The Text of the Septuagint: Its Corruptions and Their Emendation

O'nVgj (Exod. 22: 9 (8) ; 1 Sam. 2: 25 in the Greek and Latin Bibles)
Perhaps I may here inquire into the way in which our translators
handled the two passages Exod. 22: 8 and 1 Sam. 2: 25. In these
D'rfrgj is taken as a real plural and followed by a verb in the plural.
This casts light on the priestly jury, acting close to the sanctuary and on
behalf, and before the face, of God. In neither passage did the LXX
leave any traces of what was peculiar in the original. In 1 Sam. 2: 25
it shares in the corruption of the MT, which was corrected by Wellhausen,
who from 1V^B restored the plural ί^Β ; but in both passages it
does its best to obliterate what might have been considered a difficulty
from the point of advanced monotheism. In Exod. 22:8 we are therefore
almost left with the Three, and Jerome who follows their lead. They take
the Hebrew as it stands, no doubt, leaving its precarious plurals to
those whose set task it was to explain away any difficulties:
MT LXX ol Γ
(BM's Latin from the
Syriac of Syr. hei
ένώτπον TOÖ
)
«a- τ
op'Sp-ia^
D'îlV»
ν»
ΘΕΟΟ
ad dear
Vulgate
έλεύσετσι utriusque causa
ή κρίσις
αμφοτέρων
perveniet,
Kod 6 άλούς et quem damnani du A' et si ill*
δια τοϋ θεού et quern damnaverinf dit C
et quern damnabuni dit Θ'
iudicaverifli
The clue to this literal translation of the Three and Jerome is given by
a doublet in the text of Vercellone's (i, 255*) ' Cas. 1 which, he says,
' addit scilicet adsacerdotes'. This scilicet must not induce us to believe that
ad sacerdotes is a mere gloss; for there are parallels which incontestably
indicate, just as do Greek doublets introduced by καί or ή, that these
words represent a different way of translating which has left only a few,
but unmistakable, traces. So in the verse immediately preceding, which
contains the same O^nVs in a plural meaning, but without a plural
verb which, of course, caused the chief trouble, the Vulgate again
displays ad deos and the same Cas. 1 'addit et ad sacerdotes et ad sapientes'