of completion, at the present time."
David Bentley Hart's NT translation offers this rendering of Mat. 25:46,
"And these will go to the chastening of that Age, but the just to the life of that Age."
See his note on this verse. Scot McKnight's 2023 translation, The Second Testament, gives us:
"These will go away into the Era's chastisement, but the righteous ones into the Era's Life."
The meaning of our English verb "chastise" is: rebuke or reprimand severely; scold; discipline; censure; criticize. An era of discipline and criticism is very different from the concept of "eternal punishment," the translation found in the common versions.
We suggest that Paul, using a different Greek word, captured the idea of Jesus' parable which we are investigating. In Gal. 5:12, he said this:
"Would that (or: If only) those continually unsettling you (causing you to rise up as in an insurrection; thus: disturbing or exciting you folks) will also, one after another, cut themselves away (i.e., amputate themselves from your body [of believers]; or: cut themselves off [from you])!"
Jonathan
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