From Author to Copyist Essays on the Composition, Redaction, and Transmission of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of Zipi Talshir edited by Cana Werman Winona Lake, Indiana EisEnbrauns 2015 Copyright © 2015 Eisenbrauns All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. www.eisenbrauns.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data From author to copyist : essays on the composition, redaction, and transmission of the Hebrew Bible in honor of Zipi Talshir / edited by Cana Werman. pages cm Collection of essays resulting from a conference honoring Professor Zipi Talshir, an eminent scholar of Bible and history. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-57506-350-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, Redaction—Congresses. 2. Bible. Old Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—Congresses. I. Talshir, Zipora, honouree. II. Werman, Cana, editor. BS1182.4.F76 2015 221.6′6—dc23 2015022764 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48–1984.♾™ Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Academic Publications of Zipi Talshir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix Septuagint and Samareitikon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jan Joosten 1 The Text-Critical Contribution of the Antiochean Greek and Old Latin Texts—Case Study: 2 Kings 8:10–11 . . . . . . . . . . Julio trebolle barrera 17 The Genealogical Lists in Genesis 5 and 11 in Three Diferent Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . emanuel tov 37 An Identical Scribal Mistake in 1 Kings 9 and 2 Chronicles 7: Consequences for the Textual History of Kings and Chronicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . adrian sChenker 53 Text and Context: The Textual Elimination of the Names of Gods and Its Literary, Administrative, and Legal Context . . . . . . . . . alexander rofé 63 Once Again: Hosea and the Pentateuchal Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . erhard blum 81 Ezekiel, a Singer of Erotic Songs? Some Text-Critical Remarks on Ezekiel 33:31–32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Johan lust 95 If You Go Down to the Woods Today: B(e)aring the Text of Proverbs MT and LXX . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 tova forti Numbers 36:13: The Transition between Numbers and Deuteronomy and the Redaction of the Pentateuch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 itamar kislev v vi Contents Bel and the Dragon: The Relationship between Theodotion and the Old Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 dalia amara The Masoretic Rewriting of Daniel 4–6: The Septuagint Version as Witness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 olivier munniCh Speaking about God: Person Deixis in Malachi (Text and Versions) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Jonathan ben-dov and romina vergari Echoes of Solomon and Nehemiah: Hezekiah’s Cultic Reforms in the Book of Chronicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 david a. glatt-gilad Textual History through the Prism of Historical Linguistics: The Case of Biblical Hebrew z-m-r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 noam mizrahi Whodunit? Implicit Subject, Discourse Structure, and Pragmatics in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles . . . . . . . . . . 223 frank h. Polak Weighing in the Scales: How an Egyptian Concept Made Its Way into Biblical and Postbiblical Literature . . . . . . . . . . 249 nili shuPak The Rabbinic Sages’ Allegation about LXX Genesis 1:1: Bickerman’s Cogent Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 mayer i. gruber When Did the Books of Samuel Become Scripture? . . . . . . . . . . . 263 anneli aeJmelaeus What Is a Biblical Book? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 ronald hendel Revelatory Experiences as the Beginning of Scripture: Paul’s Letters and the Prophets in the Hebrew Bible . . . . . . . . 303 roland deines The Canonization of the Hebrew Bible in Light of Second Temple Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 Cana Werman Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 Index of Ancient Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 Offprint from: Cana Werman (ed.), From Author to Copyist: Essays on the Composition, Redaction, and Transmission of the Hebrew Bible in Honor of Zipi Talshir © Copyright 2015 Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved. If You Go Down to the Woods Today: B(e)aring the Text of Proverbs MT and LXX Tova Forti ben-gurion university of the negev The value that the Septuagint of Proverbs bears as a textual witness is variously assessed by scholars, many regarding it as a paraphrase or free-rendering parallel to 1 Esdras, Daniel, Esther, and Job or as a principally exegetical artifact. 1 In this essay, I follow the view that, despite departing signiicantly from the MT and embodying the translator’s tendencies and beliefs, the LXX seeks to render its Hebrew Vorlage as faithfully as possible in order to communicate the message intended by the original text. 2 Although many of the deviations of the LXX from the MT may be attributed to the translator’s technique or arose during the transmission of the Greek text, evaluation of LXX Proverbs must take into consideration the fact that, by its nature, the aphoristic genre is Author’s note: I am delighted to dedicate this essay—a modest inquiry into two sayings of Proverbs in their MT and LXX versions—to my dear colleague, mentor, and friend Prof. Zipi Talshir, from whom I have learned much and whose friendship I cherish. 1. See, for example, H. St. John Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), 13; D. M. d’Hamonville, Les Proverbes, La Bible d’Alexandrie 17 (Paris: Cerf, 2000), 19; J. Cook, The Septuagint of Proverbs: Jewish or Hellenistic Proverbs? VTSup 69 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). For the continuum from literal to free translation, see E. Tov, “The Septuagint,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. M. J. Mulder and H. Sysling (Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 173. A. Aejmelaeus (On the Trail of Septuagint Translators [Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1993], 64) sharpens the distinction between “literalness” and “faithfulness.” The translator uses free renderings that are faithful to the meaning of the original. Fox opts for the term “mimetic” instead of “literal.” Mimetic translation attempts to map the maximal number of linguistic features of the source onto the receptor text and aims at consistency in correspondences between the vocabulary of the source and the target. See M. V. Fox, “Translation and Mimesis,” in Bible Translation in Context, ed. F. W. Knobloch (Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 2001), 207–21. 2. See M. V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, AB 18A (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 361; idem, “LXX-Proverbs as a Text-Critical Resource,” Textus 22 (2005): 95–128; T. Forti and Z. Talshir, “Proverbs 7 MT and LXX: Form and Content,” Textus 22 (2005): 129–67. 103 104 tova forti protean and versatile. Because proverbial sayings undergo constant transformation in the course of oral and written transmission alike, some of the alterations represent developments rather than errors. 3 The present study engages in a literary comparison of the MT and LXX texts of two sayings—Prov 17:12 and 28:15. Of the 12 times the bear is alluded to in the MT, 2 of the incidences occur in these verses of Proverbs. While the LXX employs the term ἄρκος “bear” to translate the Hebrew ‫דב‬, this noun appears in neither of these texts—the former passage failing to refer to any animal at all and the latter reading λύκος “wolf” instead. This circumstance ofers an occasion to reexamine the retroversions proposed in early critical scholarship and discuss the methods suggested for recovering the Hebrew text behind the LXX. While the tendency among contemporary scholars is to treat the LXX as an independent literary work in its own right, I hope to contribute to the debate by elucidating the literary aspects of the two texts and their methodology via an analysis of the image of the bear within the sapiential context. 4 The Bear in the Hebrew Bible The noun ‫“ דֹב‬bear” occurs in all the cognate Semitic languages: dabû (Akkadian; fem. dabītu), db (Ugaritic), dubbā (Aramaic), debbā (Syriac), and dubbun (Arabic). In the Hebrew Bible, the male and female of the species are both signiied by the same masculine noun, even when the context clearly refers to a female. 5 The feminine form ‫“ דוּה‬she-bear” is only attested in postbiblical literature. 6 As depicted in the biblical texts, the bear (a carnivore indigenous to the Levant) serves as a paradigm for a dangerous animal from which there is no 3. Tov suggests that the translator had before him a Hebrew recension of Proverbs that difered from the MT: E. Tov, “Recensional Diferences between the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint of Proverbs,” in Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins Presented to John Strugnell, ed. H. W. Attridge et al. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990), 43–56. 4. See, for example, A. Pietersma, “Septuagint Research: A Plea for a Return to Basic Issues,” VT 35 (1985): 296–311, esp. p. 297; Cook, The Septuagint of Proverbs; idem, “The Greek of Proverbs: Evidence of a Recensionally Deviating Hebrew Text?” in Emanuel: Studies in the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov, ed. S. M. Paul et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 605–18; M. Harl, “La Bible d’Alexandrie dans les débats actuels sur la Septante,” in La double transmission du texte biblique, ed. Y. Goldman and C. Uehlinger, OBO 179 (Fribourg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001), 7–24. 5. In 2 Kgs 2:24 (“two she-bears came out of the woods”), the feminine is indicated by the numerical adjective (‫)שַּ יִם‬ ְ and a feminine-plural verb, the noun itself retaining the masculine form. The absence of a formal indicative in the feminine form is also attested in rabbinic literature: cf. y. Peʾah 1:1, 16a (‫ ;)דובא מתגריא לך‬Gen. Rab. 67 (ed. Theodor and Albeck, 766–67). 6. Cf. Gen. Rab. 86:3. B(e)aring the Text of Proverbs MT and LXX 105 escape. 7 Frequently mentioned in conjunction with the lion (2 Kgs 2:24; Hos 13:8; Lam 3:10), it also appears as a ferocious creature in one of Daniel’s visions (7:5) and among the wild animals in the dramatic scene of the Day of the Lord as foreseen by Amos: ‫ּפגָעֹ הַֹּב ּבָא ַה ַּיִת ְו ָסמ ְַך‬ ְ ‫ֲרי‬ ִ‫ֲׁר יָנּס ִאיׁ ִמ ְּנֵי ָהא‬ ֶ ‫ַּא‬ ָׁ‫ְׁכֹ ַהָּח‬ ָ ‫“ יָדֹ עַל־ה ִַּיר ּנ‬as if someone led from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake” (5:19, NRSV). 8 Isaiah likewise adduces a change in ursine behavior as part of the eschaton: ‫ַל־ּבֶן‬ ֶ ‫ָקר יֹאכ‬ ָ ַּּ ‫ָרה וָדֹב ִּ ְרעֶינָה י ְַחָּו י ְִר ְּצּ י ְַלדֵ יהֶן ְוא ְַרי ֵה‬ ָ ‫ּפ‬ “The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together” (11:7; cf. 65:25). The Bear in Proverbs Proverbs 28:15 MT: ‫ַם־ּל‬ ָ ‫ָׁע עַל ע‬ ָ ‫ֲרי־נֹהֵם ְודֹב ֹׁקֵק מֵֹׁל ר‬ ִ‫א‬ A roaring lion and a prowling [or: growling] bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people. Prov 28:15 relects the book’s rhetorical style, which uses a variety of forms for its proverbs and aphorisms, frequently inverting the order of the analogical clauses and placing the vehicle of a simile or metaphor (mašal) before the tenor (nimšal). 9 The saying consists of two clauses in which concepts from divergent semantic ields are equated, although without use of the comparative kāp. The bear and lion are adduced together to describe the tyranny of a king over his subjects. 10 Facing the lion and bear together constitutes the ultimate test of human courage: “‘Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and that uncircumcised Philistine shall end up like one of them. . . . The Lord,’ David went on, ‘who saved me from lion and bear will save me from that Philistine’” 7. The biblical portrayals have been elucidated by modern zoological observations; Tristram reports having sighted a Syrian bear (Ursus arctos syriacus) in Wadi Hammam: H. B. Tristram, The Fauna and Flora of Palestine: The Survey of Western Palestine (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1884), 7. Cf. F. S. Bodenheimer, Animal and Man in Bible Lands (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 45. This is not the northern brown bear attested in Akkadian lexical lists adduced by B. Landsberger, Die Fauna des Alten Mesopotamien (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1934), 80–83. 8. Unless noted otherwise, English translations in this essay follow the NJPS. 9. See, for example, Prov 25:11–14, 19–20, 23, 25–26, 28. For the various sorts of proverbial parallelism and their semantic implications, see B. K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 41–45. Berlin argues that the number of parallelisms is unlimited; ininite possibilities for activating linguistic equivalents exist: A. Berlin, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 127–41. ְ ‫חמַת־ ֶמל‬ 10. The ability to pacify royal anger is thus a highly-valued faculty: ‫אכֵי־ ָמוֶת‬ ֲ ‫ֶך מ ְַל‬ ֲ ‫“ ְו ִאיׁ ָחכָם ְיכ ְַּ ֶרָּה‬The king’s wrath is a messenger of death, but a wise man can appease it” (Prov 16:14). 106 tova forti (1 Sam 17:34–37). 11 The author of Lamentations goes so far as to say that God himself has become ‫“ ֹּב אֹרֵב הּא ִלי א ְַרי ֵה ְּ ִמ ְס ִָּרים‬a lurking bear to me, a lion in hiding” (3:10; cf. Hos 13:8). The epithet attributed to the bear in the irst stich of our irst example, ‫ׁוקק‬, is a hapax legomenon; Isa 59:11 uses the root ‫ המה‬to describe the bear’s threatening behavior. As the rendering of Tg. Jonathan (‫“ דובא מצריח‬a female bear who raises her voice”) indicates, the root ‫ שקק‬may be understood as referring to the sound that the bear emits as it attacks. Rashi corroborates this view, observing that “nehîmāh for a lion and šĕqîqāh for a bear are both terms for screaming.” Proverbs in fact uses the former metaphor to signify the king’s “bark” and “bite”: ‫אימת מלך‬/‫“ נהם ככפיר זעף‬The rage/terror of a king is like the roar of a lion” (19:12, 20:2). 12 The root ‫ שקק‬may also signify “charging,” as in the roar of a locust swarm (Isa 33:4), and the onomatopoeia of the hithpalpel similarly represents the clatter of a chariot’s wheels (Nah 2:5[4]). Alternatively, it may refer to thirst, as in Isa 29:8b: “[W]hen a thirsty man dreams he is drinking and awakes faint, with his thirst not quenched. . . .” The same idiom appears in Ps 107:9[106:9]: “[F]or He has satisied the thirsty (‫)נפש ֹׁקקה‬, illed the hungry (‫ )נפש רעבה‬with all good things.” 13 Delitzsch combines the two meanings, proposing that the verb “designates a bear as lingering about, running hither and thither, impelled by extreme hunger . . . from ‫ק‬′′‫ שק‬/ ‫ק‬′′‫‘ שו‬to drive,’ which is said of nimble running, as well as of urging impulses (cf. under Gen 3:16) viz. hunger.” 14 11. See the praise of David in Sir 47:3 (ms B): ‫“ לכפירים שחק כגדי ולדובים כבני בשן‬He made sport of lions as though they were kids, and of bears, like bulls of Bashan.” Di Lella follows the Greek version “lambs of the lock (= ‫”) בני צאן‬: A. A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, AB 39 (Doubleday: New York, 1987), 522. 12. My free translation of Rashi on Prov 28:15. As Fox notes, if “the king’s growl is menacing even when he is not wicked (Prov 19:12; 20:2), how much the more frightful are wicked, foolish, and oppressive rulers”: M. V. Fox, Proverbs 10–31, AB 18B (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 827. Many of the other proverbs concerning the king presuppose a wise, righteous leader, however (cf. Prov 20:8, 26; 22:11), encouraging moral/Godly behavior by promising him a successful reign and a “throne established forever” (29:14; cf. 29:4, 12). See T. Longman III, Proverbs, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 559–61. 13. In Mishnaic Hebrew, the hithpolel of ‫ )שוק( שקק‬signiies “to desire strongly”: see M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Jerusalem: Horeb, 1985), 1540, 1625. Gemser understands ‫דב שוקק‬ “thirsty bear,” from the Ethiopian “to strive for, desire” and the biblical incidences adduced above: see B. Gemser, Sprüche Salomos, HAT 16 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1963), 114; HALOT 4.1647. 14. F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon, trans. M. G. Easton; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1960), 2.231. Greenberg argues for a semantic link between ‫ שקק‬as “yearning” and ‫“ שקק‬noisy” on analogy with the use of ‫ ערג‬in Joel 1:20a: ‫גם בהמות‬ ‫“ שדה תערוג אליך כי יבשו אפיקי מים‬The very beasts of the ield cry out to You; for the watercourses are dried up”: M. Greenberg, “Noisy and Yearning: The Semantics of ‫ שק"ק‬and Its B(e)aring the Text of Proverbs MT and LXX 107 The equation of the wicked ruler with the “roaring lion” and “growling/ prowling bear” thus emphasizes his unrestrained appetite for power and the mauling to which he subjects the “poor” over whom he rules. 15 LXX: λέων πεινῶν καὶ λύκος διψῶν, ὃς τυραννεῖ, πτωχὸς ὤν, ἔθνους πενιχροῦ A hungry lion and a thirsty wolf is he, who, being poor, rules over a poor nation. 16 The variant λύκος “wolf” in LXX Prov 28:15 most likely relects a misreading of the unvocalized Hebrew db (vocalized dōb) “bear” read as Aramaic ‫ד)א(ב‬ “wolf.” 17 The fact that this most likely constitutes a scribal error is evident from the fact that other Greek translators have no problem rendering ‫ דב‬literally and/or retaining the pair lion/bear. The biblical texts describe the wolf (Canis lupus) as a carnivorous animal (“Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey, and at evening dividing the spoil” [Gen 49:27]) and associate it with the leopard, lion, and poisonous snake (Isa 11:6; cf. 65:25; Jer 5:6; Zeph 3:3). The nature, pairing, and consonantal orthographical ainity appear to be responsible for the LXX text. 18 Further evidence of a similar misreading is attested in Sir 11:30 (ms A): ‫ ]א[ורב ה]ר[וכל כדוב לבית לצים‬:‫“ ]כ[זאב אֺרֵב לטרף‬like a wolf in Congeners,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran, ed. M. V. Fox et al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 339–44. 15. See my Animal Imagery in the Book of Proverbs, VTSup 118 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 64–66. 16. The English translation follows Brenton. Cf. J. Cook, NETS, who translates “needy” rather than “poor” nation. For the assonance in the name/participle referring to each animal, see Gerleman, Studies, 12–13; d’Hamonville, Les Proverbes, 330. 17. The word ‫“ ֵּ ב‬wolf” and the deinite form ‫ ֵּ בָא‬appear in all the Aramaic dialects (in plene spelling (‫דיבא‬, ‫)דיב‬. The feminine is ‫)דיבא( ֵּ בָה‬, in the deinite form ‫בתא‬ ָ ֵּ (‫)דיבתא‬. The defective spelling frequently causes confusion about whether it refers to a wolf or bear (both spelled ‫דבא‬, ‫)דב‬: see S. Naeh, “Three Comments on the Text of the Yerushalmi,” Leš 74 (2012): 202 n. 42 [Heb.]. See also D. Talshir, The Nomenclature of the Fauna in the Samaritan Targum (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1981), 56 [Heb.]. As Joosten notes: “Cases of inadvertent confusion of Hebrew and Aramaic are numerous enough to suggest that the translator knew Aramaic better than Hebrew”: J. Joosten, “The Aramaic Background of the Seventy: Language, Culture and History,” BIOSCS 43 (2010): 53–72 (esp. p. 62). The Aramaic translation of ‫ דֹב‬in Isa 11:7 is ‫דובא‬. The Syriac-Aramaic rendering of the Hebrew ‫“ זאב‬wolf” resembles the Syriac-Aramaic translation of dōb “bear”; dēybîn translates zĕʾēbîm (masc. pl. of ‫ )זאב‬in Syr.-Aram. Ezek 22:27. The construct state deybey ramšaʾ “night wolves” represents the Hebrew ‫“( זאבי ערב‬wolves of the steppe”?) in Hab 1:8 and Zeph 3:3. When spelled defectively in the biblical text, ‫ דב‬was rendered “wolf” by the Sages. Cf. Gen. Rab. 99:1; Lev. Rab. 13:5. The Syriac Peshiṭta also customarily translates the defective spelling ‫ דב‬as “wolf” (Naeh, “Three Comments,” 202 n. 42). 18. For the lion/bear pairing, see 1 Sam 17:34–37; Isa 11:7; Hos 13:8; Amos 5:19; Lam 3:10; for the lion/wolf pairing, see Isa 65:25; Jer 5:6; Zeph 3:3. 108 tova forti ambush for prey and the peddler waits in ambush like a bear, for the house of scoundrels.” 19 As Skehan argues, the odd behavior attributed to the bear here (cf. Lam 3:10) may derive from a retroverted (non-Syriac) Aramaic source that originally alluded to a wolf. The source of the confusion between the two animals thus appears to derive not from the Hebrew/Greek nexus but instead from Aramaic: dōb/dubbā :: dêbāʾ. 20 The complementary clause of LXX Prov 28:15b adduces the hungry lion and thirsty wolf in order to make a diferent comparison: “is he, who, being poor, rules over a poor nation.” Here, the translator—or copyist—appears to have read the ‫ רשע‬as ‫“ רש‬poor,” probably through haplography of the consecutive ʿayins (the now superluous inal letter of ‫ רשע‬and the irst letter of the preposition ‫)על‬, ‫ רשע‬being more appropriate to a description of a ruler’s tyranny. 21 According to the Septuagint, the ruler is not “wicked” but a poor man ruling over impoverished subjects. 22 Although Proverbs frequently warns against oppression of the poor, who are under God’s particular protection, none of the sayings regarding kings in the book of Proverbs relect any expectation of social reform. However, individuals who are attentive to their needs by giving loans or charity are recompensed by God (14:31; 19:17; 21:13; 22:16, 22). Wisdom teachers who hold a conservative view of society that assumes its structure to be fundamentally right and proper, are astonished at the notion of a slave’s becoming king: ‫ִׂרים‬ ָ ְּ ‫“ לֹא נָאוֶה ִל ְכ ִסיל ַּ עֲנּג אַף ִּי ְל ֶעבֶד ְמֹׁל‬Luxury is not itting for a dullard, Much less that a servant rule over princes” (Prov 19:10; cf. 30:21–22). 19. P. C. Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew, VTSup 68 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 38; see the Syriac Apocryphal Psalm 152:2, where David is said to have fought the lion and wolf that took sheep from his lock (see “lion” and “bear” in 1 Sam 17:34–37): see P. W. Skehan, “Again the Syriac Apocryphal Psalms,” CBQ 38 (1976): 149–50. 20. This may be the case in Tg. Isa. 11:6–7, where both animals appear together (dêbāʾ “wolf” [v. 6] and dubbā “bear” [v. 7]). A. Sperber (The Bible in Aramaic . . . III: The Latter Prophets according to Targum Jonathan [Leiden: Brill, 1962]) cites the Antwerp Polyglot as giving dwbʾ for the wolf in Isa 11:6 and the irst and second Rabbinic Bibles (Venice 1515–1517 and 1524/1525) as wdybʾ for the bear in Isa 11:7. See Skehan, “Again the Syriac Apocryphal Psalms,” 149 n. 22. 21. This retroversion is attributed to Antonio Agelli by G. Mezzacasa, Il libro dei proverbi di Salomone (Rome: Pontiical Biblical Institute, 1913), 187; and to J. G. Jäger by P. A. de Lagarde, Anmerkungen zur griechischen Übersetzung der Proverbien (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1863), 88. See also J. Baumgartner, Du Livre des Proverbs (Leipzig, 1890), 233–34. The reverse (‫ רש‬to ‫ )רשע‬occurs in LXX Prov 28:3: see Fox, Proverbs 10–31, 1055. 22. Interestingly, he employs two diferent terms to signify the “poor”: πτωχός for the king and πενιχρός for the people. Both of these nouns render the Hebrew ‫ דל‬and ‫ רש‬in the LXX: see T. Muraoka, Hebrew-Aramaic Index to the Septuagint (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998). The phrase “being poor rules over” is rare in the LXX: see d’Hamonville, Proverbes, 331. B(e)aring the Text of Proverbs MT and LXX 109 Similar sentiments are expressed by the author of Qohelet: “Here is an evil I have seen under the sun as great as an error committed by a ruler: Folly was placed on lofty heights, while rich men sat in low estate. I have seen slaves on horseback, and nobles walking on the ground like slaves” (Qoh 10:5–7). 23 Thus the LXX reading is akin to the proverbs that envision a slave gaining power for himself at the expense of the poor. Although the textual retroversion of the Hebrew Vorlage of the second clause thus relects a variant reading, the lesson it conveys relects the familiar concept of the MT—namely, the sufering of people who groan under the yoke of a tyrant, as summed up in the saying: ‫ָׁע י ֵ ָאנַח עָם‬ ָ ‫“—ּב ְמֹׁל ר‬but ִ when the wicked dominate the people groan” (Prov 29:2b). Proverbs 17:12 MT: ֹּ‫ַל־ּ ִסיל ְּ ִאּ ְַל‬ ְ ‫ָּגֹׁ ֹּב ַׁ ּּל ְּ ִאיׁ ְוא‬ Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a person rather than a fool in his folly. (my translation) This aphorism is related logically to the “better-than” proverb, which is a formal variant of the comparative saying. Syntactically, the ininitive absolute ‫ פגוש‬serves as a jussive, “let a person meet,” and the negative particle ‫אל‬, which often means “not,” is better translated “rather” in this context. 24 The proverb is warning against confronting/socializing with fools, and so the image of the bear is rather surprising. The sense of danger that is customarily associated with encountering a bereaved bear is applied to keeping company with a dullard. 25 The threat posed by a mother bear whose cubs have been killed is alluded to in two other places in the biblical text: Hushai the Archite describes David and his men as being “as desperate as a bear in the wild robbed of her whelps” (2 Sam 17:8), while God threatens that, in dealing severely with rebellious 23. ‫ֲׁ ִירים‬ ִ ‫רֹמים רַ ִּים ַוע‬ ִ ְַּ ּ ‫ֹּׁצָא ִמ ִּ ְפנֵי הַַּ ִּיט נִַּ ן ַה ֶּכֶל‬ ֶ ‫ָׁגגָה‬ ְ ִּ ֶׁ‫ַּמ‬ ָ ‫יתי ַּ חַת ה‬ ִ ‫י ֵׁ ָרעָה ָר ִא‬ ‫ ָה ָארֶץ‬-‫ָדים עַל‬ ִ ‫ִׂרים ה ְֹל ִכים ַּעֲב‬ ָ ‫סּסים ְו‬-‫ַל‬ ִ ‫ָדים ע‬ ִ ‫יתי עֲב‬ ִ ‫ּפֶל יֵֵׁבּ ָר ִא‬ ֵ ַּ . For the sapiential theme of the “world turned upside down,” see R. C. Van Leeuwen, “Proverbs 30: 21–23 and the Biblical World Upside Down,” JBL 105 (1986): 599–610. 24. In its simplest form, the combination of the initial ‫“ טוב‬better,” which functions as a predicate, and the mêm of comparison preixed to the second noun creates an analogical relationship between the two terms, given that the item in clause A is declared to be qualitatively superior to that in clause B (cf. Prov 15:17; 17:1, 12; 22:1; 27:5; etc.): see G. E. Bryce, “Better-Proverbs: An Historical and Structural Study,” in 1972 SBL Seminar Papers, 2 vols., SBLSP 108/2 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1972), 343–54; G. S. Ogden, “The ‘Better’ Proverb (Tôb-spruch), Rhetorical Criticism and Qohelet,” JBL 96 (1977): 489–505. 25. See Fox’s discussion of the ‫“ כסיל‬dolt/oaf” (Proverbs 1–9, 41–42). For the fool as a sinner with whom shame is associated in LXX-Prov, see my “Conceptual Stratiication in LXX Prov 26,11: Toward Identifying the Tradents behind the Aphorism,” ZAW 119 (2007): 241–58. 110 tova forti Israel, ‫ָדה ְּב ְַּעֵם‬ ֶ ּׂ‫ָביא ַחַּת ַה‬ ִ ‫ׁם ְּל‬ ָ ‫ֶקרַ ע ְסגֹר ִלָּם ְוא ְֹכלֵם‬ ְ ‫ֶפ ְֵּׁם ְּדֹב ַׁ ּּל ְוא‬ ְ‫א‬ “like a bear robbed of her young I attack them and rip open the casing of their hearts” (Hos 13:8). In both of these passages, the bear represents rage and cruelty, danger and desperation. 26 LXX: ἐμπεσεῖται μέριμνα ἀνδρὶ νοήμονι, οἱ δὲ ἄφρονες διαλογιοῦνται κακά Care may befall a man of understanding; but fools will meditate upon evil things. 27 The vivid image of the fool’s folly in wielding havoc and destruction like a mother bear bereft of her cubs disappears in the LXX version. While the Hebrew sayings are formulated as couplets with lines that are counterpoised in synonymous—or, more frequently, antithetical—parallelism, the Greek translator constructs his text around structure and/or semantics, producing more regular and symmetrical/antithetical forms. 28 Thus, he compares the fool (‫ )כסיל‬with the wise man (‫)איש שכל‬, replacing the “better-than” paradigm of the MT with an antithesis; the two clauses do not contradicting one another logically but instead adduce two contrasting personality types. As frequently portrayed in Qohelet, the intelligent man is said to be in a state of constant anxiety: “When I set my heart to gain wisdom, and to observe the business that occurs on the earth, ⟨my⟩ eyes seeing sleep neither by day nor by night” (Qoh 8:16). 29 Like the ‫“ איש מזימות‬man of intrigues,” the fool, on the other hand, is always preoccupied with schemes and scheming. 30 The translator may have read the opening stich of the unvocalized Hebrew source text as ‫פגוש ד)א(ב באיש ׂכל‬. 31 The rendering of the Hebrew ‫ דב‬by 26. See my Animal Imagery in the Book of Proverbs, 88–89. 27. The English translation follows Brenton. The targum also reads ‫בגברא חכימא‬, a skillful man. 28. Herein, I follow the view that the translator of Proverbs exhibits a tendency to produce grammatically and/or semantically more-closely-parallel forms than those in his source text: see G. Tauberschmidt, Secondary Parallelism: A Study of Translation Technique in LXX Proverbs, Academia Biblica 15 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004); On LXX Proverbs’ predilection for antithesis, see G. Gerleman, Studies in the Septuagint, vol. 3: Proverbs (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1956), 16–21; d’Hamonville, Proverbes, 71; J. Cook, “Contrasting as Translation Technique,” in From Tradition to Interpretation: Studies in Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders, ed. C. A. Evans and S. Talmon (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 403–14. 29. See M. V. Fox, A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 287. 30. The ‫ כסיל‬speaks provocative words (Prov 18:6), stumbles into quarrels (14:16), and easily slides into evildoing (10:23, 13:19). For the condemnation of scheming, see Prov 12:2, 14:17, 24:8; Ps 10:2, 21:12, 37:7; Sir 44:4. Fox distinguishes between the ‫“ כסיל‬dolt, oaf” and the ‫“ אויל‬fool, knave,” whose obtuseness is a moral deiciency (Proverbs 1–9, 40–42). 31. Following Jäger’s reconstruction of the Hebrew Vorlage cited by de Lagarde (pāgōš dĕʾābāh bĕʾîš śēkel) (Anmerkungen zur griechischen Übersetzung der Proverbien, 56). LEH refers to Schleusner (1820) for this retroversion. B(e)aring the Text of Proverbs MT and LXX 111 μέριμνα “care, anxiety, worry” appears to relect the translator’s/copyist’s understanding of either the defective MT spelling ‫ דב‬or the vocalized reading of the plene ‫דוב‬/‫ דאב‬as (‫דאב)ה‬. 32 As Barr deines it, vocalization signiies the oral pronunciation of the full form of a Hebrew word, including all the vowels not written at all and a discrimination of the various possible readings via matres lectionis or “vocalic phonographemes” (consonants serving as vowels). 33 By employing this system and reverting the Greek μέριμνα back into Hebrew, we can recover the translator’s vocalization. This appears to be a rather strained reading by this translator, in light of the fact that, while this Greek term renders various Hebrew terms in the MT, it is not used to translate the root ‫דאב‬. 34 The Greek translation of Sirach, however, systematically employs the Gk. term to render Heb. ‫“ דאגה‬care, worry, concern” with respect to physical needs and psychosomatic concepts/topics. 35 Tracing the LXX’s rendering of ‫ דאגה‬reveals that, rather than being represented by a ixed equivalent, the noun is deined by the context. 36 Thus, for example, while the Syriac translates Prov 12:25 (‫ֶב־איׁ י ְַׁ ֶחָּה ְו ָדבָר‬ ִ ‫ְּ ָאגָה ְבל‬ ‫“ טֹב יְַׂ ְּ ֶחָּה‬Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up” [NRV]) dʾbh blb, the LXX loosely translates φοβερὸς λογός “a frightening word/message,” which is the antithesis of the “good word/message.” 37 Thus, the translator appears to have read (‫דאב)ה‬, having in mind the meaning of ‫דאגה‬ that was attested by the frequent Greek rendering μέριμνα, as in Sirach. 38 32. Compare with the plene ‫ דוב‬in 4QIsac frg. 6 (11:7 MT [11:4 Gk.]) versus ‫ דב‬in 1QIsaa and the vocalized spelling ‫ דוב‬in Sir 11:30 (ms A), 25:17 (ms C), 28:17 (ms C), and 27:3 ‫( דובים‬ms B). 33. See J. Barr, “Vocalization and the Analysis of Hebrew among the Ancient Translators,” in Hebraische Wortforschung: Fest. Walter Baumgartner, VTSup 16 (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 1–11; idem, “Reading a Script without Vowels,” in Writing without Letters, ed. W. Haas (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), 71–100. 34. Compare the rendering of ‫ יהב‬as “burden/matter of concern” in LXX Ps 54:23 [MT 55:23]. Less feasible retroversions are those of Job 11:18; LXX Dan 11:26: see LEH 393. The verb μεριμνάω “to care for, to be anxious about” renders diferent meanings; see, e.g.: ‫“ עצב‬pain, toil” (Prov 14:23), ‫“ שעה‬pay attention” (Exod 5:9), and ‫“ כעס‬be angry” (Ezek 16:42). 35. Compare “Jealousy and anger shorten life, and anxiety brings on premature old age” (Sir 30:24, NRSV) (ms B: ‫ ;)דאגה‬see also 31:1, 2 (cf. ms B: ‫)דאגה‬, 38:29, 42:9 (cf. ms B: ‫ ;)דאגה‬1 Macc 6:10. See Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew. 36. Cf. Josh 22:24; Jer 49:23; Ezek 4:16; 12:18, 19. 37. The Greek translation uses the antithesis of “a good word/message” to clarify the obscure elliptical phrase ‫ דאגה בלב איש ישחנה‬as follows: “A frightening word disturbs the heart of a just man, but a good report makes him happy” (Fox, Proverbs 10–31, 558, 996). 38. For ‫ דאבה‬and its contextual/exegetical renderings in the LXX, see Lev 26:16; Deut 28:65; Jer 31:12 [LXX 38:12], 31:25 [LXX 28:25]; Ps 88:10(9) [LXX 87:10]; Job 41:14. Even the similar phrases ‫“ דאבון נפש‬anguished heart” (Deut 28:65) and ‫“ נפש דאבה‬despondent spirit” (Jer 31:25) are rendered contextually. 112 tova forti The ininitive absolute ‫“ פגוש‬meet, encounter” is represented by the Greek verb ἐμπίπτω “fall into, be entrapped by,” which is frequently followed by the expression “into evil” (MT: ‫ ;יפול ברעה‬LXX: εἰς κακά) (cf. Prov 13:17) or a metonymic synonym—snare, pit (‫ פח‬/ ‫ פחת‬/ ‫( )שחת‬cf. Prov 26:27). 39 The exegetical reading of the translator introduces the ideational sphere of recompense by adducing moral qualities. Although the “care/concern/worry” that befalls the wise man is not exactly what we might expect his reward to be, the term may connote altruism rather than preoccupation with personal woes.” 40 The translator’s reading of ‫ דב‬as ‫ דאב‬appears to have led him to reverse the Hebrew word order from ‫ פגוש דב שכל באיש‬to ‫פגוש ד)א(ב באיש שכל‬. The LXX turns the MT’s “better than” analogy between meeting a dangerous bear and a fool in his folly into an antithetical comparison that contrasts the wise and the fool. The irst half relates to the existential theme of the intelligent person’s being constantly consumed by worry and the second half to the typological behavior of the fool, who is perpetually preoccupied with scheming intrigue / meditating on evil. Conclusion This study provides a textual analysis and reconstruction of LXX Prov 28:15 and 17:12. In neither instance are we faced with a textual corruption in the MT, the meaning of which is clear and straightforward. Although a comparison of the MT and LXX shows deviations, both the MT and the recovered forms are plausible readings. Following the scholarly thesis that the translator endeavored to render the Hebrew Vorlage as faithfully as possible, we attempted to explain why both sayings have variants. While the LXX text suggests that the translator read the unvocalized ‫ דב‬diferently, his rendering does not signiicantly depart from the ideational world view of the Hebrew author(s) of Proverbs. In addition, proverbs by their very nature are given to change and alteration in both oral and written transmission (the MT and LXX alike). This literary evaluation makes it diicult to ascertain who is to “blame” for the variation—the Hebrew version underlying the Greek text or a translator who misunderstood the Hebrew or understood it diferently from the Masoretes. Each of these alternatives considers the translation to represent the beginning of a hermeneutical process that must be assessed according to its intrinsic value, taking into consideration the “context” in its wider sense by means of exegesis, language, and literary criticism. 41 39. For the former, see Prov 17:20 [LXX: 17:16a], 28:14. For the latter, see Prov 26:27; Isa 24:18; Jer 48:44 [LXX 31:44]; Ps 7:16[15]; Qoh 10:8; Sir 27:26. 40. The additional κακός may relect the translator’s moralizing tendency: see M. B. Dick, “The Ethics of the Old Greek Book of Proverbs,” in The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism 2 (1990): 22–23. 41. Tov, The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint, 281.