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Jonah uses unusual grammar to describe how everyone responded to his warning by wearing sackcloth. The Greek Septuagint translation simplifies this into the past tense and applies it to both people and animals, describing the animals wearing sackcloth.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jonah 3:8
Hebrew Bible
7 He issued a proclamation and said, “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. 8 Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly to God, and everyone must turn from their evil way of living and from the violence that they do. 9 Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die.”
LXX Jonah 3:8
Septuagint
7 And proclamation was made, and it was commanded in Nineve by the king and by his great men, saying, Do not let men, or cattle, or oxen, or sheep, taste anything, nor feed, nor drink water. 8 So men and cattle were clothed with sackcloths, and cried earnestly to God; and they turned every one from their evil way, and from the iniquity that was in their hands, saying, 9 Who knows if God will repent, and turn from his fierce anger, and so we shall not perish?
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Notes and References
"... But we observe an interesting occurrence in 3:8. There the Hebrew writer has done something unusual. The three verbs which communicate the Ninevite response to Jonah are all waw + imperfect forms rather than the waw-consecutive forms with which the writer has been telling the story. This places emphasis on the content of this verse. The Greek translator has read those same three verbs as waw-consecutive imperfects (a different vocalization than the MT). The result is that the Greek translator uses the aorist tense-form for these three verbs, abandoning the literary emphasis of the Hebrew version ..."
Beck, John A.
Translators as Storytellers: A Study in Septuagint Translation Technique
(p. 43) Peter Lang Publishing, 2000
* 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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