Saturday, January 13, 2024

Alice Wood on the Superiority of the Masoretic Text vs. the LXX Text of Ezekiel 28:11-19

  

. . . there are several compelling reasons why the MT may well preserve a superior reading to that of the LXX. Two scholars have put forward persuasive arguments for retaining the text and sense of the MT. First, Jeppesen (1991: 90–91) maintains that, if we emend the MT in order to read “with a cherub,” there remains a problem with the translation of verse 16. Here, as in verse 14, the MT seems to equate the cherub with the king. Further emendation of the MT is thus required in order to preserve the independence of the cherub and the king. Some commentators have done this by reading ‎וָֽאַבֶּדְךָ as the 3ms qatal form of אבד (rather than the 1cs yiqtol form represented in the MT) and translate, “So the guardian cherub destroyed you”. This requires no emendation to the consonantal text of the MT. However, the syntax of the MT in verse 16 makes sense as it is. Although the full version of the 1cs yiqtol of אבד should be written with two alephs, the elision of the aleph, although unusual, is not impossible. This omission of an aleph occasionally happens in the piel, for example in 2 Sam 22:40. Also, only earlier in Ezekiel 28:16 itself, the third person plural qal qatal of מלא is written without the third radical, aleph. Another point in favour of the MT in verse 16 is the fact that the subject of the previous verb, ‎וָאֶחַלֶּלְךָ, is Yahweh. Arguably, the agent of punishment is Yahweh and thus he should be the subject of ‎וָֽאַבֶּדְךָ and not the cherub. Those scholars who amend the vocalization of ‎וָֽאַבֶּדְךָ to read the third person form are thus harmonizing the text in order to preserve the independence of the cherub and the king and create a better parallel between Ezek 28 and Gen 2–3. Hence, Jeppesen is right to argue that we should read with the MT (as lectio difficilior) in verses 14 and 16.

 

Second, Barr (1992a: 213–223) has pointed to another textual difficulty that arises if we emend the Masoretic vocalization of את to mean “with” in verse 14. The LXX supplies a simple reading, “With the cherub I placed you”. However, after ‎אַ֙תְּ־כְּר֔וּב, the MT has two other descriptive words which the LXX omits. Following these words in the MT is the verb “I appointed you”, yet this is separated from the previous verbless clause by the conjunction “and”, thus ‎וּנְתַתִּ֗יךָ. The LXX does not represent this conjunction. Barr argues that the syntax of the MT necessitates two clauses, the nominal clause, “You are the cherub”, and the verbal clause, “and I appointed you.” However, the LXX translator, not understanding the rare 2ms pronoun אַתְּ, reads אֵת (‘with’). In doing this, the Greek translator is then forced to read one clause instead of two. The LXX does not supply anything in place of the Hebrew ‎הִתְהַלָּֽכְתָּ in the third clause. ‎הִתְהַלָּֽכְתָּ would be a completely unnecessary later addition to the Hebrew text.

 

Accordingly, the MT may be regarded as the lectio difficilior and thus may preserve a more ancient reading. The possibility that the MT is the earlier reading, over against the LXX, has important implications for our understanding of the portrayal of the king of Tyre in this pericope and the history of the Eden tradition. Barr contends: “The person addressed in the... oracle, the one who is full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, who walked among the precious stones… was a semi-divine being or a divinely placed agent, not the first man, Adam” (1992: 220). (Alice Wood, Of Wings and Wheels: A Synthetic Study of the Biblical Cherubim [Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 385; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008], 71-73)