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The Hebrew version of Nahum, at Nineveh’s fall, says every face turns pale with fear. The Greek translator misunderstood the rare word for paleness as the word for pot, changing the image to the opposite color for darkness.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Nahum 2:10
Hebrew Bible
9 Her conquerors cry out: “Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold!”There is no end to the treasure—riches of every kind of precious thing. 10 Destruction, devastation, and desolation! Hearts faint, knees tremble; every stomach churns, all their faces have turned pale! 11 Where now is the den of the lions and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, lioness, and lion cub once prowled and no one disturbed them?
LXX Nahum 2:11
Septuagint
9 And Nineveh, her water is like a cistern of water, and they were fleeing, not stopped, and there was not one who was looking on. 10 They plundered the silver; they plundered the gold. And there was no end of her ornamentation. They were weighed down with all the vessels of her desires. 11 There is shaking out, violent shaking, trembling, a breaking of a heart, a loosing of the knees, and pains of childbirth on all loins, and the face of all is like the blackening of an earthen pot.
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Notes and References
... The word χύτρα (’earthen pot’) is most common in the Twelve Prophets (Micah 3:3; Joel 2:6; Nahum 2:11) where it translates קלחת in Micah 3:3 and פארור in the others. Apart from Joel 2:6 and Nahum 2:11 פארור (with an א) occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Its meaning is uncertain and seven suggestions are noted in the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, all on the basis of context in Joel 2:6 and Nahum 2:11: ’paleness’, ’darkness’, ’redness’, ’glow’, ’pot’ (as an alternative form of פרור), ’furrow (of face)’ and ’brightness’. It is possible that the translator read פארור as פרור (’cooking-pot’), and, since פרור is rare, we cannot discount the possibility that other passages where the word occurs may have informed his rendering ...
Theocharous, Myrto
Lexical Dependence and Intertextual Allusion in the Septuagint of the Twelve Prophets: Studies in Hosea, Amos and Micah
(p. 64) T&T Clark, 2012
* 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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