Texts in Conversation
1 Samuel 15 in the Masoretic text changed language of divine revenge, using softer language that means “I have observed” or “I remember.” The Greek Septuagint preserves the original text when it says God “will avenge,” describing an act of retribution.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Samuel 15:2
Hebrew Bible
1 Then Samuel said to Saul, “I was the one the Lord sent to anoint you as king over his people Israel. Now listen to what the Lord says. 2 Here is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has said: ‘I carefully observed how the Amalekites opposed Israel along the way when Israel came up from Egypt. 3 So go now and strike down the Amalekites. Destroy everything they have. Don’t spare them. Put them to death—man, woman, child, infant, ox, sheep, camel, and donkey alike.’”
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX 1 Samuel 15:2
Septuagint
1 And Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you king over Israel: and now hear the voice of the Lord. 2 Thus said the Lord of hosts, Now I will take vengeance for what Amalek did to Israel, when he met him in the way as he came up out of Egypt. 3 And now go, and you shall strike Amalek and Hierim and all that belongs to him, and you shall not save anything of him alive, but you shall utterly destroy him: and you shall devote him and all his to destruction, and you shall spare nothing belonging to him; and you shall kill both man and woman, and infant and suckling, and calf and sheep, and camel and donkey.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In other cases, the Masoretic text and Targum tempered difficulties in the text, which textually survived only in the Septuagint. In 1 Samuel 15:2, the Septuagint offers ἐκδικήσω (“I will avenge”) whereas the Masoretic text offers “I have taken account”, and Targum Jonathan offers “I remember”. In this case, the Septuagint offers an old reading which is tempered in the Hebrew traditions. In 2 Samuel 24:16, LXX Ra offers the original reading ὁ ἄγγελος τοῦ θεοῦ whereas the Masoretic Text, LXX A.L. and the Targum omit the mention of “God” in order to reduce the notion of God’s cruelty. In Rabbinical tradition, this reading also is known, but there we find an explicit debate on God’s cruelty ..."
Martin Meiser, The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 76.
* 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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