Septuagint (LXX)

The biblical narrator tells us that YHWH appears to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre, yet Abraham sees three men. Does Abraham recognize YHWH? If so, why do neither Abraham nor Sarah explicitly acknowledge having seen God? The story’s “open narrative” invites readers to piece together the clues and interpret an encounter that unfolds not in a sanctuary, amid priests and liturgical rituals, but in an ordinary family setting, through hospitality, meal preparation, and conversation.

Can translators improve texts like Shakespeare? Or the Bible? Christians, drawing on the Greek Septuagint, claimed that the voice in the wilderness (Isaiah 40:3) refers to John the Baptist. Jews, relying instead on the Aramaic Targum, viewed this verse as explicitly foretelling the return of Jewish exiles after the destruction of the Second Temple. But what did Isaiah actually mean?

The Hebrew particle נָא naʾ appears almost four hundred times in the Bible. How should it be translated? To answer this question, we need to look at: 1) the biblical contexts; 2) the ancient translations of the Bible; 3) medieval grammarians; and 4) modern grammarians.

Philo (1st century C.E.) understands “God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob” (LXX Exodus 3:15) as a divine name. Because the immortal nature of God cannot be directly associated with mortal human beings, and influenced by Greek principles dating back to the 6th–5th century B.C.E., Philo interprets Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as symbols of three paths to moral excellence: learning, nature, and practice.

Written by a Jew in the 2nd century B.C.E., The Letter of Aristeas tells how Demetrius of Phalerum advised King Ptolemy II (3rd cent. B.C.E.) that the Library of Alexandria should commission a Greek translation of the otherwise inaccessible Jewish Torah. At the king’s request, Eleazar, the High Priest of the Jerusalem Temple, sends high-quality manuscripts and seventy-two translators—six from each Israelite tribe—who so impress the Hellenistic king and his court with the Torah’s universal wisdom that he offers to pay them to remain in Egypt.

Hosea (ch. 11) reveals a poignant portrait of God as a tender parent, swaddling Israel’s feet, lifting him to His cheek, and feeding him, only to watch His beloved child walk away. Yet, in the end, hope prevails as the wayward child returns home. But the chapter’s meaning emerges only through historical linguistics and textual criticism: from obscure Hebrew forms to Septuagint variants.

Why does Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba question whether the word “good” appears in the first version of the Decalogue—when the Masoretic Text (MT) clearly omits it? Why do some midrashim speak of God dividing the nations among seventy angels—though Deuteronomy 32:8 says nothing of angels? These phrasings align with the Septuagint (LXX), as do the Haggadah’s emphasis on God’s sole role in the exodus, the wise son’s inclusive phrasing, and the image of God’s outstretched arm.

When the priest looks at a skin infection in a person’s hair or beard, “and there is no black hair in it” (MT), or “there is no yellow hair in it” (LXX), the priest puts the person in quarantine for seven days. Which biblical version is right?

The answer depends on the manuscript and tradition we read: Psalms are segmented differently from as early as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint and continuing through the medieval Hebrew manuscripts of the Masoretic Text.

“When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast, they shall go up on the mountain” (Exodus 19:13). The original intention was for all Israelites to be like priests, and experience YHWH’s revelation on the mountain. But when YHWH descends and the horn sounds, the people recoil and remain below.

Already the editors of the Torah recognized the discrepancies between the two creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2–3 and made redactional alignments so the two stories would read better next to each other. Such awareness is also evident among the earliest interpreters of the Bible, including the book of Jubilees and the Septuagint.

The version of the story of David’s triumph over Goliath (1 Samuel 17–18) in the Septuagint (LXX) is missing many details present in the Masoretic Text (MT). The explanations provided by the Addition and Omission Hypotheses do not fully account for the differences. Taking into account how ancient scrolls were written and repaired offers a new approach.

YHWH instructs Moses to sound a teruah blast to get the eastern camp to travel, and a second for the southern camp. What about the western and northern camps? The answer can be found by comparing the Masoretic Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint: It was a parablepsis.

Song of Songs opens with: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for דֹּדֶיךָ (MT “your loving”) or mastoi sou (LXX “your breasts”) are better than wine.” Why does the LXX translate this way and which version is correct?

Using the metaphor of Israel as YHWH’s vineyard, three biblical texts—Isaiah 5, Psalm 80 and Isaiah 27—grapple with Judah’s destruction and the hope for its future recovery.

The description of Solomon building and dedicating the Temple in the Masoretic Text (MT) of 1 Kings 6 and 8 differ from their parallels in the Septuagint (LXX). These expansions are written in Pentateuchal language, uncharacteristic of Kings, and reflect the attempt of a later scribe(s) to make these scenes cohere with Priestly theology and style, especially of Leviticus 26.

Noah’s name expresses his father’s hope that Noah will bring comfort from the pain of the curse of the land, and before he plants his vineyard, he is called “a man of the land” (איש האדמה). These and other verses point to an older core narrative which spoke not of a flood but of a primeval famine that Noah brings to an end.

Deuteronomy does not have the festival of Shemini Atzeret (“the eighth day of assembly”), while Leviticus and Numbers do. This difference helps explain why the festival is absent in the story of Solomon’s dedication of the Temple in Kings but appears in the version of this same story in Chronicles.

The Letter of Aristeas embellishes its account of Ptolemy’s gift of a table and bowls to the Jerusalem Temple with what Greek rhetoric calls ekphrasis, a graphic description of a thing or person intended to bring the subject vividly to the eyes of the reader. What is the purpose of this embellishment?

Set against the Pharaonic Solomon, Jeroboam frees Israel from servitude and founds the Northern Kingdom. Hadad plays a similar role on behalf of the Edomites. Why are these two “rebels” depicted as heroes?

A burnt offering (olah), described as “sweet smelling” food for YHWH, always includes grain and wine libation “side-dishes,” constituting a complete meal. A purification offering (chattat), however, is a cleansing ritual. Should it also have an accompanying libation? The Masoretic Text of Numbers 28-29 offers an inconsistent answer that differs from that of the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch.

After Korah’s failed rebellion, God commands Elazar to plate the altar with the bronze firepans of the two hundred and fifty tribal leaders (Numbers 17). But didn’t Bezalel already plate the altar in bronze as God commanded when it was first built (Exodus 27 and 38)?

Deuteronomy describes the Israelites camped opposite Suph in the Transjordan. However, the Israelites cross a Yam Suph near Egypt. Moreover, King Solomon builds a fleet of ships on Yam Suph near Eilat. Where is Yam Suph?

Animal, vegetable or mineral? Assyriology and archaeology provide an answer to an ancient question.

The literary similarities between the expulsion of Ishmael account and that of the Akedah implies that a trial is taking place.

Two places in the Bible describe God striking people with hemorrhoids (ophalim): the curses in Deuteronomy 28 and the story of the Philistines’ capture of the ark in 1 Samuel 5-6. In the latter, the Philistines make golden statues of their afflicted buttocks to propitiate the Israelite deity. Traditional readings replace these crass references with the less offensive term techorim (abscesses).

The textual remnants of a Second Temple religious polemic between Judeans and Samaritans about where God’s chosen mountain lies.

The names and numbers of Jacob’s descendants differ between the Masoretic Text (MT) and the Septuagint (LXX). Which tradition is more original, and what prompted the change?

Illustrations From Parashat Ekev

The Book of Exodus begins with an accounting of the members of Jacob's family who went with him to Egypt. Our Torah, the Masoretic Text, lists 70 people. Dead Sea Scroll manuscript 4QEx^b, however, records 75 people. How do we account for this and other differences between the texts?

A 2000-year-old question on how to read a single word in the Torah has generated different opinions on how a custodian for someone’s animal should go about proving that the animal was killed by a beast and not stolen.