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The Hebrew version of 2 Chronicles says Pharaoh Necho marched up to do battle at Carchemish on the Euphrates. The Greek Septuagint removes the place name and instead sends him against the king of Assyria, changing who Egypt was marching to fight.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Chronicles 35:20
Hebrew Bible
19 This Passover was observed in the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign. 20 After Josiah had done all this for the temple, King Necho of Egypt marched up to do battle at Carchemish on the Euphrates River. Josiah marched out to oppose him. 21 Necho sent messengers to him, saying, “Why are you opposing me, O king of Judah? I am not attacking you today, but the kingdom with which I am at war. God told me to hurry. Stop opposing God, who is with me, or else he will destroy you.”
LXX 2 Chronicles 35:20
Septuagint
19 in the eighteenth year of the dominion of Josiah. 19a And King Josiah set on fire those who have a divining spirit and the wizards and the teraphin and the idols and the karasima that were in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law that are written in the document that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. 19b There was no one like him before him, who returned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his strength, according to all the law of Moses, and after him, one like him did not arise, 19c except the Lord did not turn back from the wrath of his great rage, with which rage the Lord was angry against Judah over all the commands that Manasseh provoked to anger. 19d And the Lord said, “And I removed Judah from my face just as I removed Israel, and I thrust away the city that I chose, Jerusalem, and the house about which I said, ‘My name will be there.’” 20 Pharaoh Neco, the king of Egypt, went up against the king of Assyria at the river Euphrates, and King Josiah went to a meeting with him.
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Notes and References
“... 1 Esdras 1.23 reads, ‘Pharaoh, king of Egypt, went to wage war in Carchemish on the Euphrates’, which closely reflects the wording of the Masoretic Text (2 Chronicles 35.20), ‘Neco, King of Egypt, went up to fight in Carchemish on the Euphrates’. Septuagint 2 Chronicles 35.20, on the other hand, reads ‘Pharaoh Nechao, king of Egypt, went up against the king of the Assyrians on the river Euphrates’. This wording reflects that of 2 Kings 23.29 (Masoretic Text and Septuagint), where the same events are recounted, suggesting that in this case the text of Septuagint 2 Chronicles has been revised towards the parallel text in Kings, whilst 1 Esdras and the Masoretic Text preserve the ‘uncontaminated’ reading. As I cautioned above, this conclusion is applicable only to the specific wording under consideration, and not to the verse as a whole. ...”
Ryan, Daniel
"Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)" in Aitken, J. K. (ed.) T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint
(p. 188) T&T Clark International, 2015
* 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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