John Zhu-En Wee, «Hebrew Syntax in the Organization of Laws and its Adaptation in the Septuagint», Vol. 85 (2004) 523-544
The Hebrew of the Pentateuch exhibits a hierarchy of
discourse markers that indicate different organization levels in the legal
texts. This organization elucidates the relationship (whether coordination or
subordination) of legal stipulations with each other. The markers studied
include X+yk+Pred and X+r#)+Pred
constructions, yk and M)
clauses, as well as a specialized use of the particle
hnh. The Greek translators may have been sensitive to the use of these
markers and even modified them in order to express their particular
interpretation of the text.
Hebrew Syntax in the Organization of Laws
and its Adaptation in the Septuagint (*)
Whereas works on the translation technique of the Septuagint have
tended to focus on lexical equivalences and sentence syntax (1), I have
here attempted to apply such studies to the macroscopic level of the
discourse. Admittedly, it is not always easy to identify a marker that
relates to the discourse level. The difficulty stems from the fact that a
lexeme may function simultaneously on more than one level. A
familiar example is the use of the particle al in Exod 20,13-16 of the
Decalogue (2). On the clausal level, this lexeme has the function of
negating the verb that it precedes. On the discourse level, the
repetition of the particle in the initial position has the rhetoric value of
enumerating these laws, a procedure analogous to the use of bullets in
a list (3).
The application of discourse analysis to translation technique is
particularly tenuous. It assumes that the translators were knowledge-
able of and desirous to transmit the organizational shape of the text
they worked with, and not merely to give a word-for-word equi-
valence (4). Moreover, it is possible that different translators (perhaps
(*) I am grateful to Prof. Dana M. Harris for her encouragement and
insightful comments on this article.
(1) A refreshing exception is the narrative analyses of translation technique
done by J.A. BECK, A Survey of the Literary Sensitivity to Hebrew Narrative
Strategy Within the Translation Technique of the Septuagint (Diss., Trinity
International University 1997); ID., Translators as Storytellers (New York 2000).
However, since Beck is primarily concerned with the narrative genres, his work
hardly deals with the translators’ treatment of discourse features (e.g., flow of
logic in argumentation, hierarchical ordering of topics) that are prevalent in the
legal texts.
(2) Throughout this article, I will use the verse numbering of the Hebrew
Bible.
(3) The Decalogue serves as a wonderful example, because it also illustrates
the ambiguity that often attends the study of discourse markers: Do the two al
particles in Exod 20,17 enumerate one or two laws: “You shall not covet your
neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife . . .�
(4) Specifically, I have in view the translators of the biblical books under
consideration, i.e., Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Thackeray’s
position on the unity of the Koiné of the Pentateuch cannot be sustained, as J.W.
Wevers has noted: “No translator of the Torah worked on more than one book.