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.
538 John Zhu-En Wee
structure of Hebrew. There are, nevertheless, features suggestive of the
translators’ intentionality as shown by the following examples.
a) Levitical offerings (Lev 1,1 – 5,13; Num 15)
The short historical narrative accounts of Yahweh speaking to
Moses (Lev 1,1; 4,1) divide the levitical offerings into two main
groups: 1) Burnt, Cereal, and Well-being Offerings (Lev 1–3); 2)
Purification Offerings (Lev 4,1 – 5,13). According to Milgrom, “the
sacrifices are listed from the point of view of the donorâ€: Lev 1–3
deals with “the spontaneously motivated sacrifices,†while Lev 4–5
deals with “the sacrifices required for expiation (purification and
reparation)†(36). Except for the section on well-being offerings which
begins with an µa clause, the different types of offerings are intro-
duced by the X+yk+Pred construction (Lev 1,2; 2,1; 4,2; 5,1). The
LXX, however, translates this construction as X+ejavn+Pred in Lev
1,2; 4,2 and as the ejavn clause in Lev 2,1; 5,1. This has the effect of
strengthening the dipartite division by the following organization:
Historical Narrative (1,1)
X+ejavn+Pred (= X+yk+Pred):
A Group 1
Burnt Offerings (1,2-17)
B................... ejavn clause (= X+yk+Pred): Cereal Offerings (2,1-16)
B’.................. ejavn clause (= µa clause): Well-being Offerings (3,1-17)
Historical Narrative (4,1)
X+ejavn+Pred (= X+yk+Pred):
A Group 2
Purification Offerings (4,2-35)
B................... ejavn clause (= X+yk+Pred): Purification Offerings (5,1-13).
Also, this two-fold grouping may have been adopted by the
translators for Numbers 15 (see outline below). The difficulty of the
X+rça+Pred pattern in Num 15,30 has already been noted above in
the discussion of Rule 2. Through the use of o{tan clauses and the
X+rel+Pred construction, the discursive section of Num 15,17-31 is
divided nicely into 3 sections: 1) offerings of first fruits (representa-
tive of Group 1 in Lev 1–3); 2) purification offerings (Group 2 in Lev
(36) J. MILGROM, Leviticus 1–16. A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary (ed. W.F. ALBRIGHT – D.N. FREEDMAN) (AB 3; Garden City, NY
1991) 134.