Nah. 3:1 οὐκ ἦν πέρας τοῖς ἔθνεσιν αὐτῆς

Are you learning Koine Greek, the Greek of the New Testament and most other post-classical Greek texts? Whatever your level, use this forum to discuss all things Koine, Biblical or otherwise, including grammar, textbook talk, difficult passages, and more.
Post Reply
C. S. Bartholomew
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1259
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:03 pm

Nah. 3:1 οὐκ ἦν πέρας τοῖς ἔθνεσιν αὐτῆς

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

Nah. 3:1 Ὦ πόλις αἱμάτων ὅλη ψευδὴς ἀδικίας πλήρης, οὐ ψηλαφηθήσεται θήρα. 2 φωνὴ μαστίγων καὶ φωνὴ σεισμοῦ τροχῶν καὶ ἵππου διώκοντος καὶ ἅρματος ἀναβράσσοντος 3 καὶ ἱππέως ἀναβαίνοντος καὶ στιλβούσης ῥομφαίας καὶ ἐξαστραπτόντων ὅπλων καὶ πλήθους τραυματιῶν καὶ βαρείας πτώσεως· καὶ οὐκ ἦν πέρας τοῖς ἔθνεσιν αὐτῆς, καὶ ἀσθενήσουσιν ἐν τοῖς σώμασιν αὐτῶν

Nah. 3:1 (NRSV) Ah! City of bloodshed,
utterly deceitful, full of booty—
no end to the plunder!
2 The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,
galloping horse and bounding chariot!
3 Horsemen charging,
flashing sword and glittering spear,
piles of dead,
heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
they stumble over the bodies!
For τοῖς ἔθνεσιν the masoretic text (MT) has ל/גויה which minus vowel points is ambiguous. The context makes it obvious that ἔθνεσιν (nations, gentiles, peoples) is wrong. The same Hebrew word is found in the following line where it is translated τοῖς σώμασιν (bodies, corpses). E. Tov shows a Hebrew textual variant immediately following for ἀσθενήσουσιν but nothing for τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. At first it would appear that this problem is not one of translation but textual transmission. It is hard to come up with a scenario where someone who could translate Hebrew would make this error. On the other hand the ambiguity of the Hebrew consonantal text appears to be the reason for the error. The consonant string ל/גויה is compatible with prep + feminine noun singular (collective noun) corpses. It is also compatible with prep + masculine plural with fem 3rd per possessive suffix which is how the Greek version reads it τοῖς ἔθνεσιν αὐτῆς. However, the best I can discover using Accordance גוי with a fem 3rd per sg suffix does not occur in the MT.

I didn't dream this up. LEH (LXX Lexicon)
ἔθνος,-ους+ N3N 151-78-348-157-269-1003
Gn 10:5(bis).20.31.32 stereotyped rendition of גוי; nation, people Gn 10:5; non-Jews, Gentiles Ps 2:1; the Jewish nation (spoken of by Gentiles) 2 Mc 11:25;
*Prv 26:3 ἔθνει -ל/גוי for a nation for MT ל/גו for the back ;
*Na 3:3 ἔθνεσιν αὐτῆς -ל/גויה ◊‏גוי‎ to her nations for MT ‏ל/גויה ◊גו to her corpses ;
C. Stirling Bartholomew

User avatar
jeidsath
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 5332
Joined: Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:42 pm
Location: Γαλεήπολις, Οὐισκόνσιν

Re: Nah. 3:1 οὐκ ἦν πέρας τοῖς ἔθνεσιν αὐτῆς

Post by jeidsath »

It seems like "καὶ ἀσθενήσουσιν ἐν τοῖς σώμασιν αὐτῶν" fits better "no end to their peoples" than it would with "no end to their corpses." Maybe the one variant caused the other.
“One might get one’s Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato." "In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go. The German scholars have improved Greek so much.”

Joel Eidsath -- jeidsath@gmail.com

C. S. Bartholomew
Textkit Zealot
Posts: 1259
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:03 pm

Re: Nah. 3:1 οὐκ ἦν πέρας τοῖς ἔθνεσιν αὐτῆς

Post by C. S. Bartholomew »

jeidsath wrote:It seems like "καὶ ἀσθενήσουσιν ἐν τοῖς σώμασιν αὐτῶν" fits better "no end to their peoples" than it would with "no end to their corpses." Maybe the one variant caused the other.
I looked at critical text of Pesher Nahum[1] which is the reason I am looking at Nahum. The reading in of the critical word ל/גויה is the same as the Masoretic Text(MT). So as far as I can tell there is no textual variant in the Hebrew for that particular word. However, the second place the word גויה occurs in 4QpNah there is variant. A prefixed ב/גוית/ם preposition is dropped from the text and there is some textual instability in Masoretic Text[2] just before the preposition. This might be a clue to why the LXX translator had a problem. We don't know what his vorlage looked like. So if you think of textual instability as noise, the text is noisy close to the dicey translation. That's a pretty good sign that the vorlage for the LXX doesn't look like the MT or Pesher Nahum.



[1]4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical Edition (JSP Supplements) is a book by Gregory Doudna (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 836pgs) 2002.

[2] E. Tov note: MT Ketib יכשׁלו LXX καὶ ἀσθενήσουσιν agrees with Qere ו/כשׁלו

In other words a yod is exchanged for a vav which becomes καὶ in the LXX.
C. Stirling Bartholomew

Post Reply