1 Thessalonians 5:3 – ‘Peace and Security’?
Most Bibles translate 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3 like this:
‘…the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When people say, ‘There is peace and security,’ destruction will strike them …’ (ISV)
However, we translate it a bit differently:
‘…the Lord’s Day is coming [unexpectedly] like a thief does at night… While they’re speaking of well-being and tranquility! And then ruin will come upon them…’
The Greek terms here are very broad and give several options:
- eiréné: peace, peace of mind, health/welfare
- asphaleia: security, safety, certaintly, reliability, firmness.
As you can see, there’s a few different definitions to choose from. So which is correct? That’s where the Aramaic sources come in.
The Aramic words are:
- selam: well-being, safety, peace
- sayna: peace, tame, a piece of cultivated land (as opposed to a piece of wild, un-tamed land)
As you can see, if we chose ‘peace’ as the meaning of the first term, the Aramaic would force us to say ‘peace and peace’! I assume that you’d agree with us, that ‘peace and cultivated land’ doesn’t make sense.
However, if we understand that the first term means ‘well-being,’ then the Aramaic forces us to understand it as ‘well-being and peace.’
We always defer to the Aramaic text wherever it differs from the Greek text, as we believe it may preserve some original readings that were later corrupted (deliberately or not) in the Greek. However, there may be no corruption at all. If you take both terms together, they seem to convey a similar idea. It could simply be that one uses an expression that sounded better in Greek, and the other uses an expression that sounded better in Aramaic.
So it probably doesn’t matter much.
Whatever the original wording, since it mentions the ‘thief in the night,’ it’s likey a simple retelling of Jesus’ words:
‘If the master of the house had known in which watch the thief would be coming, he would have stayed awake and not allowed his house to be [broken into]. So always prove yourselves ready; for the Son of Man will arrive at a time that he isn’t expected.’ (Matthew 24:43-44)
So, Paul seems to be drawing on a well-known saying of Jesus to emphasize the sudden and unexpected nature of the Lord’s Day. It may not, as some teach, be supplying new clues as to when the Lord’s Day will come.