B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Hello everyone.
The abovementioned footnote states that the Greek words ώς γαβης appear in the Septuagint.
However, they do not appear in the Apostolic Bible Polyglot of Bible Hub.
Furthermore, I cannot find the meaning of the words.
Google translate and LEXILOGOS cannot help.

Anybody able to help?
Thank you for your time.

Tian Hattingh

It's not a real word. The name of the subject of the verse is Ya'bets, and the justification for his name's etymology is based on the Hebrew word 'otsev.

וְאִמּ֗וֹ קָֽרְאָ֨ה שְׁמ֤וֹ יַעְבֵּץ֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר כִּ֥י יָלַ֖דְתִּי בְּעֹֽצֶב
His mother called his name Ya'bets, saying, "I bore him in 'otsev."

This word is taken to mean "travail" or "pain." It is related to the word for sadness, and could be related to depression.

The Greek renders his name as Ιγαβης and the justification of his name given as ὡς γαβης.

Septuaginta: A Reader's Edition gives the following note: <2 γαβης, transl.? (read pain)>.

Septuaginta: A Reader's Edition gives the following note: <2 γαβης, transl.? (read pain)>.

Thank you Jason Hare. I've got it now. Much appreciated.
Am I correct in assuming from your post that the Reader's Edition does include information on the BHS footnotes containing Greek? If not, do you have any suggestions where one could find such info?

tian777 wrote:Septuaginta: A Reader's Edition gives the following note: <2 γαβης, transl.? (read pain)>.

Thank you Jason Hare. I've got it now. Much appreciated.
Am I correct in assuming from your post that the Reader's Edition does include information on the BHS footnotes containing Greek? If not, do you have any suggestions where one could find such info?

Hi Tian, I don't have a copy of the Septuaginta Reader's Edition so can't answer your question directly. I have a printed copy of the BHS so that is my tool for seeing text critical comments in the BHS. I somewhat vaguely recall that buying a copy of the BHS was less expensive than acquiring an electronic copy (with the critical apparatus) via Logos; but I may be wrong on that point.

I've had a look at the critical apparatus in a printed copy of Rahlfs' edition of the LXX; this is the standard edition. It does not shed any light on the matter except that one correction in the Codex Alexandrinus reads ιαγβησ instead of ιγαβησ (if I've deciphered the cryptic annotations in the critical apparatus correctly).

I had a look in Tov's Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (3rd ed.) to see if it sheds any light on the subject. The only potentially relevant comment was: "Probably [the Septuagint's] greatest deviations from [the Masoretic text] appear in [the Septuagint's] Chronicles." (p. 152)
(I've replaced the single symbol abbreviations for the Septuagint and Masoretic texts with their English names.)

I have checked the reduced photo facsimile of Codex Alexandrinus containing 1 Chronicles, and can confirm that according to that Alexandrinus reads ιγαβης, ιαγβης, and γαβης for the same name! Can see for yourselves at https://archive.org/details/TheCodexAle ... /page/n169 - 1st column on the left, ninth line from the bottom on-wards.

It reads for 1 Chron. 4:9-10 as follows:

9. και ην Ἰγαβης ενδοξος υπερ τους αδελφους αυτου· και η μητηρ εκαλεσεν το ονομα αυτου Ἰαγβης· λεγουσα ετεκον ως γαβης·
10. και επεκαλεσατο Γαβης τον θ(εο)ν Ι(σρα)ηλ: λεγων εαν ευλογων ευλογησης με και πληουνης τα ορια μου· και ην η χειρ σου μετ εμου· και ποιησεις γνωσι(ν) του μη ταπεινωσαι με· και επηγαγεν ο θ(εο)ς παντα οσα ητησατο

(First Column - numbers at side are line numbers)
43 και ην Ἰγαβης ενδοξος υπερ τους
44 αδελφους αυτου· και η μητηρ εκαλε
45 σεν το ονομα αυτου Ἰαγβης· λεγου
46 σα ετεκον ως γαβης·
47 και επεκαλεσατο Γαβης τον θ(εο)ν Ι(σρα)ηλ:
48 λεγων εαν ευλογων ευλογησης με
49 και πληουνης τα ορια μου· και ην η χειρ
50 σου μετ εμου· και ποιησεις γνωσι(ν)
51 του μη ταπεινωσαι με·

(Next Column)
1 και επηγαγεν ο θ(εο)ς παντα οσα ητησατο

Either the facsimile isn't very good or I've misread it, but there appears to be a spelling mistake in v10 of πληουνης for πληθυνης (line 49 / 3rd from bottom). This Greek graphic/handwriting style has little difference between ο and θ bar the horizontal line in θ, as both are the same size, so mistakes of ο/θ aren't uncommon.

Also according to Swete's Apparatus, Alexandrinus omits μη from μη ταπεινωσαι, but I can clearly see the μη in the facsimile (line 51 / bottom line, 4th and 5th letters from the left), so can't quite account for that.

I was trying to find another transcription of Alexandrinus, but it appears that no transcription of the Old Testament portion has ever been published.

As for what it means, well that's certainly tricky. The LXX appears to have taken the Hebrew עצב as a proper noun that needed transliterating rather than translating, but then appears to have either gotten the ב and the צ the wrong way around, or it did in fact read as עבצ in the manuscript the translator was working from, hence why they didn't translate it for this is no known Hebrew word (I think; I'll let JH correct me on that).

S_Walch wrote:As for what it means, well that's certainly tricky. The LXX appears to have taken the Hebrew עצב as a proper noun that needed transliterating rather than translating, but then appears to have either gotten the ב and the צ the wrong way around, or it did in fact read as עבצ in the manuscript the translator was working from, hence why they didn't translate it for this is no known Hebrew word (I think; I'll let JH correct me on that).

That really seems to be the issue - that the Hebrew text juxtaposes the צ and the ב in these two words, so that the name is יעבץ (with the root עב"צ) while the word for sadness or pain is עצב, with these two root letters switched for one another. The translator was just trying to find a way to make the name relate to the root in Greek letters. It was probably nothing more than an attempted transliteration to justify etymology.