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.
536 John Zhu-En Wee
choice was not arbitrary, but a deliberate method the translators used
to group together certain sections of laws. To be sure, the not
infrequent translation of X+yk+Pred as an ejavn clause (9 times) appears
to weaken my argument for the translators’ intentionality (30).
Nevertheless, as will be demonstrated later, the consistent principles
by which this rendition occurs and the coherence of the resulting
Greek text does suggest some involvement of intention.
In the legal texts, yk and µa in conditions are translated uniformly
as ejavn and never as eij (31). Sterenberg rightly notes that the use of ejavn
in these passages “contemplates not a single occurrence, but one
which may arise repeatedly ... The relation between the protasis and
the apodosis is such that as often as the event referred to in the protasis
happens, so often that is to be observed that is commanded in the
apodosis†(32). In addition, it is likely that the frequent employment of
ejavn with this sense may have led to its use as a literary convention for
legislative material. The habit of using ejavn persists even in protases
where, for various reasons, the indicative is used alongside the
subjunctive (33). In some cases, the main force of the protasis rests on
the indicative verb instead of the subjunctive. For example, the
protasis in Exod 30,12 consists of two parts: 1) Moses taking a census
of the Israelites (lavbh/" = subjunctive); 2) each Israelite giving a
ransom to the Lord for his life (dwvsousin = indicative). It is the
second part, rather than the first, that ensures the result of the
(30) I generally agree with A. Aejmelaeus’s observation that “the more
frequent a rendering, the less intention there is to it†(“Translation Technique and
the Intention of the Translatorâ€, VII Congress of the International Organization
for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 28).
(31) The frequent use of conditional yk (translated as ejavn) seems to be peculiar
to legal texts. For example, Sipilä’s study reveals only one case in the books of
Joshua and Judges where yk is translated as ejavn. Cf. S. SIPILÄ, “The Renderings of
the Circumstantial yk Clauses in the LXX of Joshua and Judgesâ€, X Congress of
the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 57-59.
(32) STERENBERG, “Use of Conditional Sentencesâ€, 48.
(33) The clearest examples of these protases are in Exod 30,12; Lev 19,20;
22,13; 27,27; Num 9,14; 15,14; 35,22-23; Deut 17,2-4; 21,1. Sterenberg thinks
that, in such cases, “the relation of one part of the protases to another was such
that ambiguity would have arisen if the subjunctive alone had been employed.
E.g., sometimes a verb of the protasis refers to an item which must be thought to
precede in time the event referred to in the immediately preceding verb; or, too, in
one verb something may be supposed as a possible event, requiring therefore the
subjunctive, in another something as real and requiring therefore the indicative.
Both may however be governed by the particle ejavn†(“Use of Conditional
Sentencesâ€, 52-53).