The Tender Twig Plucked from the
Topmost Crown of the Cedar (17,22-23)
Employing allegorical language,
the first sections of chapter 17 speak of a great eagle, representing the king
of Babylon, breaking off the topmost shoot of a cedar tree, representing the
king of Judah. In a final section, however, the Lord announces: “I myself will
take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar, and will set it out. I will break
off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I myself will plant
it upon a high and lofty (תלול) mountain; on the mountain height of Israel I will
plant it” (vv. 22-23a, RSV).
The Greek translation of this
passage given in the critical editions facilitates a Christological
interpretation. It interprets the adjective at the end of verse 22 תלול (lofty)
as a verb followed by a personal pronoun κρεμασω αυτον “I
shall hang him”, and combines this phrase with the beginning of v. 23 “on a
high mountain of Israel”. This mainstream Septuagint reading is probably due to
inner Greek corruption, influenced by Christian thoughts about the Messiah
hanging on the cross upon the mountain of Golgotha. It may have been influenced
by the so-called anthologies of the inter-testamental and early Christian
periods in which several Old Testament texts were groups thematically.
The more original Old Greek text,
however, preserved in p967, does not read the verbal expression κρεμασω αυτον “I shall hang
him”, but the adjective κρεματος “hanging”,
corresponding to MT’s adjective תלול “high, lofty”. It describes the mountains,
not the messiah. Furthermore, its rendition of vv.22-23 is less open to an
individual messianic interpretation than MT. Where MT speaks of one individual tender
shoot (רך) the Old Greek has no direct equivalent. Moreover, the plural
forms in v. 23 prove that the translator had a collective entity in mind: “ . .
.their hearts I will nip off, and I myself will plant (them) upon a
mountain high and hanging, on a lofty mountain, Israel. I will plant
(them) and they shall bring forth blossom . . . “
One is obliged to conclude at this
juncture that the Old Greek did not enhance the individual messianic
characteristics of the page, rather it diminished them. (Johan Lust, “Messianism
in LXX-Ezekiel: Towards a Synthesis,” in M.A. Knibb, ed., The Septuagint and
Messianism [Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 195; Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 2006], 418)
