[B-Greek] Septuagint Gen 15:2

Albert Pietersma albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Wed Sep 1 15:47:03 EDT 2010


What the Septuagint is doing is trying to make some sense, within  
rather strict parameters, of "a very difficult piece of Hebrew" --- to  
quote Wevers in Notes on Genesis (p. 203). BN MSQ, as he notes, is a  
hapax legomenon and its meaning is unclear and much disputed.  
Evidently G didn't understand it either but was intent on making  
grammatical sense. So he translates and transcribes: hO YIOS MASEK,  
i.e. the son of Masek.  The next phrase BYTY ("of my house") G reads  
as appositional to MASEK and as a feminine: THS IOKOGENOUS MOY ("my  
homebred female servant"). The son of Masek is then further identified  
as the Damascene Eliezer. Thus  the sense of the whole string is: "as  
for the son of Masek, my female homebred servant----he is Eliezer  
Damascenus."  Therefore, according to this passage, Masek is a  
domestic of Abram and the mother of Eliezer.
Al
On Sep 1, 2010, at 12:36 PM, Daniel, Robert S wrote:

> Gen 15:2
> λέγει δὲ Αβραμ δέσποτα τί μοι  
> δώσεις ἐγὼ δὲ ἀπολύομαι ἄτεκνος ὁ  
> δὲ υἱὸς Μασεκ τῆς οἰκογενοῦς μου  
> οὗτος Δαμασκὸς Ελιεζερ
> LEGEI DE ABRAM DESPOTA TI MOI DWSEIS EGW DE APOLUOMAI ATEKNOS hO DE  
> hUIOS MASEK THS OIKOGENOUS MOU OUTOS DAMASKOS ELIEZER
>
> Can somebody explain what the Septuagint rendering is doing here?  
> Did the translator take “Masek” to be a proper name? Or would  
> Hellenistic Jews have understood hUIOS MASEK to mean  “ben- 
> mesheq” and understood what that meant? Who exactly are the people  
> the translator has in mind in the second half of the verse? I  
> believe in the Hebrew, “ben-mesheq” refers to Eliezer, who was  
> born in Abram’s house and therefore Abram’s heir by default,  
> unless Abram begets his own son. But what are the implications of  
> the Septuagint rendering? Who does “MASEK” refer to, who does  
> “OIKOGENOUS” refer to, and why the feminine pronoun THS? Does  
> “THS” agree with “OIKOGENOUS”? Does the translator take  
> “hUIOS MASEK”, “OIKOGENOUS”, and ELIEZER, to refer to three  
> (or more?) different people, or one and the same? And what would the  
> verb be in the part of the verse starting “hO DE hUIOS…” if  
> there were one?
>
> Rob Daniel
>
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Albert Pietersma PhD
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Email: albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
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