[B-Greek] LXX grammar question of Isaiah 48:22, 57:21

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun Apr 6 06:20:55 EDT 2008


On Apr 5, 2008, at 8:27 PM, John Butzu wrote:

>
> Greetings!  A while back I happened to stumble across your website and
> now I seem to have a question that perhaps someone with more years of
> Koine Greek could help me with.  Here is the question:  In Isaiah  
> 44:22
> & 57:21 the same greek word is used (in the LXX) to translate the
> Hebrew word "Shalom" meaning peace or wholeness.  The word used is
> chairo (CHAIRW) which is a verb.  I checked the hebrew and sure  
> enough the word shalom
> here is a noun.  Why didn't this word get translated as CHARA (Joy)
> rather than CHAIRW (rejoice, be glad) for this does not even make  
> sense
> when you read this passage!  Is this just a mistake on the part of  
> some tired scribe or am I missing something here in the grammar?
>
> Comments, questions, answers welcome!

I should leave this for Al Pietersma, whose comments on this I'd  
welcome, but the question seems to me to have a pretty obvious answer.

Supposing that you really meant Is 48:22 rather than 44:22, I've  
changed the subject-header accordingly.

Is. 48:22 οὐκ ἔστιν χαίρειν τοῖς  
ἀσεβέσιν λέγει κύριος
OUK ESTIN CAIREIN TOIS ASEBESIN LEGEI KURIOS

Is. 57:21 οὐκ ἔστιν χαίρειν τοῖς  
ἀσεβέσιν εἶπεν κύριος ὁ θεός
OUK ESTIN CAIREIN TOIS ASEBESIN EIPEN KURIOS hO QEOS.

The simple fact is that CAIREIN here means "greet" which is exactly  
what the Hebrew "shalom amar" means "to say 'peace'" = "to greet."
The LXX translator understood perfectly well what the Hebrew text  
means and converted it into Greek properly.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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