Psalm 129 LXX
Paul Wendland
wendlanp at wls.wels.net
Thu Dec 26 09:41:03 EST 2002
Richard:
||Vss 3 and 4 read:
||
||EAN ANOMIAS PARATHRHSHiS KURIE, KURIE, TIS hUPOSTHSETAI;
||hOTI PARA SOI hO hILASMOS ESTIN
||
||Surely God's provision of atonement is NOT the ground for the negative
||response expected by the question KURIE, TIS hUPOSTHSETAI? That doesn't
||make sense to me. I know this is poetry. Perhaps an answer lies in that
||direction?
I think the problem here is in the LXX translation. hOTI here reflects a KI
in the Hebrew MT. Although the KI can introduce a clause that gives the
grounds for what precedes it, it can also be a marker of contrast, which I
believe it is in this case. "No one will endure you, LORD, if you keep
careful record of inquities, BUT with you atonement exist."
What did surprise me was that none of the Greek grammars I looked at
(Wallace, BL/D, Moulton/Turner) mentions this translationese rendition of KI
as a possibility for hOTI. Perhaps the LXX translators did view it as
causal. A support for this thought might be found in Jerome's rendition of
the Hebrew:
si iniquitates observabis Domine, Domine quis sustinebit *quia* tecum est
propitiatio cum terribilis sis--if you paid heed to sins, O Lord, O Lord,
who will withstand [you]? *Because* with you is atonement, though you are a
God who strikes terror [into us].
That last clause, btw, strikes me as a very odd translation of lema;an
TiwwArE';
This and a comparison of the ancient versions (which also seem to indicate
that they were reading a different text) leads me to believe that they
understood these verses differently from what the MT would lead one to
expect.
Paul
========================
Paul O. Wendland
Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
wendlanp at wls.wels.net
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