Note 659 — Chapter XX

Ver. 8 obviously needs emendation. The Hebrew text contains at least one questionable construction, and gives no sense: "They that dwell in his shadow shall turn, and revive corn and flourish like the vine, and his fame," etc. To cultivate corn and be themselves like a vine is somewhat mixed. The LXX. reads: ἐπιστρέψουσιν καὶ καθιοῦνται ὑπὸ τὴν σκέπην αὐτοῦ, ζήσονται καὶ μεθυσθήσονται σίτῳ· καὶ ἐξανθήσει ἄμπελος μνημόσυνην αὐτοῦ ὡς οῖνος Διβάνου. It removes the grammatical difficulty from clause 1, which then reads בְצִלּוֹ יָשֻׁבוּ ויָשְׁבוּ; the supplied vau may easily have dropped after the final vau of the previous word. In the 2nd clause the LXX. takes יהיו as an intransitive, which is better suited to the other verbs, and adds καὶ μεθυσθήσονται, ורויו (a form that may have easily slipped from the Hebrew text, through its likeness to the preceding ויהיו). And they shall be well-watered. After this it is probable that דגן should read כַגַּן. In the 3rd clause the Hebrew text may stand. In the 4th זכר may not, as many propose, be taken for זכרם and translated their perfume; but the parallelism makes it now probable that we have a verb here; and if זכר in the Hiph. has the sense to make a perfume (cf. Isa. lxvi. 3), there is no reason against the Kal being used in the intransitive sense here. In the LXX. for μεθυσθήσονται Qa reads στηριχθήσονται.