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LXX Psalms

Septuagint

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Psalm 91

1 A Psalm of a Song for the Sabbath-day. 2 It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to your name, Most High; 3 to proclaim your mercy in the morning, and your truth by night, 4 on a lute of ten strings, with a song on the harp. 5 For you, Lord, have made me glad with your work: and in the operations of your hands I will exult. 6 How have your works been magnified, Lord! your thoughts are very deep. 7 A foolish man will not know, and a senseless man will not understand this. 8 When the sinners spring up as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity have watched; it is that they may be utterly destroyed for ever. 9 But you, Lord, are most high for ever. 10 For, look, your enemies shall perish; and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 11 But my horn shall be exalted as the horn of a unicorn; and my old age with rich oil. 12 And my eye has seen my enemies, and my ear shall hear the wicked that rise up against me. 13 The righteous shall flourish as a palm tree:⁠ he shall be increased as the cedar in Lebanon. 14 They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. 15 Then they will be increased in a fine old age; and they shall be prosperous; 16 to declare that the Lord my God is righteous, and there is no iniquity in him.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Psalms 91:13 and Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 13

Septuagint · Early Christian

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Summary

The Greek Septuagint translation of Psalm 92 compares the righteous to a palm, a Greek word also meaning phoenix. The Christian theologian Tertullian interprets it as the mythical bird of Greek tradition that dies and rises again, to prove resurrection.

Passages

LXX Psalms 91:13

Septuagint
10 For, look, your enemies shall perish; and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 11 But my horn shall be exalted as the horn of a unicorn; and my old age with rich oil. 12 And my eye has seen my enemies, and my ear shall hear the wicked that rise up against me. 13 The righteous shall flourish as a palm tree: he shall be increased as the cedar in Lebanon. 14 They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. 15 Then they will be increased in a fine old age; and they shall be prosperous; 16 to declare that the Lord my God is righteous, and there is no iniquity in him.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Psalms

Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 13

Early Christian
I mean that bird found only in the East, famous for its uniqueness, prodigious in its posterity, which willingly makes its own funeral and so renews itself, departing and succeeding itself at an end that is a birthday: again a phoenix where there is none any more, again itself which is no longer, another and the same. What could be more expressive and more to the point for this cause? Or of what else is it such a proof? God too says in His Scriptures: “For you shall flourish like the phoenix,” that is, out of death, out of the funeral, so that you may believe that the substance of the body can be recovered even from fire. The Lord declared that we are worth more than many sparrows: if not more than phoenixes too, it is no great thing. (Matthew 10:33) But shall men perish once for all, while the birds of Arabia are sure of their resurrection?
205–215 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh

References

“... The homonymy of the phoenix’ name and the word for palm (Gk phoinix, Lat phoenix), led several Latin authors to assume a relationship between bird and tree (Lactantius, De ave phoen., 69-70; Isidore of Sevilla, Etymol., XVII.7:1). Tertullian, De resurr. mort., XIII:3, read in Ps 91:13 [LXX]: “The righteous shall flourish like the phoenix” (also in Pseudo-Ambrose, De trin., 34 [PL 17, 545A]; On the Origin of the World, NHC II 122:28-29; Byzantine Physiologus, 10). ...”
R. van den Broek, “Phoenix,” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, 2nd extensively rev. ed. (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers; Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999), 655.
“... In analogy with Clement Tertullian also exploits it as a symbol of resurrection. [...] The Torah even proves it. In Scripture it is said the “the righteous shall blossom like Phoenix” (LXX Ps 91:13 ὡς φοίνιξ). Tertullian’s interpretation—based on the homonym φοίνιξ date palm/Phoenix—is interesting because a similar tendency to read Phoenix into the Bible can be detected in some Jewish texts. ...”
Anders Klostergaard Petersen, “Between Old and New: The Problem of Acculturation Illustrated by the Early Christian Use of the Phoenix Motif,” in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome: Studies in Ancient Cultural Interaction in Honour of A. Hilhorst, ed. Florentino García Martínez and Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, JSJSup 82 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 161–162.

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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LXX Psalms 91:13 and Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 13

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