Thursday, September 17, 2020

Richard J. Coggins on the RSV's Conjectural Emendations to Nahum 1:5 and 3:4

 

Nah 1:5 in the KJV and RSV reads as follows:

 

The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. (KJV)

 

The mountains quake before him, the hills melt, the earth is laid waste before him, the world and all that dwell therein. (RSV)

 

Commenting on the conjectural emendation behind the RSV, Richard Coggins’ noted:

 

The RSV translates the next phrase “the earth is laid waste” though there is no marginal note, that is presumably dependent upon emending MT tissa to tishsha, from the root shah (“to be ruined”). If the Hebrew text is retained, the sense would be that “the earth lifts up (its voice),” that is, in distress. Whichever text is read, the general sense is clear: the picture of desolation extends from specific places, through all the main natural features, to embrace the world itself and its inhabitants. (Richard J. Coggins, “In Wrath Remember Mercy: A Commentary on the Book of Nahum” in Richard J. Coggins and S. Paul Re'Emi, Nahum, Obadiah, Esther: Israel Among the Nations [International Theological Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1985], 24-25)

 

In Nah 3:4, we read:

 

Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. (KJV)

 

And all for the countless harlotries of the harlot, graceful and of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her harlotries, and peoples with her charms. (RSV)

 

On the justification (or really, lack thereof) for the emendation behind the RSV in this verse, Coggins wrote:

 

Of the general sense of the verse there is little doubt, but one word has caused difficulty. Hebrew hammakeret is translated in the RSV as “who betrays”; but this sense of the root m-k-r (“to sell”) is very forced and attempts to achieve a meaning by postulating a different root are not very satisfactory. Here it seems better to follow Wilhelm Rudolph (Micha, etc., 175) and other commentators and to suppose that the “k” and the “m” have been transposed to give a form hakkomeret (“who ensnares”). (Ibid., 49)

 


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