Texts in Conversation
The story of Gedaliah’s death in Jeremiah describes mourners in grief. The Greek Septuagint translation adds language not found in the Hebrew version to describe more intense grief, perhaps to intensify the story for Greek readers.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jeremiah 41:5
Hebrew Bible
4 On the day after Gedaliah had been murdered, before anyone even knew about it, 5 80 men arrived from Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria. They had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes, and cut themselves to show they were mourning. They were carrying grain offerings and incense to present at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. 6 Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them. He was pretending to cry as he walked along. When he met them, he said to them, “Come with me to meet Gedaliah son of Ahikam.”
Date: 500–401 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Jeremiah 48:4
Septuagint
4 And it happened on the second day after he had struck Gedaliah, and no man knew of it, 5 that there came men from Shechem, and from Salem, and from Samaria, even eighty men, having their beards shaven, and their clothes torn, and beating their breasts, and they had manna and frankincense in their hands, to bring them into the house of the Lord. 6 And Ishmael went out to meet them; and they went on and wept: and he said to them, Come in to Gedaliah.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Tags:
Search:
Notes and References
"... LXX Jeremiah 48 (Masoretic text chapter 41) contains a plus, “beating their breasts” ..."
Mitchel Modine, The Dialogues of Jeremiah: Toward a Phenomenology of Exile (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2014), 200.
* 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
,