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LXX Genesis

Septuagint

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Chapter 15

1 And after these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram, I shield you, your reward shall be very great. 2 And Abram said, Master, what will you give me? whereas I am departing without a child, but the son of Masek my home-born female slave, this Eliezer of Damascus is my heir. 3 And Abram said, Since you have given me no seed, my home-born servant shall succeed me. 4 And immediately there was a voice of the Lord to him, saying, This shall not be your heir; but he that shall come out of you shall be your heir. 5 And he brought him out and said to him, Look up now to heaven, and count the stars, if you shall be able to number them fully, and he said,⁠ Thus shall your seed be. 6 And Abram believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.⁠ 7 And he said to him, I am God that brought you out of the land of the Chaldeans, so as to give you this land to inherit. 8 And he said, Master and Lord, how shall I know that I shall inherit it? 9 And he said to him, Take for me a heifer in her third year, and a she-goat in her third year, and a ram in his third year, and a dove and a pigeon. 10 So he took to him all these, and divided them in the midst, and set them opposite to each other, but the birds he did not divide. 11 And birds came down upon the bodies, even upon the divided parts of them,⁠ and Abram sat down by them. 12 And about sunset a trance fell upon Abram, and look! a great gloomy terror falls upon him. 13 And it was said to Abram, You shall surely know that your seed shall be a temporary resident in a land not their own, and they shall enslave them, and afflict them, and humble them four hundred years. 14 And the nation which they shall serve I will judge; and after this, they shall come forth here with much property. 15 But you shall depart to your fathers in peace, buried in a good old age. 16 And in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up, even until now. 17 And when the sun was about to set, there was a flame, and look, a smoking furnace and lamps of fire, which passed between these divided pieces. 18 In that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates. 19 The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 20 and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaim, 21 and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Hivites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

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Compare Genesis 15:11 and LXX Genesis 15:11

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Genesis 15 describes Abram driving away birds that descend on the sacrificial animals. The Greek Septuagint translation changes this, instead saying that Abram sat with them, although it is ambiguous if he sat with the birds or with the sacrifices.

Passages

Genesis 15:11

Hebrew Bible
9 The Lord said to him, “Take for me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” 10 So Abram took all these for him and then cut them in two and placed each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in half. 11 When birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 When the sun went down, Abram fell sound asleep, and great terror overwhelmed him. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign country. They will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

LXX Genesis 15:11

Septuagint
9 And he said to him, Take for me a heifer in her third year, and a she-goat in her third year, and a ram in his third year, and a dove and a pigeon. 10 So he took to him all these, and divided them in the midst, and set them opposite to each other, but the birds he did not divide. 11 And birds came down upon the bodies, even upon the divided parts of them, and Abram sat down by them. 12 And about sunset a trance fell upon Abram, and look! a great gloomy terror falls upon him. 13 And it was said to Abram, You shall surely know that your seed shall be a temporary resident in a land not their own, and they shall enslave them, and afflict them, and humble them four hundred years.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Genesis

References

"... LXX-G’s translation shows it understood the Hebrew differently. Its use of the same word ‘winged creature’ for the gathered winged creatures and those coming down on the divided animals implies that they could be the same birds. More problematic is its rendering of Abram’s ‘driving away’ the birds ... LXX-G reports that Abram ‘sat down’ with ‘them’. The referent of ‘them’ – a neuter plural pronoun – is unclear; both the birds and the bodies of the divided animals are neuter plural nouns. Sitting down with one’s enemies, symbolized by the birds, or sitting down with the victims, symbolized by the bodies, are both admirable actions that can bring about reconciliation or sympathetic suffering. However, both are quite different from the symbolic action of driving away one’s enemies ..."
Susan Brayford, Septuagint Commentary Series: Genesis (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 299–300.

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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