Alexander A. Di Lella, «Tobit 4,19 and Romans 9,18: An Intertextual Study», Vol. 90 (2009) 260-263
In this short article I explain how Paul and the author of Tobit share a common theology of Israel’s divine election. Then I analyze the texts and contexts of the rare phrase o#n a@n te/lh| in GII MS. 319 of Tob 4,19 and equally rare o#n qe/lei in Rom 9,18. From this analysis it seems reasonable to conclude that in composing Rom 9,18, Paul had in mind the virtually identical phrase found in Tob 4,19.
Tobit 4,19 and Romans 9,18 261
GII (MSS. 319 and S) My Translation GI and Old Latin variants
en panti; kairw/' eujlovgei
j kuvrion to;n qeo;n ( G I) / D e o
At every moment bless
(eulogh 319) ton qeo;n
jv ; (Dominum CM)
God and
kai; parΔaujtou' ai[thsai ask of him
(aitisai 319)
[
opw" eujqei'ai aiJ oJdoiv sou gevnwntai
{ that your ways
(genontai 319)
v may be straight,
kai; pa'sai aiJ trivboi sou and all your paths
euodwqwsin (eujodoqw'sin 319),
j ' may succeed,
dioti pa'n e[qno" oujk e[cei
v alla;
j
for not every nation has
boulhn ajgaqhvn, ; aujto;" oJ kuvrio" divdwsin pavnta ta;
good counsel,
alla aujto;" oJ kuvrio" divdwsin.
j agaqa;
j
but the Lord himself gives it.
kai; o}n eja;n qevlh/ aujto;" uJyoi' kai; o}n eja;n qevlh/ tapeinoi' kaqw;"
And whom he wills he himself
bouletai.
v
(kai … uyoi' omit S)
J raises on high,
kai; o}n a[n qevlh/ (qelei 319)
v Quem ergo uoluerit ipse
and whom he wills he himself
aujto;" (kuvrio" S) tapeinoi' e{w" [the Lord S] humbles down to alleuat
adou katwtavtw (katw 319).v
/{ et quem uolerit ipse
lowest Hades.
demergit usque ad inferos
deorsum.
kai; nu'n, paidivon, Now therefore, my child,
mnhmovneue ta;" ejntola;" mou remember my commandments,
(omit S) kai; mh; and do not let them
ejxaleifqhvtwsan be erased
ek th'" kardiva" sou.
j from your heart.
The text of the italicized sentence above from GII is different in GI (given
above), which says, “And the one whom he wishes he humbles, just as he
willsâ€. Not surprisingly, support of the better reading in 319 of GII comes from
the Old Latin: quem ergo uoluerit [quemcunque uult C] ipse alleuat [dominus
exaltat CM] et quem uoluerit ipse [quemcunque uult C] demergit [humiliat
et deponet C] usque ad inferos deorsum (6), “The one whom he wills he raises
at the top of the page with its apparatus underneath. GII is found relatively intact only in
Codex Sinaiticus (= S) and partially (from 3,6 to the word touvtou in 6,16) in cursive MS.
319, which however gives GI from 1,1 to 3,5 and from 6,16 o{ti to 14,15. MS. S,
unfortunately, contains many copyists’ errors and has two significant lacunae (4,7-19b, as
mentioned above, and 13,6i-10b). The Cave IV fragmentary texts of Tobit (four in
Aramaic, 4QToba-d ar, and one in Hebrew, 4QTobe) “agree in general with the long
recension of the book found in the fourth-century Greek text of codex Sinaiticusâ€, J.A.
FITZMYER, “Tobitâ€, Qumran Cave 4, XIV. Parabiblical Texts. Part 2 (eds. M. BROSHI et al.)
(DJD 19; Oxford 1995) 2. J.A. FITZMYER, “The Aramaic and Hebrew Fragments of Tobit
from Qumran Cave 4â€, CBQ 57 (1995) 675, writes that the Qumran fragments preserve
“perhaps not more than a fifth of the original Semitic textsâ€, and then he adds that “there is
little in (these fragments) that is radically new, or different from the form of the story in
either (Sinaiticus) or the VLâ€. He dates the copies of these fragments from roughly 100
B.C. to A.D. 50 (ibid., 655-657).
(6) The Old Latin text is taken from: A.E. BROOKE – N. MCLEAN – H. St THACKERAY
(eds.), The Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge 1940) III.I, 131. I cite only the principal
variants, primarily from MS. C, “which most closely reproduces the S-type of text†(ibid.,
ix).