Saturday, January 22, 2022

David A. Baer on the Transportation of the Sacrifice in Isaiah 66:20 (LXX)

  

A More Elaborate Offering

 

While for the Mt the brethren transported back from the Diaspora are themselves the gift of the Lord, the LXX agglomerates the means upon which they are transported to the gift itself. In the Hebrew text, the returnees are carried ‘upon horses, upon chariots, upon litters, upon mules and upon dromedaries’ (ב + the article is repeated before each of the five nouns). The LXX, on the other hand, singles out covered mule wagons as the vehicles by which the emissaries accomplish their mission, while the horses and chariots become a part of the procession that is to be offered to the Lord along with the returnees from Diaspora (the preposition εν in the phrase εν λαμπηναις ημιονων appears to be marked off from other listed items as the truly vehicular εν by the use of μετα [of accompaniment] for those other items).

 

Though this might at first appear a culpable misjudgment on the part of the translator, it is possible to understand why he translated as he did, for ב prefixed to a beast of burden is not the most common way for the Hebrew Bible to speak of mounts (It occurs of chariots at 2 Kgs 9.21, 24[?], 10.16, Jer. 17.25, 27.4 and of animals in Jer. 17.25, 22.4, 1 Chron. 12.40 and Est. 8.10). Rather, we more often find that a person rides upon (על-) a beast or vehicle, or that he simply rides (רכב) an animal (for על- + a substantive [or pronoun with antecedent animal- or vehicle-substantive, cf. Judg. 4.15, 2 Sam. 13.29, 18.9, 1 Kgs 20.20, 2 Kgs 14.20, Isa. 30.16, 31.3, 36.8, Jer. 6.23, 50.42, Hos. 14.4, Eccl. 10.7 and 2 Chron. 25.28 and 35.24. For רכב על- specifically, cf. Isa. 36.8, Hab. 3.8, Zech. 1.8 and Est. 6.8, 9. For רכב + a direct object, cf. 2 Kgs 7.14, 9.18 and 2 Kgs 9.19. For ב + substantive, Isa. 66.20, Jer. 17.25, 22.4. Ezek. 23.6, 12, 23, 38.15, Amos 2.15 and Est. 8.10).

 

Furthermore, there are examples of ב + a beast of vehicle where the idea is manifestly one of exchange or accompaniment, the latter of which corresponds to the LXX translator’s understanding in the verse under consideration (exchange: Gen. 47.17. Accompaniment: Exod. 15.19, 2 Kgs 5.9, Isa. 22.6, Ezek. 26.7 [translated μεθιππων, as Isa. 66.20], where the plurals make it impossible that this was vehicular beth. Other instrumental uses: 2 Kgs 29.23 [K], Hos. 1.7 and Dan. 11.40). Additionally, there are several passages where some combination of beats, chariots and carts was indeed part of a list of gifts presented as a מנחה or קרבן, again matching the LXX interpretation of our verse (Num. 7.3, 1 Kgs 10.25 and 2 Chron. 9.24). (David A. Baer, When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56-66 [Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 318; The Hebrew Bible and its Versions 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001], 248-49)