Is it "power" or "the power" in Matthew 26:64?

Question

Matthew 26:64 English Standard Version

Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Holman Christian Standard Bible

"You have said it," Jesus told him. "But I tell you, in the future you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power [τῆς δυνάμεως] and coming on the clouds of heaven."

In https://biblehub.com/matthew/26-64.htm, only 5 out of 24 of the translations use the article in translating τῆς δυνάμεως. Is it important to include the article in the English translation in this case?

Answer 1

τῆς δυνάμεως—“the power,” is a circumlocution¹ for the Tetragrammaton. It is not referring to merely abstract power, but using the epithet τῆς δυνάμεως as a synecdoche.²

On the Hebrew word גְּבוּרָה (“power”), Marcus Jastrow wrote,³

Also, Johann Buxtorff wrote,⁴

According to Buxtorf, גְּבוּרָה was reckoned by [Alexander] Ross and the Cabbalists among the epithets of God for signifying the powerful God Himself.

Footnotes

        ^{1 Hebrew כִּנּוּי (kinnui)
        2 Lausberg, § 574, p. 261: “Epithets...are often to be viewed as a synecdoche.”
        3 Jastrow, Vol. 1, p. 205
        4 Buxtorf, Vol. 1, p. 201}

---

References

Buxtorf, Johann. Lexicon Chaldaicum, Talmudicum et Rabbinicum. Ed. Fischer, Bernard. Vol. 1. Leipzig: Schaefer, 1869.

Jastrow, Marcus. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. Vol. 1. New York: Putnam, 1903.

Lausberg, Heinrich. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study. Trans. Bliss, Matthew T.; Jansen, Annemiek; Orton, David E. Ed. Anderson, R. Dean; Orton, David E. Leiden: Brill, 1998.