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In Judges 5, an obscure phrase about the Kishon River led to many translations and interpretations. While often translated as “rushing torrent,” the Greek Septuagint translates it as “stream of the ancients,” perhaps to connect it to the primordial past.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Judges 5:21
Hebrew Bible
20 From the sky the stars fought, from their paths in the heavens they fought against Sisera. 21 The onrushing torrent* carried them off; the river confronted them—the Kishon River. Step on the necks of the strong! 22 “The horses’ hooves pounded the ground; the stallions galloped madly. 23 ‘Call judgment down on Meroz,’ says the angel of the Lord; ‘Be sure to call judgment down on those who live there, because they did not come to help in the Lord’s battle, to help in the Lord’s battle against the warriors.’
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Judges 5:21
Septuagint
20 The stars from heaven set themselves in array, they set themselves to fight with Sisera out of their paths. 21 The brook of Kishon swept them away, the brook of the ancients, the brook Kishon: my mighty soul will trample him down. 22 When the hoofs of the horse were entangled, his mighty ones earnestly hastened 23 to curse Meroz: Curse it, said the angel of the Lord; cursed is every one that dwells in it, because they did not come to the help of the Lord, to his help among the mighty.
Date: 200–101 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Obscure words ... Another example is in Judges 5:21. The phrase today translated as “ancient torrent” or “onrushing torrent,” puzzled the ancient translators. LXXa, Vulgate, and Syriac all transliterated it in their various ways, taking it as a proper name, while LXXb has “stream of the ancients,” connecting the word, reasonably enough, with the root. Targum Jonathan also makes the same connection, but with a difference, rendering the phrase as “the stream by which signs and miracles were performed for Israel in ancient times” ... presumably a reference to the miracles of Elijah at Carmel (1 Kings 18:20-40). Again, the targumist could have followed the same tack as one of the other translations, but he wanted to make an edifying connection between two points of the history of Israel ..."
Edward M. Cook, “The Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the Targums,” in A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Early Judaism, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 92–117.
* 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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