you learn something new every day
Saturday, October 29, 2005
I was doing some research on Ps 110:1 in the New Testament (which is still ongoing) and I ran into something kind of strange, but pretty interesting. The theme I'm researching is Messianic hope "at the right of YHWH" as a priestly king in the line of David, which is all over the NT.
In Zech 6:13 there's a difference in the MT Hebrew and Old Greek (just saying LXX might be too general here). If you look at the Hebrew in v. 13, you see "and/then there will be a priest on his throne" ("on his throne = a'l kis'o). The Greek has kai estai ho hierus ek dexiwn (and to be the priest on his right).
I'm not sure why this substitution of right for throne happened. Most commentators give it a quick once-over. Some do grapple with the difficulties in the Hebrew grammar and conclude that the Greek was changed to make more sense of the construction for Greek readership. However, there are often exegetical reasons for differences between the Old Greek text and the Hebrew MT. I wonder if theological expectations about Messiah (a hot and developing topic following the restoration and 2nd temple period) might not have had something to do with this switch?
Hopefully when I do further research I will come accross a fully developed argument about the LXX vs. MT here. Of course, it will be in German like all the really cool journal articles. Luckily for me, I'm learning German.
I got tired of looking at the footnotes of exegetical commentaries and seeing articles (on the best topics) in other languages and not being able to even read the title of the article!
In Zech 6:13 there's a difference in the MT Hebrew and Old Greek (just saying LXX might be too general here). If you look at the Hebrew in v. 13, you see "and/then there will be a priest on his throne" ("on his throne = a'l kis'o). The Greek has kai estai ho hierus ek dexiwn (and to be the priest on his right).
I'm not sure why this substitution of right for throne happened. Most commentators give it a quick once-over. Some do grapple with the difficulties in the Hebrew grammar and conclude that the Greek was changed to make more sense of the construction for Greek readership. However, there are often exegetical reasons for differences between the Old Greek text and the Hebrew MT. I wonder if theological expectations about Messiah (a hot and developing topic following the restoration and 2nd temple period) might not have had something to do with this switch?
Hopefully when I do further research I will come accross a fully developed argument about the LXX vs. MT here. Of course, it will be in German like all the really cool journal articles. Luckily for me, I'm learning German.
I got tired of looking at the footnotes of exegetical commentaries and seeing articles (on the best topics) in other languages and not being able to even read the title of the article!
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