“froM God” or “froM HeAveN”? 125 2 Sam 22,14.17 — evbro,nthsen evx ouvranou/ ku,rioj, kai. o` u[yistoj e;dwken fwnh.n auvtou/ [...] avpe,steilen evx u[youj kai. e;labe,n me. In this text, notice that Lord is denoted “Most High” and thunders “from heaven” in v. 14. the subject of the subsequent actions of vv. 15-17 remains ku,rioj, such that he is the one who is sending (avpe,steilen) from his dwelling place in v. 17 — hence, evx u[youj here cannot refer to God. Ps 18[17],17 — this text is parallel to 2 Sam 22,14.17 above. Ps 102[101],20 — o[ti evxe,kuyen evx u[youj a`gi,ou auvtou/, ku,rioj evx ouvra& nou/ evpi. th.n gh/n evpe,bleyen. Here “from on high” in the first clause is clearly paralleled with “from heaven” in the second. Ps 144[143],5.7 — ku,rie, kli/non ouvranou,j sou kai. kata,bhqi [...] evxapo,steilon th.n cei/ra, sou evx u[youj, evxelou/ me kai. r`u/sai, me evx u`da,twn pollw/n. this text makes clear that God resides in heaven (v. 5), from which he is descending and then sending forth his hand (v. 7); in other words, there is again parallelism between “heaven” and “on high”. Moreover, the use of th.n cei/ra, sou (modifying God) ob- viates the possibility that u[yoj refers to God himself here. Lam 1,12b-13 — fqegxa,menoj evn evmoi. evtapei,nwse,n me ku,rioj evn h`me,ra| ovrgh/j qumou/ auvtou. vEx u[youj auvtou/ avpe,steilen pu/r. the use of the genitive pronoun auvtou/ indicates that u[yoj here can only refer to God’s high place, not God himself. Sir 16.17 — Mh. ei;ph|j o[ti avpo. kuri,ou krubh,somai, kai. evx u[youj ti,j mou mnhsqh,setai. though this text is occasionally used to defend the u[yoj = God hypothesis, it is clear that evx u[youj is modifying ti,j (e.g., “who from the heavens”), and that the entire unit is paralleled with God (avpo. kuri,ou). In other words, the speaker cannot hide from any- one in the heavens, whether God or the heavenly host. In all these examples, ku,rioj and u[yistoj are used in such ways (often via the parallelismus membrorum itself) that explicitly indicate that evx u[youj cannot mean “from God”, but rather refers to the heavenly point of origina- tion of God’s actions 15. In light of these examples, we would deduce that, even if there were instances where u[yoj refers to God himself (which there are not), the most natural reading of an action taking place evx u[youj — par- ticularly for Luke, who is so heavily influenced by the Septuagint 16 — would nevertheless lean in the direction of “from heaven”, not “from God”. Also to be observed is how, in the only analog in Luke (24,49), Jesus promises to send evx u[youj du,namin. this text refers to his sending power from the heav- enly realm to which he ascends in 24,51, and such a subtle distinction in the gospel is not insignificant: the writer goes to great lengths to demonstrate that 15 cf. Sir 17,32: du,namin u[youj ouvranou/ auvto.j evpiske,ptetai. 16 c.-W. JuNG, The Original Language of the Lukan Infancy Narrative (JSNtS 267; London 2004); t. MurAokA, “Luke and the Septuagint”, NovT 54 (2012) 13-15.