Texts in Conversation
In Amos 5, the prophet begins with a reference to a “funeral song” mourning Israel’s downfall. The Greek Septuagint translation changes this to be a “word from God.” This may have come from the translator's desire to have readers know it's from God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Amos 5:1
Hebrew Bible
1 Listen to this funeral song I am ready to sing about you, family of Israel: 2 “The virgin Israel has fallen down and will not get up again. She is abandoned on her own land with no one to help her get up.” 3 The Sovereign Lord says this: “The city that marches out with a thousand soldiers will have only a hundred left; the town that marches out with a hundred soldiers will have only ten left for the family of Israel.”
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Amos 5:1
Septuagint
1 Hear this word of the Lord, even a lamentation, which I take up against you, house of Israel. 2 The virgin of Israel has fallen; she shall no more rise: she has stumbled upon her land; there is none that shall raise her up. 3 Therefore thus says the Lord God; The city out of which there went forth a thousand, in it there shall be left one hundred, and in that out of which there went forth one hundred, there shall be left ten to the house of Israel.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Dissociation from the nations is mirrored sometimes also terminologically: the translators of Septuagint avoid the term µάντις for “prophet” ... This topic, known from Tobit 14:4 caused changes in Amos 5:1; Jeremiah 1:1; 45:27; 51:29. Some of them can be caused by the Vorlage; in other cases it is uncertain. In Jeremiah 33[26]:7, where נביא ('prophet') is translated by ψευδοπροφήτης ('false prophet'), the lack of divine authority is marked. It is not possible that a prophet who is really sent by God would partake in the priest’s activity against Jeremiah ..."
Martin Meiser, The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 106.
* 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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