"Heads cut off" or "souls cut off" in Rev 20:4?

Question

“And I saw seats, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given to them, and these souls who were cut off for the testimony of Yeshua and for the word of God, and because they did not worship The Beast, neither its Image, nor received a mark between their eyes or on their hands, they lived and reigned with The Messiah for 1000 years.”

The Aramaic Bible in plain English implies in Rev 20:4 above, that it is souls that are cut off. Not heads as most, if not all, other translations of the New Testament imply. I understand that in the Peshitta Bible the crucial word does not necessarily have to mean “beheaded”, as non-Peshitta translations’ equivalent Greek word apparently mean. What is the explanation for this difference between the Peshitta translation and the other translations?

Answer 1

Word Study - πελεκίζω

Whatever it is, it's fatal and it's done with an axe. In English, "behead" is a pretty nice idiom for that - and it's apparently there in the Greek word - but that doesn't mean the same idiom was necessarily available in Syriac for the 5th-Century translators.

And if there are historic reasons to think the Beast would fatally-axe people in an altogether different way, then yes "behead" might well have stretched the language too far.

In Greek, beheading is what's done with the axe more than what happens to the head. And an axe is somewhat-literally a "choppy-thing". So English may be adding an idea (of the head) but the Syriac is probably losing one (of the choppy).

Which calls for a word-study, and there aren't many extant examples so it's quite a quick one.

https://biblehub.com/greek/3990.htm has the Greek word plesso being used by various Hellenistic writers. I checked Liddell & Scott for the OP - and was able to track down these examples:-

https://archive.org/details/historieswitheng01poly/page/18/mode/2up

Polybius I.7.12

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0543,001:1:7:12&lang=original

These were sent to Rome, and there the Consuls brought them into the forum, where they were scourged and beheaded according to custom

Polybius II.30.2

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0543,001:11:30:2&lang=original

while the ringleaders were being scourged and beheaded, they neither changed countenance nor uttered a sound

Strabo 16.2.18

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:abo:tlg,0099,001:16:2:18&lang=original

Pompey delivered this place from the tyranny of Cinyrus, by striking off his head.

Ideally we'd have liked a neat reference to Medusa or someone we've got some definite pot-art of them being decapitated. But hopefully this was enough for the lexicographers, with the help of historians, to link the word to axe-decapitation, more than other available forms of lethal hacky-hack.

If there are any history-of-torture types passing, it might be good to know if ancient axe-beheadings were as quick as medieval ones, or if they would have needed repeated blows like πλήσσω < πλάσσω 'to hammer out'

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The Syriac Peshitta has https://www.dukhrana.com/peshitta/analyze_verse.php?lang=en&verse=Revelation+20:4&source=ubs

ܘܢܦܫܬܐ - soul, breath of life, self

ܕܐܬܦܣܩ - cut off, cut down, break

I don't know any Syriac. It might be they didn't have a particular word for axe-decapitation and used neutral idiom to keep the key ideas of the "life" being "chopped short". Or it might be this was their particular idiom for it. It might be periphrastic and family-friendly!

But this almost certainly won't be a discrepancy - it's a typical case of three languages with different ways of saying the same thing.

Because it's a translation we can't infer from Syriac saying soul that they didn't mean head - that's drawing a secondary inference from the new language.

Answer 2

The Aramaic term "cut off" is a cultural language usage in the Peshitta and meant they had been killed. This same language is used in Dan. 9:26.

And after the sixty and two weeks, cut off is Messiah... (YLT)

Jesus was not beheaded. He was crucified. The meaning of being "cut off" also included having the lineage cut off, or no issue, no children; which is the specific case of our Messiah. The context in Revelation is of the martyrs who had been killed for the testimony of Christ. History shows that the martyrs' deaths were of several kinds of violence including animal attacks in the Roman Colosseum, crucifixions, stoning, beheading, etc.

So, in Rev. 20:4 "cut off" does not indicate the method as the martyrs were killed in several ways. The intent is just that they had been murdered for their witness testimony of Christ.

Answer 3

Here is the text of Rev 20:4 and its literal translation (BLB) - Καὶ εἶδον θρόνους, καὶ ἐκάθισαν ἐπ' αὐτούς, καὶ κρίμα ἐδόθη αὐτοῖς, καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν πεπελεκισμένων διὰ τὴν μαρτυρίαν Ἰησοῦ καὶ διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ οἵτινες οὐ προσεκύνησαν τὸ θηρίον οὐδὲ τὴν εἰκόνα αὐτοῦ καὶ οὐκ ἔλαβον τὸ χάραγμα ἐπὶ τὸ μέτωπον καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν χεῖρα αὐτῶν· καὶ ἔζησαν καὶ ἐβασίλευσαν μετὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ χίλια ἔτη. =

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them, and the souls of those having been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who did not worship the beast, nor his image, and did not take the mark upon the forehead, and upon their hand. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

Note the two highlighted words:

• ψυχὰς = "souls" accusative feminine plural
• πεπελεκισμένων = "having been beheaded" perfect participle, passive (or middle?), genitive masculine plural

The perfect participle is from the root verb, πελεκίζω which means (BDAG)

behead (with an ax), normally an act of capitol punishment

Thus, Rev 20:4 appears to be describing those who had been executed for their faith.

Ellicott comments on this verse as follows:

the martyrs who have been faithful unto death; for he speaks first of seeing the souls of those who have been beheaded (strictly, “slain with the axe,” but clearly the special class of beheaded martyrs is to be taken as representing all), because of the testimony of Jesus, and because of the word of God.

Answer 4

A look at the Greek text can help to clear things up.

καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν πεπελεκισμένων διὰ τὴν μαρτυρίαν Ἰησοῦ καὶ διὰ τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ

The words in question are in bold. ψυχὰς (psychas) is accusative case and translates as "souls", there's no debate about that. τῶν πεπελεκισμένων (ton pepelekismenon) is the genitive case of the past perfect participle of a verb. In other words, John saw the souls of those who had something done to them. So the question is what exactly is meant by "pepelekismenon". The root of this verb is "pelekus", meaning "axe", the idea according to Strong and Thayer is "to cut off with an axe", usually meaning "to behead".

I hope that makes it clear. A translation saying "souls cut off" seems hard to justify, but you could perhaps defend translating as "souls of those who were cut off" without being explicit about beheading.