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LXX Genesis

Septuagint

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Chapter 12

1 And the Lord said to Abram, Go forth out of your land and out of your kindred, and out of the house of your father, and come into the land which I will show you.⁠ 2 And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed. 3 And I will bless those that bless you, and curse those that curse you, and in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed.⁠ 4 And Abram went as the Lord spoke to him, and Lot departed with him, and Abram was seventy-five years old, when he went out of Haran. 5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot the son of his brother, and all their possessions, as many as they had got, and every soul which they had got in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and they came into the land of Canaan. 6 And Abram traversed the land lengthwise as far as the place Shechem, to the high oak, and the Canaanites then inhabited the land. 7 And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, I will give this land to your seed. And Abram built an altar there to the Lord who appeared to him. 8 And he departed from there to the mountain eastward of Bethel, and there he pitched his tent in Bethel near the sea, and Ai toward the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord, and called on the name of the Lord. 9 And Abram departed and went and encamped in the wilderness. 10 And there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to stay there, because the famine prevailed in the land. 11 And it happened when Abram drew near to enter into Egypt, Abram said to Sarai his wife, I know that you are a fair woman. 12 It will happen then that when the Egyptians shall see you, they shall say, This is his wife, and they shall kill me, but they shall save you alive. 13 Say, therefore, I am his sister, that it may be well with me on account of you, and my soul shall live because of you. 14 And it happened when Abram entered into Egypt, the Egyptians having seen his wife that she was very beautiful, 15 that the princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh and brought her into the house of Pharaoh. 16 And they treated Abram well on her account, and he had sheep, and calves, and donkeys, and menservants, and women-servants, and mules, and camels. 17 And God tried Pharaoh with great and severe trials, and his house,⁠ because of Sarai, Abram's wife. 18 And Pharaoh having called Abram, said, What is this you have done to me, that you did not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, She is my sister? and I took her for a wife to myself; and now, look, your wife is before you, take her and go quickly away. 20 And Pharaoh gave charge to men concerning Abram, to join in sending him forward, and his wife, and all that he had,⁠ and Lot with him.

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Compare Genesis 12:3 and LXX Genesis 12:3

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

The Hebrew version of Genesis 12:3 uses a verb that can mean the nations bless themselves by Abram. The Greek Septuagint removes that sense with a plain passive, “all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed,” making the blessing something given to them.

Passages

Genesis 12:3

Hebrew Bible
2 Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will exemplify divine blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, but the one who treats you lightly I must curse, so that all the families of the earth may receive blessing through you.” 4 So Abram left, just as the Lord had told him to do, and Lot went with him. (Now Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.)
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

LXX Genesis 12:3

Septuagint
2 And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed. 3 And I will bless those that bless you, and curse those that curse you, and in you shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed. 4 And Abram went as the Lord spoke to him, and Lot departed with him, and Abram was seventy-five years old, when he went out of Haran.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Genesis

References

"... One important observation in this regard is that the Septuagint and later Vulgate have interpreted both the niphal forms in Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 28:14 and the hitpael forms in 22:18; 26:4 as passive. Targums as well as Peshitta use ethpaal-forms (tD) when translating the niphal and hitpael. ..."
Topias K. E. Tanskanen, “Jacob, the Torah, and the Abrahamic Promise: Studies on the Use and Interpretation of the Jacob Story in the Book of Jubilees” (diss., Åbo Akademi University, 2023), 140.

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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Genesis 12:3 and LXX Genesis 12:3

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