Here is a nice passage, and I will quote it in full so you can see it as it really is…
Ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἐνεργὴς καὶ τομώτερος ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν μάχαιραν δίστομον καὶ διϊκνούμενος ἄχρι μερισμοῦ ψυχῆς καὶ πνεύματος, ἁρμῶν τε καὶ μυελῶν, καὶ κριτικὸς ἐνθυμήσεων καὶ ἐννοιῶν καρδίας· καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν κτίσις ἀφανὴς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, πάντα δὲ γυμνὰ καὶ τετραχηλισμένα τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς αὐτοῦ, πρὸς ὃν ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος.
Hebrews 4.12-13, SBL Greek Testament
Once again we are looking at why translation is such a nuanced thing, and why we really can’t just make a table of Greek words on one side and English ones on the other and say that x = y.
Look at the fourth word and the last word. λόγος is one you may recognise even if your Greek is minimal, because λόγος = word.
Or does it?
Goethe famously used it as an illustration of precisely the problem we have here, but using the beginning of John’s gospel. “In the beginning was… well, what?” My preferred Greek dictionary, the LSJ, has one of its longest entries of all for this word, with hugely diverse meanings. So it is a little facile to say, “in the NT, λόγος always means word”. There are just too many other options.
And this well known passage shows why context and proximity matter. The last phrase is rendered by the NIV as “to whom we must give account.” A more literalist rendering would be “to whom, by us, the account.” But I agree, here λόγος can quite reasonably be translated as account.
But what does that do to the first occurrence of λόγος?
I probably can’t convince you to read it other than as “the Word of God”; but isn’t that because you know that version so well. In this case, and given where we are headed at the end of verse 13, I think “the reckoning of God” (or possibly “the computation of God”) is far more likely. Note that this is reckoning in the sense of adding up an account, and getting a current balance; not in the sense of “revenge”.
“Reckoning” certainly fits with the “sharper than all two -edged swords” image. So here is my (slightly loosened up for ease of reading) version, trying to underline just how closely related each pair of things is. This reckoning is not separating things as different as iron and wood, or fire and water.
For the reckoning of God is living and effective, sharper than all two+edged swords, penetrating even to the division of the breath of life, and the breath of God, cartilage and marrow, and judging the ponderings of heart and thoughts of the mind; and there is not in creation one hidden before His face, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of Him, to whom by us an account must be rendered.
All of which is to say, there is no point trying to get anything past God; you are only kidding yourself!
Interestingly, λόγος has a root sense of “something selected or picked out”, which our word “word” lacks entirely. The senses of account, computation, reckoning, story, and others all share this sense of careful selection – as does the sense in which it does mean “word” – writing is picking out words to put together.
And I quite understand if you prefer to still hear Hebrews 4.12 as “ the word of God”; after all the Greek word is the same. It is just that λόγος and word are such different… well, words
