They were troubled for a little while as a warning,
and received a symbol of deliverance to remind them of your law's
command.
for the one who turned toward it was saved, not by the thing that was beheld,
but by you, the Savior of all. (Wisdom of Solomon 16:6-7 | NRSV)
εἰς νουθεσίαν δὲ πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐταράχθησαν
σύμβολον ἔχοντες σωτηρίας εἰς ἀνάμνησιν ἐντολῆς νόμου σου
ὁ γὰρ ἐπιστραφεὶς οὐ διὰ τὸ θεωρούμενον ἐσῴζετο,
ἀλλὰ διὰ σὲ τὸν πάντων σωτῆρα (Göttingen text)
16:6
They were troubled for a
little while as a warning:
They were troubled for a little while
may be rendered “Your people were attacked by the snakes for only a little
while” or even “The snakes attacked your people for only.…” gnt is a good model
for this line, but instead of “as a warning,” translators could say “to teach
them a lesson.”
And received a token of
deliverance to remind them of thy law’s command: gnt renders received in the active voice with “you gave them.” The token of deliverance is a reference to
Num 21:6–9. This is an incident the readers are not likely to be familiar with,
and gnt points them in the right direction by specifying “the bronze snake” as
the “healing symbol.” nab simply has “a sign of salvation.” Strictly speaking,
it is not necessary that the reader remember or know the story of the bronze
snake, only that God gave them “a sign of salvation.” However, the author is
making the point with these comparisons that the Israelites benefitted from the
same things that harmed the Egyptians. The Egyptians were plagued with vermin,
and the Israelites were saved by a snake. gnt provides a useful model, although
translators might want to consider something like “a sign of healing [or,
salvation]” rather than “a healing symbol.” It might not be going too far to
say “a sign of hope.” An alternative for the first part of this line is “Then
you gave them a metal snake as a healing symbol [or, as a sign of hope].” To remind them of thy law’s command may
be rendered “to remind them of what your Law requires” (gnt) or “to help them
remember [or, obey] your Law.”
16:7
For he who turned toward it
was saved, not by what he saw:
The connector For may be omitted. Turned toward it means looking at it.
The Greek uses the word saved rather
than “cured” (gnt), but the Greek word can include the idea of curing or
healing from disease. gnt obscures the idea of “saving.”
But by thee, the Savior of
all: The Savior refers to God, of course. The Savior of all may be expressed as “the one who saves [or, can
save] all people.”
A useful approach to the whole verse is:
• Anyone who looked at
that sign [or, symbol/snake] escaped death, not because of what he saw, but
because you saved him. It is [only] because of you that anyone escapes death.
(Roger A. Bullard and Howard A. Hatton, A Handbook on the Wisdom of Solomon [United Bible Societies’
Handbooks; New York: United Bible Societies, 2004], 265-66)
The “memory of your law” is linked to the disputed expression σύμβολον [σύμβουλον] ἔχοντες σωτηρίας. If we accept the reading σύμβολον (cf. the textual notes), our sage is
alluding here to the bronze serpent which, in the text of Num 21:8–9 LXX, is
connected with the term σημεῖον.
In fact, the LXX translates with ἐπὶ σημείου the Hebrew
expression על־נס: Moses was ordered to place the serpent
“on a sign”, on a pole. By contrast with the use made of it by Philo, σύμβολον is to be understood in its normal sense
of “sign, demonstration”, as in Wis 2:9. Σημεῖον appears in Wis 5:13 with a similar meaning.
The text does not say that this “sign” is the bronze serpent. That can
be understood only by someone who has a good knowledge of the biblical account.
The use of the present participle ἔχοντες could be surprising. Our sage is perhaps intending to emphasise the
shortness of the trial and the speed of the divine aid. We recall that in
Wisdom “salvation” is to be understood as preservation from every danger, a
physical salvation from death.
Whoever transmitted the reading σύμβουλον (see the note to the text) probably wanted to indicate that what the
Israelites possess (ἔχοντες)
is not a visible sign (τὸ
θεωρούμενον, the bronze
serpent), and it is not the serpent that saves, but, rather, a “voice”, that of
Moses, “counsellor of salvation”, who reminds the people to listen to the word
of the law (cf. v. 11, in close connection with v. 6). In the end, it is the
Lord himself (16:7b) who saves, and God’s word (12b), of which Moses is the
spokesman. The correction of σύμβολον to σύμβουλον
(if the first reading is original) could thus be evidence of a kind of
sapientialisation of the figure of Moses, set in relation to the Torah, but
without being considered as a legislator, as in the texts of contemporary
Judaism and especially in Philo (cf. Mos.
2.1–7, 292), but rather as a sage.
The bronze serpent is necessary εἰς ἀνάμνησιν ἐντολῆς νόμου σου. The term ἀνάμνησις cannot be endowed here with the force
that it has in Philo; it indicates, more simply, the recalling to memory of
something that has been forgotten. With νόμος is intended here the Mosaic Torah, as in 2:12 and 18:4. Only in 2:12
(and, what is more, in the mouth of the ungodly) does Wisdom insist on the
normative character of the law. The parallel of 16:6 with 16:11 reveals that in
this case, as later in 18:4, the text is pointing more to the revelatory aspect
of the law.
The aorist participle ἐπιστραφεὶς preserves the proper shade of the middle voice. Ἐπιστρέφομαι is used here in the sense of “turn to”,
but very often, in the LXX, it has the sense of “repent, be converted”, which
perhaps is not totally excluded by our author. He could be thinking of Isa 6:10
LXX: καὶ ἐπιστρέψωσιν καὶ ἰάσομαι αὐτούς, where the “turning towards God” has the
sense of “being converted”, a conversion which leads to healing (cf. also Isa
45:21–22; 46:8).
What saves is not the serpent but God, invoked in the second person as
“Saviour” (σωτήρ) for the only time
in the book. The expression “Saviour of all” is unique in the OT (cf. 1 Macc
4:30; 3 Macc 7:16: “Saviour of Israel”; cf. also T. Gad 8:1). It is found in 1
Tim 4:10 (σωτὴρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων). God is saviour because God is the
preserver of life, as already announced in the programmatic text of Wis
1:13–14, but also because God acts concretely in the history of his people.
Verse 8 returns to the didactic aspect of the divine actions. If the
“enemies” remained such and were not converted, at the very least they had to
experience that the Lord acts in such a way as to persuade (ἔπεισας) people that only God “frees” from every
evil.
The verb employed here to indicate salvation is ῥύομαι (cf. Wis 2:18; 10:6, 9, 13, 15), which
has the almost exclusive meaning of “save” both in the LXX and the NT. The
texts of Isa LXX 44:6; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; and 54:8 (cf. 3 Macc 6:10) employ the
aorist participle, ῥυσάμενος,
with reference to God. Only in Isa 59:20 LXX do we find the present participle,
as in our case. That perhaps serves to underline that the reflection on history
is being shifted on to the present of the actions of God. Taking up the
language of Isaiah 40–66 LXX, however, our sage avoids an over-nationalistic
tone. Isa 44:6 speaks of ὁ
θεὸς ὁ βασιλεύς τοῦ Ισραηλ ὁ ῥυσάμενος αὐτόν; here God saves “from every evil” the
faithful Israelites. However, they are not explicitly mentioned. (Luza
Mazzinghi, Wisdom [trans. Michael Tait; International Exegetical
Commentary on the Old Testament; Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2019], 384-85)
6. a symbol of your salvation.
I.e. the bronze serpent. Cf. Num 21:9. (Ms אA
reads symboulon, which is reminiscent
of Philo Agr. 97, where the serpent
of Eve or ‘pleasure’ is described as symboulon
anthrōpou. Cf. Agr. 95. F. H.
Colson (the translator of Philo in the LCL), however, suggests the reading epiboulon in that passage.) Philo
similarly interprets the serpent of Moses as a symbol of steadfast endurance (karteria), which explains, he says, “why
it is represented as being made of very strong material like brass.” “He, then,
who has looked with fixed gaze on the form of patient endurance, even though he
should perchance have been previously bitten by the wiles of pleasure, cannot
but live; for, whereas pleasure menaces the soul with inevitable death,
self-control (engkrateia) holds out
to it health and safety (sōtērion)
for life” (Agr. 98). Cf. LA 2.79–81; Justin Apologia 1.60: “Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God,
took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross, and set it in the holy
tabernacle, and said to the people, ‘If ye look to this figure (typō), and believe, ye shall be saved
thereby’ ”; John 3:14.
7. was saved not by the sight
beheld. The author seeks to replace the principle of homeopathic magic
which appears to be operative in Num 21:8–9 with a spiritual conception. (See
B. A. Levine, In the Presence of the Lord
[Leiden, 1974]:85–86.) We find a similar interpretation in M. Rosh Hashanah 3.8: “But could the serpent kill or could the
serpent keep alive? But rather, whenever Israel looked on high and subjected
their heart to their Father in heaven were they healed, but if not, they
perished.” It may be noted that the rabbis explained the punishment of the
Israelites by means of serpents on the talion principle, a conceit to which, as
we have already seen, both they and the author of Wisd were equally attached.
See Tanḥ. Ḥukat 45: “Let the serpent who began with slander come and exact
punishment from those who utter slander.… Let the serpent who eats all kinds of
food and yet enjoys only one taste (cf. BT
Yoma 75a), come and exact punishment
from those who eat only one kind of food and yet enjoy the taste of many
kinds.” Cf. Targ.Yerush. and
Ps-Jonathan on Num 21:6: “And the bath-kol
fell from the high heaven and thus spoke: I made manna come down for them from
heaven, yet now they turn and murmur against me. Yet, behold, the serpent whom,
in the days of the beginning of the world, I doomed to have dust for his food,
hath not murmured against me. Now shall the serpents who have not complained of
their food come and bite the people who complain.” (David Winston, The
Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB
43; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 294-95)
