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LXX Exodus

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 2

1 And there was a certain man of the tribe of Levi, who took as wife one of the daughters of Levi. 2 And she conceived, and bore a male child; and having seen that he was fair, they hid him⁠ three months. 3 And when they could no longer hide him, his mother took for him an ark, and besmeared it with bitumen, and cast the child into it, and put it in the ooze by the river. 4 And his sister was watching from a distance, to learn what would happen to him. 5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to the river to bathe; and her maids walked by the river's side, and having seen the ark in the ooze, she sent her maid, and took it up. 6 And having opened it, she sees the babe weeping in the ark: and the daughter of Pharaoh had compassion on it, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children. 7 And his sister said to the daughter of Pharaoh, Do you wish me to call to you a nurse of the Hebrews, and shall she suckle the child for you? 8 And the daughter of Pharaoh said, Go: and the young woman went, and called the mother of the child. 9 And the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, Take care of this child, and suckle it for me, and I will give you the wages; and the woman took the child, and suckled it. 10 And when the boy was grown, she brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he became her son; and she called his name, Moses, saying, I took him out of the water. 11 And it happened in that length of time, that Moses having grown, went out to his brothers the sons of Israel: and having noticed their distress, he sees an Egyptian striking a certain Hebrew of his brothers the children of Israel. 12 And having looked round this way and that way, he sees no one; and he struck the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. 13 And having gone out the second day he sees two Hebrew men fighting; and he says to the injurer, Why do you strike your neighbor? 14 And he said, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? will you kill me as you yesterday killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was alarmed, and said, If it is thus, this matter has become known. 15 And Pharaoh heard this matter, and sought to kill Moses; and Moses departed from the presence of Pharaoh, and lived in the land of Midian; and having come into the land of Midian, he sat on the well. 16 And the priest of Midian had seven daughters, feeding the flock of their father Jethro; and they came and drew water until they filled their pitchers, to water the flock of their father Jethro. 17 And the shepherds came, and were driving them away; and Moses rose up and rescued them, and drew water for them, and watered their sheep. 18 And they came to Reuel their father; and he said to them, Why have you come so quickly today? 19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us from the shepherds, and drew water for us and watered our sheep. 20 And he said to his daughters, And where is he? and why have you left the man? call him therefore, that he may eat bread. 21 And Moses was established with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses as a wife. 22 And the woman conceived and bore a son, and Moses called his name Gershom, saying, I am a temporary resident in a strange land. 23 And in those days after a length of time, the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel groaned because of their tasks, and cried, and their cry because of their tasks went up to God. 24 And God heard their groanings, and God remembered his covenant made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. 25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and was made known to them.⁠

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Compare Exodus 2:25 and LXX Exodus 2:25

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

The Hebrew version of Exodus says God saw Israel and understood their suffering. The Greek misreads the ambiguous verb differently, so God makes himself known to them, matching the book’s theme of God revealing who he is.

Passages

Exodus 2:25

Hebrew Bible
21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 22 When she bore a son, Moses named him Gershom, for he said, “I have become a resident foreigner in a foreign land.” 23 During that long period of time the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry because of their slave labor went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning; God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the Israelites, and God understood.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

LXX Exodus 2:25

Septuagint
21 And Moses was established with the man, and he gave Zipporah his daughter to Moses as a wife. 22 And the woman conceived and bore a son, and Moses called his name Gershom, saying, I am a temporary resident in a strange land. 23 And in those days after a length of time, the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel groaned because of their tasks, and cried, and their cry because of their tasks went up to God. 24 And God heard their groanings, and God remembered his covenant made with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. 25 And God looked upon the children of Israel, and was made known to them.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Exodus

References

... Exodus 2:25 involves a significant textual variant. The unspecified phrase וַיֵּדַע אֱל ֹהִ ים (‘And God knew’) occurs in the Septuagint as καὶ ἐγνώσθη αὐτοῖς (‘and he was made known to them’). While this variant helpfully contributes to the theme of YHWH becoming known through the events of the exodus, the Septuagint evidence remains suspect. The Septuagint often deviates from the Masoretic Text with regard to divine designators, and here the Greek translator may have read אליהם as אלהים, as did the Latin translator (i.e., אליהם as eos). The Masoretic Text should be considered original because it is unlikely that the consonantal waw of a niphal yiqtol form would have dropped out. Rather, the Greek and Latin translators made an interpretive, smooth rendering of a difficult and ambiguous text. ...
Austin Surls, Making Sense of the Divine Name in the Book of Exodus: From Etymology to Literary Onomastics, BBRSup 17 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2017), 84.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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