Texts in Conversation
Exodus 33 says God will send an angel ahead of Israel and drive out the Canaanites himself. The Greek Septuagint changes this so the angel drives them out, likely to avoid portraying God acting like a human or being directly involved in violence.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 33:2
Hebrew Bible
1 The Lord said to Moses, “Go up from here, you and the people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land I promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 3 Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way.”
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Exodus 33:2
Septuagint
1 And the Lord said to Moses, Go forward, go up from here, you and your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, into the land which I swore to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your seed. 2 And I will send at the same time my angel before your face, and he shall cast out the Amorite and the Hittite, and the Perizzite and Girgashite, and Hivite, and Jebusite. 3 And I will bring you into a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up with you, because you are a stiff-necked people, for fear that I might consume you by the way.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Our targumist translates the biblical phrase literally. The Septuagint changes the text to read: 'My angel ... he will drive out,' thereby avoiding portraying God anthropomorphically. Saadiah resolves the problem by seeming to suggest that the tzir'ah, 'disturbance' or 'insects,' mentioned in 23:28, would drive out the nations ..."
Israel Drazin and Stanley M. Wagner, Onkelos on the Torah, Exodus: Understanding the Bible Text (Jerusalem: Gefen, 2006), 229.
* 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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