Isaiah 16:1 ??? what does it say?

[kwrandolph]

The MT reads שלחו כר משל ארץ מסלע מדברה אל הר בת ציון while in DSS שלחו כרמשל ארץ מסלה מדברה אל הר בת ציון . When I tried to read LXX, it appears to be a nonsense translation. So it appears that the LXX translator didn’t understand it either.

In the DSS reading, it appears that כרמשל is a name of a place along the road to the wilderness. Or it could be some other noun.

Are there any other readings that are known? Has such a place been found, or an object known by that term in a cognate language?

Karl W. Randolph.

[S_Walch]

Isaiah 16:1 LXX:
ἀποστελῶ ὡς ἑρπετὰ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν. μὴ πέτρα ἔρημός ἐστιν τὸ ὄρος θυγατρὸς Σιων
I will send [what are] like creeping things upon the land. Does the mountain of the daughter of Zion exist as a deserted rock?

The LXX appears to possibly have read שלח כרמש לארץ for the beginning bit, taking רמש as creeping thing.

Second bit it appears to have been מסלע מדבר יהי, or possibly just מסלע מדבר, or even אל סלע מדבר.

The only place name I can think that כרמשל is close to is mount Carmel כרמל. Possibly another name for the mountain range, or an actual mountain name there?

[ducky]

Hello

As it said before, the Septuagint read it as שלחו כרמש לארץ

the כר can ve seen as a messenger like in Arabic and like 2Kings 11:4
but also as a young camel (for the messenger)

the כר is also a sheep.
and Moab used to send sheep as a tax for the king of Israel
when the king of Israel died, they stopped bringing the tax
(2kings 3:4)

the verse is a call for the refugees of Moab to save themselves and get help from Jehuda
and so, the call (which was made maybe by the refugees of Moab, or maybe by the prophet) is to start bringing the tax again to becomes once again at the hands of Jehuda which will protect them

משל ארץ maybe means "to the land ruler" (King of Jehuda)
but also can be "from the ruler of the land" (King of Moab)

סלע
some say it is the name of the city in Edom, which sound strange since it is in its south and not near Moab.
but it can be explained that it was said by the people who ran there.
Maybe it is just a known place to represent their main place, exactly as הר בת ציון is the main place of Jehuda
or maybe, it is a collective noun which comes to represent the rocks which they are hiding there.
I also saw that the סלע can be seen as the place in the desert which the man of Jehuda stay there, and the calling is to give it to this man which he, later, will bring it to Jerusalem.

Some also see the משל ארץ as another phrase for the כר
as כר = משל ארץ
since he "rule" the land with his running.

and some explains it all as a construct state as the camel of the land's ruler since this excellent camel belongs to the rulers
***
there are a lot of options for each word, and you can try to connect the right ones according to what you see better

[Saboi]

This is the verse in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Saboi]

In the scrolls, מסלע is spelled מסלה (h4546) "Highway, public road" and appears frequently in the Book of Isaiah.

מסלע means στρῶμα "pavement, anything spread, paved with stone'

Isaiah 40:3
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. (מסלה לאלהינו)

[Saboi]

שלחו־כר משל־ארץ מסלה מדברה אל־הר בת־ציון
*send the ram to rule the land through the highway in the desert to the mountains of Zion?

This is probably the Syrian desert, thus describing the trade route that links Babylon and Syria, there is allot of back-forth between Babylon and Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures, but not much details on how they traveled between them.

כר is possibly a play on כרש "Cyrus" , see Isaiah 44:28, "Cyrus, He is my shepherd"
כר/κριός, ărĭēs "Ram"

Daniel 8:20 - ὁ κριός(כר) (האיל) refers to the King of Media & Persia (Xerxes I > Artaxerxes I), Artaxerxes was known by the name 'Cyrus' to the Jews according to Josephus.

בת־ could be short for "πτόλις", "City of Zion" (בת־ציון), for Zion is also called a City.
* Isaiah 33:20 - ציון קרית (1 Kings 8:1) *דוד היא ציון. אשדוד/ἀστός?.

[Jemoh66]

A comment from the NET Bible scholars.

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[Saboi]

שלחו is a past imperative in the second-person plural and that is how the Septuagint translates these verbs.

Aorist Imperative Active - 2nd Person Plural
Genesis 23:4 - תנו/δότε
Ezra 4:21 - שימו/θέτε
Proverbs 9:5 - לכו/ἔλθατε , לחמו/φάγετε
Psalm 34:8 - טעמו/γεύσασθε, ראו/ἴδετε
Psalm 46:10 - הרפו/σχολάσατε, דעו/γνῶτε
Psalm 62:8 - בטחו/πιστεύσατε
Psalm 66:3 - אמרו/εἴπατε
Psalm 66:2 - זמרו/ψάλατε
Psalm 66:5 - לכו/δεῦτε

Aorist Imperative Active - 2nd Person Singular
Gen 14:2 - תן/δός (תנה)
Jeremiah 38:12 - שים/θὲς (שיםה)
Judges 18:19 - לך/ἐλθὲ (לכה)
1 Samuel 20:7 - דע/γνῶθι
Psalm 25:18 - ראה/ἰδὲ

In the Imperative, the augment (-ו/ε-) and tense drop out, compare this to Latin, dīcis (Active) dīc (Imperative).

ותתן/εδωκας (Active) תן/δός (Singular Imperative)
תנו/δότε (Plural Imperative)
נתן/δίδωμι (Athematic)
אתן/δώσω (1st person future)

In both languages, the letters ו/ε are used for the augment and the terminal in plural imperatives, confirming the interchange.

[ducky]

Hello Jonathan
and thanks for the explanation

if it was really a haplography then it was in a very ancient time since both the DSS and the Septuagint, together with the MT text wrote it with only one Mem.

Anyway, the כר as Ram is what I wrote above as sheep with the explanation of the Tax, that was given in the past.
and it can be seen also as singular if we call it a collective noun which the singular noun represent the general.