Text-Critical Conjecture in Zech. 14:17

[jwmealy]

I had always been intrigued by the strange disconnect between the Hebrew and Greek of Zech. 14:17:

Protasis:
וְהָיָה אֲשֶׁר לֹֽא־יַעֲלֶה מֵאֵת מִשְׁפְּחוֹת הָאָרֶץ אֶל־יְרוּשָׁלִַם לְהִֽשְׁתַּחֲוֺת לְמֶלֶךְ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת
καὶ ἔσται ὅσοι ἐὰν μὴ ἀναβῶσιν ἐκ πασῶν τῶν φυλῶν τῆς γῆς εἰς Ιερουσαλημ τοῦ προσκυνῆσαι τῷ βασιλεῖ κυρίῳ παντοκράτορι

Here the two are extremely close, except that G adds πασῶν. But that may simply be because the translator understands מֵאֵת as ablative, and he does not want the reader to read ἐκ τῶν φυλῶν as indicating source or direction.

Apodosis:
וְלֹא עֲלֵיהֶם יִהְיֶה הַגָּֽשֶׁם
καὶ οὗτοι ἐκείνοις προστεθήσονται

These two are totally different. M says that the non-worshipers will not get rain on them, and G says that the non-worshipers "will be added to those," apparently those who attacked Jerusalem and died instantly when their flesh fell off their bones. As far as I have discovered in my attempt at exhaustive research of secondary sources on this topic, no one has given a plausible account of how the Greek came from the Hebrew. I have analyzed the proposals of Köhler, Vollers, Lowe, Jansma, and Rudolph, and none of them suggests itself as at all probable. Conversely, I have not seen anyone put forward a proposal for how a Hebrew scroll c. 200 BCE that looks like what the translator of G was working from could have resulted in the text as represented in M. Nobody, in other words, with the partial exception of T. Jansma, thinks G might give evidence, in Greek, of what Zechariah (or the author, at any rate) wrote in Hebrew.

I have come to an apparently new theory of how one of these two texts gave rise to the other.

It starts from the following reconstructed Hebrew of the apodosis:
וְגַם־אֵלֶּה עֲלֵיהֶם יִוַּסְפוּ
καὶ οὗτοι ἐκείνοις προστεθήσονται

Keep in mind that Hebrew does not have a far demonstrative, so ־הֶם has to do the job. The translator understands that "those" to whom the non-worshipers will be added are those mentioned in v. 12 who were instantly killed by the flesh-melting plague (מָגֵּפָה). The word עֲלֵיהֶם in M works nicely with the Hebrew verb לְהִוַּסֵף (nifal from the stem יסף, to add) as a source for ἐκείνοις προστεθήσονται, because there are numerous examples in G of the verb προστίθημι in the active or passive voice plus a noun or pronoun in the dative case being used with יסף and the preposition עַל to mean to add to or be added to (e.g. Lev. 26:21; Deut. 1:11; Jer. 43:32 G [36:32 M]).

I hypothesize that a copyist's mistake in spelling יִוַּסְפוּ resulted in יָסוּף, "it shall come to an end," 3ms impf. from the root סוף, to cease, come to an end, yielding the opaque וְגַם־אֵלֶּה עֲלֵיהֶם יָסוּף “and as for these, upon them it shall come to an end.” What will come to an end upon them? At some point the teaching becomes that it is the rain that will come to an end upon them, i.e., they will no longer receive rain if they do not come up to worship at the feast of Tabernacles. This interpretation is taught and passes into common knowledge in the academy, perhaps through a targum or, or in addition, perhaps it attaches itself to the text as a marginal or supralinear gloss, הַגֶּשֶׁם. At a later stage the idea that what happens to non-worshipers is denial of rain finds its way back into the early M Hebrew text tradition as a correction of what had come to be looked upon as a defective Hebrew text.

The conclusion is that it is possible--perhaps even the most likely reconstruction--that the original Hebrew of Zech. 14:17 was this or something very close to it:

וְהָיָה אֲשֶׁר לֹֽא־יַעֲלֶה מֵאֵת מִשְׁפְּחוֹת הָאָרֶץ אֶל־יְרוּשָׁלִַם לְהִֽשְׁתַּחֲוֺת לְמֶלֶךְ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת וְגַם־אֵלֶּה עֲלֵיהֶם יִוַּסְפוּ

[kwrandolph]

Instead of assuming that we have a faulty text, why not accept that (one or both of the following):

A) the translator simply misunderstood the text. There are enough examples of the LXX translators not understanding the Hebrew.

B) the translator added his own commentary, what he expects to be the case if the message of the text is carried out.

Are there any MSS even remotely similar to your speculation? That verse is not found in the DSS.

Karl W. Randolph.

[jwmealy]

Good questions.

why not accept that... A) the translator simply misunderstood the text. There are enough examples of the LXX translators not understanding the Hebrew.

Because ולוא יהיה עליהם הגשׁם is a very simple phrase made up of extremely ordinary and simple words. It would be an amazing feat to misunderstand it. Moreover, in order to maintain such a claim, one would have to be able to come forward with an explanation of how the translator managed to misunderstand it. What was his process of thinking, that led to him producing the text as we have it? No such explanation has been proposed thus far. You cannot simply assume that if something disagrees with M, it must be wrong.

why not accept that... B) the translator added his own commentary, what he expects to be the case if the message of the text is carried out.

Because I have gone through Zechariah verse by verse comparing the Hebrew to the Greek of the LXX, and my sense is that the translator is meticulous in staying close to the Hebrew. Indeed, the whole scroll of the twelve is reputed to be a very close translation by a single translator. I can think of no good reason to doubt that the translator of the scroll of the twelve had the very same intelligence and passion to transmit the holy text accurately as any Masorete. His philosophy of translation is like that of the NASB translation committee. It is absolutely not his style to make stuff up to suit himself like Kenneth Taylor or Eugene Peterson.

I worry that conservative Christian and Jewish scholars indulge in canonical thinking about M equivalent to KJV-onlyism, and that this prejudices them unfairly against G in text-critical analyses. It feels somehow taboo to say this aloud, but it is a serious concern of mine.

Are there any MSS even remotely similar to your speculation? That verse is not found in the DSS.

You are correct. G stands alone for this reading in v. 17. On the other hand, the Aramaic (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan) and Syriac, the Latin, and Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, are all theorized to stem from one exemplar that was selected from among all the existing scrolls around the end of the first century CE--and that ms was not a recension. When all your witnesses are downstream of a single witness, they do not add manuscript weight to its testimony. Thus we have M and G theoretically standing on level ground with each other.

[jwmealy]

I forgot to reply to one of the ideas in Karl's response to me.

...why not accept that ...the translator added his own commentary, what he expects to be the case if the message of the text is carried out.

Despite the fact that the translator does not do such things, we could grant, for the sake of argument, that he could have done so here. But note the result. In G of v. 17, there is no longer any reference to rain at all, and in G of v. 18 we do not have the negative לֹא regarding the מָגֵּפָה, plague. Thus the plague becomes explicitly the previously-mentioned plague described in v. 12, which caused people's flesh to fall off their bones while they stood on their feet, i.e. they died instantly, before they could even fall down.

This cannot be an interpretation of "what he [the translator] thinks will be the case" if people don't go up to worship, if what he is reading is that they will be denied rain. Being denied rain does not instantly slay you by making your flesh fall off your bones while you are standing on your feet. So the G translator has an entirely different story, and his story cannot be a loose and fanciful interpretation of the story he reads in a text identical to M--even if you thought he was capable of allowing himself such freedom. His story has no place for rain at all.

[Jason Hare]

Very interesting question. I want to think about it more before commenting. In the meantime, I’ve put the 𝔐 and the 𝔊 side-by-side. I also cleaned up the Hebrew text a bit (fixed the placement of the chirik under the mem sofit of יְרוּשָׁלִַ֫ם and the placement of the cholam on the consonantal vav in לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֺת [as וֺ vō rather than as וֹ ô]) and changed the vocalization of יְהוָה to יַהְוֶה. In the Greek, I added the diacritics to Ιερουσαλημ (as Ἰερουσαλήμ)—I’m always annoyed that the 𝔊 doesn’t accentuate proper nouns, even when they are accented in the New Testament.

It’s worth noting that the translator was careful throughout the verse to render his Greek rather directly from the Hebrew text, phrase-by-phrase, except at the end. Taken with Webb’s statement that the Twelve are translated very closely between Hebrew and Greek, this is certainly striking—and it is worthy of consideration and comment.

zech14-17.png

[kwrandolph]

Good questions.

why not accept that... A) the translator simply misunderstood the text. There are enough examples of the LXX translators not understanding the Hebrew.

Because ולוא יהיה עליהם הגשׁם is a very simple phrase made up of extremely ordinary and simple words. It would be an amazing feat to misunderstand it. Moreover, in order to maintain such a claim, one would have to be able to come forward with an explanation of how the translator managed to misunderstand it. What was his process of thinking, that led to him producing the text as we have it? No such explanation has been proposed thus far. You cannot simply assume that if something disagrees with M, it must be wrong.

Have you considered that it is not as simple as it seems? That the translator thought that הגשם is a Hiphil infinitive form of נגש meaning “to approach, draw near” and that עליהם had something to do with their sacrifices? That it is we who misunderstand the Hebrew?

why not accept that... B) the translator added his own commentary, what he expects to be the case if the message of the text is carried out.

Because I have gone through Zechariah verse by verse comparing the Hebrew to the Greek of the LXX, and my sense is that the translator is meticulous in staying close to the Hebrew. Indeed, the whole scroll of the twelve is reputed to be a very close translation by a single translator. I can think of no good reason to doubt that the translator of the scroll of the twelve had the very same intelligence and passion to transmit the holy text accurately as any Masorete. His philosophy of translation is like that of the NASB translation committee. It is absolutely not his style to make stuff up to suit himself like Kenneth Taylor or Eugene Peterson.

I have no idea who are Kenneth Taylor nor Eugene Peterson, but I also don’t trust the NASB 100%.

I worry that conservative Christian and Jewish scholars indulge in canonical thinking about M equivalent to KJV-onlyism, and that this prejudices them unfairly against G in text-critical analyses. It feels somehow taboo to say this aloud, but it is a serious concern of mine.

The KJV is why I really got into reading Tanakh in Hebrew—I didn’t understand the KJV.

When it comes to textual criticism, I want to see alternate readings. That’s part of the reason I reject the majority of Qere readings from the Masoretes in their Kethiv/Qere pairs.

Are there any MSS even remotely similar to your speculation? That verse is not found in the DSS.

You are correct. G stands alone for this reading in v. 17. On the other hand, the Aramaic (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan) and Syriac, the Latin, and Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, are all theorized to stem from one exemplar that was selected from among all the existing scrolls around the end of the first century CE--and that ms was not a recension. When all your witnesses are downstream of a single witness, they do not add manuscript weight to its testimony. Thus we have M and G theoretically standing on level ground with each other.

In view of my wanting MSS containing alternate readings, are there any that approach what I proposed as a possible understanding by the translator?

Karl W. Randolph.

[jwmealy]

why not accept that... A) the translator simply misunderstood the text. There are enough examples of the LXX translators not understanding the Hebrew.

Because ולוא יהיה עליהם הגשׁם is a very simple phrase made up of extremely ordinary and simple words. It would be an amazing feat to misunderstand it. Moreover, in order to maintain such a claim, one would have to be able to come forward with an explanation of how the translator managed to misunderstand it. What was his process of thinking, that led to him producing the text as we have it? No such explanation has been proposed thus far. You cannot simply assume that if something disagrees with M, it must be wrong.

Have you considered that it is not as simple as it seems? That the translator thought that הגשם is a Hiphil infinitive form of נגש meaning “to approach, draw near” and that עליהם had something to do with their sacrifices? That it is we who misunderstand the Hebrew?

I am interested having a look at an apodosis clause (cf. Zech. 14:17a, the protasis) that you can make from the consonantal Hebrew of v. 17b, that analyzes הגשׁם as a hifil of נגשׁ. Let's not even worry about the Greek to begin with; first things first. I just want to see a sentence that makes sense in the context in Hebrew. For whatever it's worth (and it might not be much), I looked up all the chapters in the Tanach that refer to the feast of Tabernacles, and the verb נגשׁ does not appear in any of them.

In view of my wanting MSS containing alternate readings, are there any that approach what I proposed as a possible understanding by the translator?

No, there are no mss in Hebrew or any other language that seem to understand נגשׁ as something to do with bringing an offering, or God causing people to come forward, or the like. We do have scholars proposing that perhaps הגשׁם at the end of Zech. 14:17 was read by our translator of G as a form of נגשׁ. Here is a snippet from a journal article I am currently writing, sans footnotes:

Proposals for how to get G from something closely approximating M have been made, for example, by Köhler, Vollers, Lowe, Jansma, and Rudolph, all of them tentative. Köhler, followed by Jansma, proposes the possibility that the translators of G might have read וְאֵלֶּה עֲלֵיהֶם יִהְהוּ נִגָּשִׁם at the end of Zech 14:17. Likewise, Lowe suggests וְאֵלֶּה עֲלֵיהֶם יִהְהוּ הֶגֵּשָׁם or עֲלֵיהֶם יִהְהוּ הֶגֵּשָׁם. Rudolph suggests וְאֵלֶּה עֲלֵיהֶם יִהְהוּ מֻגֵּשִׁים, getting hesitant endorsement from Boda, whereas Vollers suggests הֻגְשׁוּ is what the translators of G were looking at in place of הַגֶּשֶׁם. A shared idea of these reconstructions is that אֵלֶּה results from metathesis (erroneous swapping of two letters) of M’s וְלֹא. But the words וְלֹא and וְאֵלֶּה neither look like one another, given the extra ה in וְאֵלֶּה, nor do they sound like one another. It is significantly harder to confuse words that sound unalike. It is hard to imagine a copyist misspelling one of the simplest and most common words in the language. Beyond that, all of these reconstructions, attractive as they may be for finding a place for at least the first two letters of גֶשֶׁם, share the same fatal difficulty: נָגַשׁ (approach, come near) never means to add (the common meaning of προστίθημι), nor does προστίθημι ever mean draw near, nor does it ever translate נָגַשׁ. So these proposals all fail at the outset. In addition, the proposed Hebrew scarcely makes sense either by itself or in the context. Lowe, unlike the others, risks turning his proposed reading into modern language: “and to them shall be the-making-to-approach-of-the-others,” which is hopelessly meaningless as well as having no real resemblance to G.

As you can see, I do not think any proposal put forward so far has legs.

I worry that conservative Christian and Jewish scholars indulge in canonical thinking about M equivalent to KJV-onlyism, and that this prejudices them unfairly against G in text-critical analyses. It feels somehow taboo to say this aloud, but it is a serious concern of mine.

The KJV is why I really got into reading Tanakh in Hebrew—I didn’t understand the KJV.

When it comes to textual criticism, I want to see alternate readings. That’s part of the reason I reject the majority of Qere readings from the Masoretes in their Kethiv/Qere pairs.

I can't tell for sure, but it seems to me that you may be using what I've called canonical thinking above: Because the holy text is the holy text, God would have made sure to preserve it down through the centuries one way or another. The correct text may only be in a fragment somewhere, but it must be preserved in writing someplace, otherwise the holy text has a hole in it or a defect in it, and that cannot be, because it is the holy text. I admit to having a desire for a holy text that is perfect and whole and specifiable down to the letter, but that desire does not grant me such a holy text. I have the actual text, not the ideal text I would like. And if I want to know, as best I can, what it originally said, I cannot allow myself to be prejudiced by a preference for a canonically pleasing solution. I say all that because I need to practice talking about the problem of canonical thinking, because I know that when my article is published I am going to get vigorous pushback that is essentially based on people's discomfort at having someone say that that which they thought was the Bible was probably not what Zechariah wrote, and, of course, God would never allow the faithful to go 2,000 years (actually 1,600, since Jerome) thinking the holy text said one thing (something about non-worshipers being denied rain), when the holy text actually said this other thing (something about non-worshipers being killed instantly).

I have no idea who are Kenneth Taylor nor Eugene Peterson, but I also don’t trust the NASB 100%.

Ken Taylor produced the Living Bible paraphrase. Eugene Peterson produced The Message.

[kwrandolph]

why not accept that... A) the translator simply misunderstood the text. There are enough examples of the LXX translators not understanding the Hebrew.

Because ולוא יהיה עליהם הגשׁם is a very simple phrase made up of extremely ordinary and simple words. It would be an amazing feat to misunderstand it. Moreover, in order to maintain such a claim, one would have to be able to come forward with an explanation of how the translator managed to misunderstand it. What was his process of thinking, that led to him producing the text as we have it? No such explanation has been proposed thus far. You cannot simply assume that if something disagrees with M, it must be wrong.

I am interested having a look at an apodosis clause (cf. Zech. 14:17a, the protasis) that you can make from the consonantal Hebrew of v. 17b, that analyzes הגשׁם as a hifil of נגשׁ. Let's not even worry about the Greek to begin with; first things first. I just want to see a sentence that makes sense in the context in Hebrew. For whatever it's worth (and it might not be much), I looked up all the chapters in the Tanach that refer to the feast of Tabernacles, and the verb נגשׁ does not appear in any of them.

Must the phrase refer to the feast of Tabernacles in order to fit your criteria?

In view of my wanting MSS containing alternate readings, are there any that approach what I proposed as a possible understanding by the translator?

No, there are no mss in Hebrew or any other language that seem to understand נגשׁ as something to do with bringing an offering, or God causing people to come forward, or the like. We do have scholars proposing that perhaps הגשׁם at the end of Zech. 14:17 was read by our translator of G as a form of נגשׁ. Here is a snippet from a journal article I am currently writing, sans footnotes:

[Snipped for brevity, already stated]

As you can see, I do not think any proposal put forward so far has legs.

We have in 1 Samuel 13:9 where Saul commands “Cause the sacrifice to approach” or good English “Bring the sacrifice”.

I worry that conservative Christian and Jewish scholars indulge in canonical thinking about M equivalent to KJV-onlyism, and that this prejudices them unfairly against G in text-critical analyses. It feels somehow taboo to say this aloud, but it is a serious concern of mine.

The KJV is why I really got into reading Tanakh in Hebrew—I didn’t understand the KJV.

When it comes to textual criticism, I want to see alternate readings. That’s part of the reason I reject the majority of Qere readings from the Masoretes in their Kethiv/Qere pairs.

I can't tell for sure, but it seems to me that you may be using what I've called canonical thinking above: Because the holy text is the holy text, God would have made sure to preserve it down through the centuries one way or another. The correct text may only be in a fragment somewhere, but it must be preserved in writing someplace, otherwise the holy text has a hole in it or a defect in it, and that cannot be, because it is the holy text. I admit to having a desire for a holy text that is perfect and whole and specifiable down to the letter, but that desire does not grant me such a holy text. I have the actual text, not the ideal text I would like. And if I want to know, as best I can, what it originally said, I cannot allow myself to be prejudiced by a preference for a canonically pleasing solution. I say all that because I need to practice talking about the problem of canonical thinking, because I know that when my article is published I am going to get vigorous pushback that is essentially based on people's discomfort at having someone say that that which they thought was the Bible was probably not what Zechariah wrote, and, of course, God would never allow the faithful to go 2,000 years (actually 1,600, since Jerome) thinking the holy text said one thing (something about non-worshipers being denied rain), when the holy text actually said this other thing (something about non-worshipers being killed instantly).

I want to see actual evidence, not speculation. Evidence is an actual alternate reading. Maybe you say that I have too high a bar for evidence, but that is what I want to see. Most of the Kethiv/Qere pairs lack evidence.

I have no idea who are Kenneth Taylor nor Eugene Peterson, but I also don’t trust the NASB 100%.

Ken Taylor produced the Living Bible paraphrase. Eugene Peterson produced The Message.

Thanks for the explanation.

Karl W. Randolph.

[jwmealy]

I want to see actual evidence, not speculation. Evidence is an actual alternate reading.

If there is no plausible account of Zech. 14:17 out there that explains how the Hebrew of the MT was used to produce the Greek translation of the LXX, e.g. through a misunderstanding of or misreading of the text as witnessed in the MT, or of the MT text with a small misspelling here or there, then the LXX becomes, itself, a witness to a significantly different form of the text. It is beyond question that the translator had on the desk in front of him a Hebrew Zechariah scroll, and the fact that no scholar has been able to come up with a plausible mechanism through which the LXX reading could have come directly from the MT text as we have it, or from something nearly identical, strongly suggests that the text on his scroll differed materially from the MT. I have written a technical paper that demonstrates this in detail, and I'd be happy to share it with you. If you like you can email me and I will send it to you as an attachment. webb at selftest dot net (@ for at, . for dot). Alternatively, if there is a way to upload files to this forum I will be glad to do that.

[jwmealy]

I am interested having a look at an apodosis clause (cf. Zech. 14:17a, the protasis) that you can make from the consonantal Hebrew of v. 17b, that analyzes הגשׁם as a hifil of נגשׁ. Let's not even worry about the Greek to begin with; first things first. I just want to see a sentence that makes sense in the context in Hebrew. For whatever it's worth (and it might not be much), I looked up all the chapters in the Tanach that refer to the feast of Tabernacles, and the verb נגשׁ does not appear in any of them.

Must the phrase refer to the feast of Tabernacles in order to fit your criteria?

It must make sense in the context of v. 16-17a, i.e., it should state what will happen in the case of families of the earth who do not go up annually to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles, in order to fit my criteria of "making sense in the context in Hebrew." But if you have a way of analyzing the sentence of v. 17 so that it is not structured as protasis-apodosis, or you are thinking in some other way that I am not anticipating, I'm certainly willing to learn something new.