[B-Greek] LXX, Josh 10:1-2
bgreek at ntresources.com
bgreek at ntresources.com
Fri Mar 7 14:25:29 EST 2003
As we read through Josh 10 in class today I noticed something that I hadn't
previously. Verse 1 begins with a 1st sg verb (A. heard that..., HKOUSEN),
and then the rest of the verse tells what he heard. But then v 2 picks up
with a 3d plural verb: "they were terrified..." (EFOGHQHSAN) and then shifts
back to 3d sg, "for he knew" (HDEI).
Is this just an inconsistency by LXX translators? Or is it intended to carry
the plural referent from the end of v 1 which describes the Gibeonites
defecting to Israel (3d pl, AUTOMOLHSAN), i.e., they defected and they were
terrified? (That would seem to be the strictest grammatical way to read this
sequence of shifts in number.) But the sense of the context doesn't seem to
support that--the fear is most naturally attributed to Adoni Zedek &
company, not the Gibeonites. (Hebrew text is also clear that it was AZ & co
who were afraid.)
The Hebrew text doesn't seem to pose this number shift problem, for it does
not have the sing ref "he knew that" in the 2d clause of v 2. There v 1
begins sing., and v 2 shifts to plural for the entire verse.
There is no textual variant listed in Rahlfs, but I do see that the
Cambridge LXX gives a variant here of EFOBHQH (3d sg) which would avoid this
discrepancy, so apparently this problem has been noted previously in the
scribal tradition.
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Rodney J. Decker, Th.D., Associate Prof/NT
Baptist Bible Seminary, Clarks Summit, PA,USA
NTResources.com PURL: purl.oclc.org/NT_Resources/
Email: <rdecker> at <NTResources.com>
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