Note 434 — Chapter XII

שְׁבֻעוֹת מַטּוֹת אֹמֶר, literally sworn are staves or rods of speech. A.V.: according to the oaths of the tribes, even Thy word. LXX. (omitting שְׁבֻעוֹת and adding יהוה) ἐπὶ σκῆπτρα, λέγει κύριος. These words “form a riddle which all the ingenuity of scholars has not been able to solve. Delitzsch calculates that a hundred translations of them have been offered” (Davidson). In parallel to previous clause about a bow, we ought to expect מטות, staves, though it is not elsewhere used for shafts or arrows. שׁבעות may have been שַׂבֵּעְתָּ, Thou satest. The Cod. Barb. reads: ἐχόρτασας βολίδας τῆς φαρέτρης αὐτοῦ, Thou hast satiated the shafts of his quiver. Sinker: sworn are the punishments of the solemn decree, and relevantly compares Isa. xi. 4, the rod of His mouth; xxx. 32, rod of doom. Ewald: sevenfold shafts of war. But cf. Psalm cxviii. 12.