[b-greek] Re: Exodus 21:22-23 (LXX)

From: Ben Crick (ben.crick@argonet.co.uk)
Date: Thu Oct 19 2000 - 09:29:38 EDT


On Thu 19 Oct 2000 (10:38:37 +0100), jad@ccir.ed.ac.uk wrote:
> Could some kind person supply me with an English translation of Exodus
> 21:22-23 in the LXX, which reads:
>
> (22) EAN DE MACWNTAI DUO ANDRES, KAI PATAXWSI GUNAIKA EN GASTRI
> ECOUSAN, KAI EXELQH TO PAIDION AUTHS MH EXEIKONISMENON, EPIZHMION
> ZHMIWQHSETAI: KAQOTI AN EPIBALHi hO ANHR THS GUNAIKOS, DWSEI META
> AXIWMATOS.
>
> (23) EAN DE EXEIKONISMENON Hi, DWSEI YUCHN ANTI YUCHS,

 Sir Lancelot Brenton supplies his own translation, which reads:
 "22 And if two men strive and smite a woman with child, and her child be
 born imperfectly formed, he shall be forced to pay a penalty: as the woman's
 husband may lay upon him, he shall pay with a valuation.

 23 But if it be perfectly formed, he shall give life for life,"

 (I have taken the liberty to tidy up your transliteration).

 EPIZHMION ZHMIWQHSETAI is an imitation of the Hebrew emphatic construction
 with the Infinite Absolute, which we have here in the Hebrew text.

 The force of the Hebrew seems to be that if a woman intervenes to stop two
 men fighting each other, and she is thereby caused to go into labour and her
 child be born prematurely (but the child is perfectly formed and survives),
 then she is to be recompensed by a financial consideration demanded by the
 husband, and enforcible by appeal to the magistrates. Keil and Delitzsch
 have a footnote which reads:

 "The words W:YaTs:'uW Y:LaDeYHa are rendered by the LXX. KAI EXELQH TO PAIDION
 AUTHS MH EXEIKONISMENON, and the corresponding clause W:'iM 'aCoWN YiH:YeH by
 EAN DE EXEIKONISMENON Hi ; consequently the translators have understood the
 words as meaning the fruit, the premature birth of which was caused by the
 blow, if not yet developed into a human form, was not to be regarded in any
 sense a human being, so that the giver of the blow was only required to pay a
 pecuniary compensation, -- as /Philo/ expresses it, 'on account of the injury
 done to the woman, and because he prevented nature, which forms and shapes a
 man into the most beautiful being, from bringing him forth alive.' But the
 arbitrary character of this explanation is apparent at once; for YeLeD only
 denotes a child, as a fully developed human being, and not the fruit of the
 womb before it has assumed a human form. In a manner no less arbitrary
 'aCoWN has been rendered by /Onkelos/ and the /Rabbins/ MoWTa', death, and
 the clause is made to refer to the death of the mother alone, in opposition
 to the penal sentence in vers 23,24, which not only demands life for life,
 but eye for eye, etc., and therefore presupposes not death alone, but injury
 done to particular members. The omission of LaHh, also, apparently renders it
 impracticable to refer the words to injury done to the woman alone."

 Keil & Delitzsch, /The Old Testament/, vol II, /The Second Book of Moses/,
 reprint, Grand Rapids MI, p 134f footnote).

 HTH

 ERRWSQE
 Ben

-- 
 Revd Ben Crick, BA CF
 <ben.crick@argonet.co.uk>
 232 Canterbury Road, Birchington, Kent, CT7 9TD (UK)
 http://www.cnetwork.co.uk/crick.htm

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