Texts in Conversation
The Hebrew version of Malachi announces God's judgment on Edom, giving Esau's land over to desert jackals and leaving it desolate. The Greek translation misunderstood the Hebrew, turning the jackals into ‘gifts of desolation,’ not mentioning the animals.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Malachi 1:3
Hebrew Bible
2 “I have shown love to you,” says the Lord, but you say, “How have you shown love to us?” “Esau was Jacob’s brother,” the Lord explains, “yet I chose Jacob 3 and rejected Esau. I turned Esau’s mountains into a deserted wasteland and gave his territory to the wild jackals.” 4 Edom says, “Though we are devastated, we will once again build the ruined places.” So the Lord of Heaven’s Armies responds, “They indeed may build, but I will overthrow. They will be known as the land of evil, the people with whom the Lord is permanently displeased.
LXX Malachi 1:3
Septuagint
2 “I loved you,” says the Lord. But you said, “In what way have you loved us?” “Was not Esau the brother of Jacob?” said the Lord. “And I loved Jacob, 3 but I hated Esau, and I stationed his boundaries for destruction and his inheritance into gifts of desolation.” 4 Wherefore Edom will say, “It has been overthrown, but we will return and rebuild the desolate places.” This is what the Lord Almighty says: “They will build it up, but I will overthrow it, and it will be called for them borders of wickedness, and a people against whom the Lord has set himself against until eternity.
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Notes and References
"... For the Masoretic Text letannot, some have proposed a verb, natatti, i.e., 'I have made his inheritance a wilderness.' Others have taken that form as a plural construct noun, lin'ot, i.e., 'his inheritance to desert dwellings,' and in so doing have construed the consonants lt as a dittography from the end of the previous word, nahalato. Most Septuagint manuscripts read eis domata eremou, 'into dwellings of the wilderness.' This reading presupposes a Hebrew ne'ot, and is adopted by, among others, REB and JPS. ..."
Petersen, David L.
Zechariah 9-14 and Malachi: A Commentary
(p. 167) Westminster John Knox Press, 1995
* 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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