1 Kings 10:8
The Queen
of Sheba expresses wonder at Solomon’s great wisdom, exclaiming 9according to M’s
text): “Happy are you men” (1 Kings 10:8). In the Greek version it is Solomon’s
“women/wives” who are deemed happy by the visiting queen. The difference between
the two textual traditions can be reduced to the presence or absence of an
initial ‘alep, and the motivation for this ideological change in M’s
text more likely would have been to suppress reference to the ill-reputed wives
of Solomon in a context that appears to express approval of them. What did the
modern versions make of this variation? Both JPS and NABRE follow M, the former
with “How fortunate are your men” and the latter with “Happy are your servants.”
Neither carries a note. By contrast both NRSV and REB opt for “Happy are your
wives” and explain their choice in a footnote. (Carmel
McCarthy, “Textual Criticism and Biblical Translation,” in The Hebrew Bible:
A Critical Companion, ed. John Barton [Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2016], 552)
