LUKE’s version of Jesus’s Beatitudes (or “blessings”) challenges the more famous version recorded in Matthew (5.1-11). Alongside his four blessings (all of them reimagining what most of us would rather call “sorrows”), he sets four opposing “woes”.

The word “woe” can be used as an “interjection”. They are among the hardest words for translators to get right. I recall a conversation with Andrew Macintosh (then Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge, and now gathered to glory), who taught Hebrew to generations of students, me included. I was grumbling about how the Liturgical Psalter from the ASB 1980 rendered a Hebrew interjection as “Aha!”

There was nothing wrong with the translation, except that to my ear it sounded silly when spoken by a congregation, repeated as in the original, “Aha, aha!” (Psalms 35.22; 40.19, etc.). Andrew was far too kind to embarrass me by revealing that the translation was his own.

In that instance, the original word was a nasty, gloaty one in Hebrew, expressing pleasure in the difficulties of others. Honest? Yes. Moral? No. “Aha!” is still in current usage, perhaps because it has no meaning other than what usage gives it (like the “Oh” in “Oh, I see”).

“Woe” differs from “Aha” by being (as here) a noun, as well as an interjection. We still use it in everyday speech, but only in fossilised phrasing, such as “Woe betide”. Archaisms are frowned on by modern Bible translators. Apparently, they teach people that ordinary words are not good enough for God.

So, translators hunt for other solutions. In the Lucan Beatitudes, the New Jerusalem Bible ditches “woe” in favour of “alas for”. That is less archaic, but it misses a key point. “Woe”, being a noun, is a thing. You can ask God to inflict it on people. If we change it into “Alas for”, then Luke’s “woes” become expressions of pity. And that is misleading.

I have often referred to Matthew’s as the “Jewish Gospel”, and Luke’s as the “Gospel to the Gentiles”. But here, it is Luke whose Beatitudes most reflect that voice of denunciation which we associate with Hebrew prophecy (think of Isaiah 5). Maybe the pattern of woes and blessings also expresses the ancient principle of balance: nothing to excess. Too much in one side of the scale means that things need to return to equilibrium.

Three of Jesus’s four blessings refer to deprivations: of resources, food, loved ones. The first three woes are corresponding surfeits: the rich have had their reward; those with plenty to eat will go hungry; laughter will give way to sorrow. These are all physical experiences — grief not excepted; for its manifestations are physical, affecting sleep and appetite, as well as mood.

So far, this is in harmony with Luke’s encapsulation of blessings and woes in the story of the rich man and the beggar (16.19-31). Luke names the beggar, Lazarus, but we do not learn the rich man’s name, perhaps because he does not exemplify the Kingdom and its values. This could be what inspired Augustine of Hippo, in his Confessions, to name only the people in his life who had forwarded his Christianity.

I find it striking that Jesus ends his Beatitudes and woes with a question that may seem to be far less important than poverty, hunger, and grief. What do other people think of us? As social beings, we depend on the acceptance and inclusion of others for our well-being. Reciprocity, generosity, support — without all these, we are isolated and alone, and something worse: to be “small and of no reputation” (Psalm 119.141) signifies utter worthlessness.

It is not wrong to value the esteem and good opinion of others. But it is not right to crave it, either. So much do we depend for our well-being on being accepted and valued by others that we may bask in admiration or approval, even that of people we know to be shallow, immoral, or criminal. When Jesus calls it a woe to be honoured and a blessing to be hated, it is not just a paradox: it is a downright challenge, to replace vanity with principle.

If “woe” has become archaic, it may be because, in the developed world, we are mostly insulated, by material prosperity, from woe’s manifestations (poverty, hunger, grief). The fact that we are no happier in consequence makes the message of verses 22 and 26 all the more vital.