Saturday, September 13, 2014

Note on Psalm 110:3: MT vs. LXX

There is an interesting difference between the Masoretic text of Psa 110:3 and the Septuagint (109:3, LXX).

The KJV OT (which is dependent upon the MT tradition) reads:

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, and in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

Brenton's translation of the LXX reads:

With thee is dominion in the day of thy power, in the splendours of thy saints: I have begotten thee from the womb before the morning.


Both “your youth” and “I have begotten you” are spelt using the same consonants, ילדתיך. The difference between these two terms is down to vocalisation, which would have been added by the Masoretes in the medieval period. That the ancient Jews understood the correct vocalisation to be “I have begotten you” is seen in the LXX’s use of the verb, “To beget,” εκγενναω (remember that all translation is interpretation). Why did the Masoretes “fudge,” for lack of a better term, the vocalisation of this passage? Psa 110:1, 4 are the most commonly cited verses in the New Testament to demonstrate Jesus’ being the promised Messiah and the superiority of his priesthood and his once-for-all sacrifice against the priests and sacrifices of the Old Covenant, among other things. “I have begotten you” may have been understood by Christians to be an allusion to a then-future miraculous conception of the Davidic King par excellence, with Jesus being the ultimate fulfilment of this coronation text. In an effort to off-set this as a “proof-text” for the virginal conception, the Masoretes vocalised the term differently than how the LXX translators understood it to be rendered, although it is a rather nonsensical reading.