Texts in Conversation
Jonah uses unusual grammar to describe how everyone responded to his warning by wearing sackcloth. The Greek Septuagint translation simplifies this into the past tense and applies it to both people and animals, describing the animals wearing sackcloth.
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Jonah 3:8
Hebrew Bible
7 He issued a proclamation and said, “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. 8 Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly to God, and everyone must turn from their evil way of living and from the violence that they do. 9 Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die.”
Date: 3rd Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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LXX Jonah 3:8
Septuagint
7 And it was proclaimed and said in Nineveh from the king and from his nobles, saying, “Let the humans and the livestock and cattle and sheep not taste anything nor graze nor drink water.” 8 And the humans and livestock clothed themselves with sackcloth, and they cried out to God fervently, and each turned away from his evil way and away from the injustice of their hands, saying, 9 “Who knows whether God will reconsider and turn back from his angry wrath so that we will not perish?”
Date: 1st Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... But we observe an interesting occurrence in 3:8. There the Hebrew writer has done something unusual. The three verbs which communicate the Ninevite response to Jonah are all waw + imperfect forms rather than the waw-consecutive forms with which the writer has been telling the story. This places emphasis on the content of this verse. The Greek translator has read those same three verbs as waw-consecutive imperfects (a different vocalization than the MT). The result is that the Greek translator uses the aorist tense-form for these three verbs, abandoning the literary emphasis of the Hebrew version ..."
Beck, John A.
Translators as Storytellers: A Study in Septuagint Translation Technique
(p. 43) Peter Lang Publishing, 2000
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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