Texts in Conversation
In the Hebrew version of 2 Kings, Joram of Israel becomes king in the second year of Judah’s Jehoram, a detail the Greek Septuagint translation omits. Hebrew scribes flagged the line as out of place, and the Greek times the reigns differently.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Kings 1:17
Hebrew Bible
16 Elijah said to the king, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘You sent messengers to seek an oracle from Baal Zebub, the god of Ekron. Is it because there is no God in Israel from whom you can seek a message? Therefore you will not leave the bed you lie on, for you will certainly die.’” 17 And he did die in keeping with the Lord’s message that he had spoken through Elijah. In the second year of the reign of King Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat over Judah, Ahaziah’s brother Jehoram replaced him as king of Israel, because he had no son. 18 The rest of the events of Ahaziah’s reign, including his accomplishments, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Israel.
LXX 2 Kings 1:17
Septuagint
16 Elijah spoke to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Why was it that you sent to consult with Baal-zebub, god of Ekron? Is it not the case that the bed on which you ascended there is one that you will not descend from it, for you will die by death?’” 17 He died according to the word of the Lord that Elijah spoke. 18 The rest of the deeds of Ahaziah that he did, behold, are these not written in the document of the words of the annals of the kings of Israel?
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Notes and References
... in the second year of Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah. This clause breaks the syntactic connection between verse 17a (“Jehoram his brother succeeded him”) and 17c (“because he did not have a son”); its intrusive nature is marked in the Masoretic Text pisqaʾ beʾ emṣaʿ pasuq, a long spacing. The function of this masoretic notation is still undetermined, though it surely meant to call the reader’s attention to a problem in the text tradition. Moreover, the synchronism of Jehoram’s reign here is at variance with that given in 3:1; it is part of an alternate chronological system preserved for the most part in Lucianic manuscripts of the Septuagint, which have four additional verses (1:18a-d). For fuller details, see J. D. Shenkel, Chronology and Recensional Development in the Greek Text of Kings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), 68-82. ...
Cogan, Mordechai and Hayim Tadmor
II Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
(p. 27) Doubleday, 1988
* 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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