[B-Greek] MONOGENHS in Psalm 24:16 (LXX)

Yancy Smith yancywsmith at sbcglobal.net
Sat Jun 19 12:21:43 EDT 2010


ἐπίβλεψον ἐπ᾿ ἐμὲ καὶ ἐλέησόν με,
    ὅτι μονογενὴς καὶ πτωχός εἰμι ἐγώ.

EPIBLEYON EP EME KAI ELEHSON ME,
hOTI MONOGENHS KAI PTWXOS EIMI EGW

The NETS LXX translation reads:

"Look upon me and have mercy upon me,
for I am an only child and poor."

פנה־אלי וחנני כי־יחיד ועני אני׃

PNH 'LY VChNNY KY YChYD V "NY ANY
"Turn your face to me and have pity on me,
For I am lonely and poor."

יחיד in Ugaritic has the meaning "alone, lonely" and likely has this connotation in the Hebrew of the this verse. The LXX has read this in the light of its more common meaning in BibHeb, "only (son)." But parallelism with עני as well as similar meaning for יְחִידִים (God sets the lonely in families) Ps 68:6(7) μονοτρόπους MONOTROPOUS and יְחִידָתִי in Ps 22 and 35 are decisive for this meaning. So the LXX is right in Ps 68, but has mistranslated 24:16.

Yancy


ἐπίβλεψον ἐπ᾿ ἐμὲ καὶ ἐλέησόν με,
    ὅτι μονογενὴς καὶ πτωχός εἰμι ἐγώ.

EPIBLEYON EP EME KAI ELEHSON ME,
hOTI MONOGENHS KAI PTWXOS EIMI EGW

I don't really know any Hebrew, but I am curious about MONOGENHS here.  I
know MONOGENHS typicaly means "unique" or "one-of-a-kind," but can this be
extended to include the concept of "alone" with the implication of being
forsaken?  It fits rather well with the context in the psalms, and I think
it would work well with the way Jesus is portrayed in John's gospel (the
world did not receive him, even though through him it was created, etc.)

Please let me know your thoughts!

χαρις και ειρηνη ὑμιν,

Αlex Poulos
Senior - Computer Science
NC State University
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