Texts in Conversation
Exodus names a city built by Israelite slaves and the Hebrew uses "Aven" as a mocking pun on "On." The Greek Septuagint translation reverses this, inserting "On" instead, harmonizing with Genesis where On is named as the home of Joseph's father-in-law.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 1:11
Hebrew Bible
10 Come, let’s deal wisely with them. Otherwise they will continue to multiply, and if a war breaks out, they will ally themselves with our enemies and fight against us and leave the country.” 11 So they put foremen over the Israelites to oppress them with hard labor. As a result they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread. As a result the Egyptians loathed the Israelites,
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Exodus 1:11
Septuagint
10 come then, let us deal craftily with them, for fear that at any time they be increased, and whenever war shall happen to us, these also shall be added to our enemies, and having prevailed against us in war, they will depart out of the land. 11 And he set over them taskmasters, who should afflict them in their works; and they built strong cities for Pharaoh, both Pithom, and Rameses, and On, which is Heliopolis. 12 But as they humbled them, by so much they multiplied, and grew exceedingly strong; and the Egyptians greatly abhorred the children of Israel.
Date: 300–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Tags:
Search:
Notes and References
"... The Hebrew word “Aven” means “idolatry” or “iniquity,” and the Masoretic text used it to make a derisive wordplay or misvocalization of the name of the Egyptian city of “On.” The translator moves in the opposite direction, apparently changing from the plain of Aven, perhaps the plain between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon in Syria, to On, or Heliopolis, located at the southern tip of the Nile Delta in Egypt and the main cult center of Re, the sun-god. (See LXX Ezekiel 30:17) The connection of “On” and “Heliopolis” is explicit in Genesis 41:50 where the Septuagint has “Potiphar the priest of Heliopolis” instead of “On”; note also Jeremiah 50:13 and the LXX plus in Exodus 1:11) ..."
W. Edward Glenny, Finding Meaning in the Text: Translation Technique and Theology in the Septuagint of Amos, VTSup 126 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 63.
* 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
,