Texts in Conversation
Amos 4 describes God giving ironic commands, urging the people to continue their sin at Bethel and Gilgal as a form of rebellion. The Greek Septuagint changes this to remove the irony, likely to avoid making God look cruel.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Amos 4:4
Hebrew Bible
3 Each of you will go straight through the gaps in the walls; you will be thrown out toward Harmon.” The Lord is speaking. 4 “Go to Bethel and rebel! At Gilgal rebel some more! Bring your sacrifices in the morning, your tithes on the third day! 5 Burn a thank offering of bread made with yeast! Make a public display of your voluntary offerings! For you love to do this, you Israelites.” The Sovereign Lord is speaking.
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Amos 4:4
Septuagint
3 And you shall be brought forth naked in the presence of each other; and you shall be cast forth on the mountain Rimmon, says the Lord God. 4 You went into Bethel, and sinned, and you multiplied sin at Gilgal; and you brought your grain-offerings in the morning, and your tithes every third day. 5 And they read the law outside, and called for public professions: proclaim aloud that the children of Israel have loved these things, says the Lord God.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Tags:
Search:
Notes and References
"... The concept of God’s goodness, a central issue of Plato’s philosophy, became also important for Jewish theology. Due to this doctrine, transmitters and translators sometimes modified the text. In order to avoid any suspicion of despotism, the Septuagint translator of Amos transmuted the ironic imperatives in Amos 4:4 to indicatives, and he rendered אולי (“perhaps”) in Amos 5:15 by ὅπως: God’s reaction on human repentance is not to be categorized by “perhaps”! In LXX Isaiah 6:9–10, the theory of divine hardening is avoided. The translator of Ezekiel altered Ezekiel 21:3-4 [LXX 8-9] ... According to the Masoretic text, God will destroy the righteous and the wicked whereas the Septuagint alters: God will destroy the unrighteous and the wicked ..."
Martin Meiser, The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 104.
* 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.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,