[B-Greek] The LXX phrase ERCOMENOS hHXEI in Habakkuk 2:3
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Jun 3 06:17:10 EDT 2003
Message forwarded for "Philip Engmann" <philipengmann at ghanatel.net>
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 06:56:53 +0100
The LXX phrase, ERCOMENOS hHXEI found in Habakkuk 2:3 does not actually
make sense.
I believe that the LXX phrase, ERCOMENOS hHXEI found in Habakkuk 2:3
does not actually make sense and is really a bad translation from the
Hebrew to the Greek. This is because ERCOMENOS is a present
participle, and according to the definition of a present participle,
"The function of the present participle may be understood as
follows: "The tense of the participle is relative to the time of the
leading verb. The present participle therefore is used if the action
denoted by the participle is represented as taking place at the same
time as the action denoted by the leading verb, no matter whether the
action denoted by the leading verb is past, present or future."
hHXEI is a future verb meaning `he/she/it will come'.
Therefore, since ERCOMENOS is a present participle, the action
denoted by the participle is represented as taking place in the
future i.e. at the same time as the action denoted by the leading
verb, and so both ERCOMENOS and hHXEI take place in the future.
Both ERCOMENOS and hHXEI have the same contextual meaning, `to come'.
Since both ERCOMENOS and hHXEI have the same contextual meaning, `to come';
and both are in the future tense, the literal translation of ERCOMENOS
hHXEI found in Habakkuk 2:3 is `while he will be coming, he will come',
which is meaningless. My explanation for this `meaningless' translation is
that the LXX translators tried to mimic the infinitive absolute form of the
MT, which was a brilliant attempt but resulted in a bad translation.
1. I would like other opinions of my analysis please.
2. I would also like to see how others translate the Habakkuk 2:3 LXX
phrase, ERCOMENOS hHXEI.
3. And also I would like to know whether various LXX versions have varying
readings for this particular phrase.
Thanks very much.
Philip Engmann.
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