Originally Posted by All-American
εἶπεν δέ, Τίς εἶ, κύριε; ὁ δέ, Ἐγώ εἰμι Ἰησοῦς ὃν σὺ διώκεις:
And he said, Who are you, Lord? And he [responded], I am Jesus who you persecute.
Notice that Jesus uses "Ego eimi" to identify himself-- as he did in life, so in the resurrection he identifies himself as "I am."
The word diwkeis means to follow after, just as the word "persecute" comes from the Latin "sequor," to follow. Persecute is therefore a perfect translation.
πάντων τε καταπεσόντων ἡμῶν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἤκουσα φωνὴν λέγουσαν πρός με τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ, Σαοὺλ Σαούλ, τί με διώκεις; σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν.
And while we were falling to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick toward the goad.
The most interesting thing I see in here is skleron, translated as "hard." One lexicon offers the following:
"1) hard, harsh, rough, stiff 1a) of men: metaph. harsh, stern, hard 1b) of things: violent, rough, offensive, intolerable."
And here's what it says for kentra, or "prick":
" 1) a sting, as that of bees, scorpions, locusts. Since animals wound by their sting and even cause death, Paul attributes death, personified as a sting, i.e. a deadly weapon 2) an iron goad, for urging on oxen, horses and other beasts of burden 2a) hence the proverb, "to kick against the goad", i.e. to offer vain and perilous or ruinous resistance."
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