BHQ and OHB at Deuteronomy 32:5: A Comparison

 In this post, I offer a new solution to an old textual crux. The first part of Deut 32:5, read in five major translations (NJPSV, NRSV, REB, NAB, and NJB), is translated in five, remarkably different ways - none of which convinces. Still, with the help of text-criticism, half of which is really the science of human error, a plausible solution is proposed below.

The apparatus to Deut 32:5 in the OHB sample reads:

32:5 שִׁחֲתוּ֥ [sic: should read שחתו ] SP G (ἡμάρτοσαν) T (חבילו) S (ܚܒܠܘ) V (peccaverunt) ] שִׁחֵת [sic: should read שחת] M (assim num) § || לו לא M [sic: to add: sim V (ei et non)] לא לו SP G (οὐκ αὐτῷ) T (לא ליה) S (ܘܠܐ  ܠܗ ) (metath) § || בניו M] בני SP G (τέκνα) T (בניא) S (ܒܢܝܐ ) (gram) § || בניו ] + מומם M sim SP (מום) G (μωμητά) [sic: to add, per Crawford’s text-critical commentary: S (ܪܡܘܡܐ) T (לטעותא) V (in sordibus) ] (explic) §

The apparatus to Deut 32:5 in BHQ 5 reads:

 32:5 שִׁחֵ֥ת ל֛וֹ לֹ֖א בָּנָ֣יו מוּמָ֑ם (em scr) │ διέφθιεραν αὐτῷ οὐχ υἱοί αὐτοῦ α′ σ′ V [sic; should be (V)] │ שחתו לא לו בני מום Smr G [sic; should be (G)] S [sic; should be (S)] T^Smr (facil) │ חבילו להון לא לה בניא דפלחו לטעותא T^O (midr) │ חבילו עובדיהון טביא בניא חביבייא אשתכח מומא בהון T^J (T^NF) (midr) ║ pref שִׁחֵ֥ת ל֛וֹ לֹ֥א בָּנָ֖יו מוּמָ֑ם

With respect to שחת vs. שחתו, BHQ prefers the more difficult reading. OHB suggests that שחת sg assimilates to the sg of 32:7 following. But it is more likely that שחתו pl assimilates to the pls of 32:3 and 32:6.

OHB and BHQ differ in their explanation of לו לא vs. לא לו - as for לו ולא* V and לא ולו* S, they are not discussed, but they are secondary in any case. For OHB, it is a case of metathesis; in BHQ’s terminology, a transposition. For BHQ, it is a case of trying to avoid a text that is scandalous or derogatory. But this cannot be correct. Smr in context reads: ‘Those not his dealt corruptly – children of blemish, / a perverse and crooked generation. // How could you . . .?’ This is no less harsh than the test preserved in MT. On the other hand, BHQ acutely notes that MT’s accents read the underlying text against the grain so as to avoid a derogatory construal. BHQ actually provides an alternative accentuation.

With respect to בניו vs. בני, BHQ regards the latter as a facilitation. OHB thinks it may have “crept in, brought about by loss of ו by haplography (perhaps), then retained because it made better grammatical sense.” OHB’s explanation is more exact. All other things being equal, the explanation of mechanical error rather than intentional change is to be preferred.

 OHB and BHQ regard מומם M sim SP (מום) similarly: a “gloss” (BHQ); an “explicating plus” (OHB), but BHQ does not “prefer” the reading because no extant witness omits it. Along with Dillmann, Craigie, and Tigay (see OHB’s excellent commentary), I don’t think the item should be thus explained. Explicating plusses – the ones we know from the textual history of Jer and Ezek, e.g. – are clarificatory. The presumed addition of מום or מומם to the remainder of the text makes a difficult text more difficult still. 

Here is my take on the lemma:

*בניו אמונם   ] M בניו מומם (err-phonol [hapl] + err-graph/ phonol [similar sonorants/ graphs]) │ V (filii ejus in sordibus) (interp of מומם) │ SP (בני מום) S ( ܒܢܝܐ ܪܡܘܡܐ ) G (τέκνα μωμητά) T (בניא דפלחו לטעותא) (hapl of ו in בניו after י and מ in מומם before/after מ)

On this reconstruction, א disappeared through aphaeresis, and נ morphed into מ. Tigay (per OHB) conjectured similarly, but he emended throughout 32:5a, which inevitably cast doubt on his core proposal. For אמון sg., cf. Deut 32:20. For the syntax and sense of שחת per this reconstruction, cf. Am 1:11; Num 32:15. The sense of the whole: “His no-sons made an end to their loyalty towards him.”

  I treatמומם   with  בניו as a textual unit; otherwise, variation across the Hebrew witnesses and the versions is impossible to follow. OHB would be more user-friendly if it did likewise; as it stands, the quotation of versional evidence does not always provide necessary context. BHQ runs into other problems. Note that διέφθιεραν αὐτῷ οὐχ υἱοί αὐτοῦ at the beginning of the lemma is missing elements with respect to its head שִׁחֵ֥ת ל֛וֹ לֹ֖א בָּנָ֣יו מוּמָ֑ם.

 

Comments

[Peter Kirk]

John, I wonder if there is anyone else in the blogosphere (except perhaps for a few speakers of closely related languages) who puts untransliterated Syriac into their blog posts?

[Jim Getz]

I like the Syriac. I can never get Word to connect the letters correctly when I try to type in it. I'm envious of your erudition, John. Very nice.

[learnfrenchwiththebible]

The Syriac didn't come through for me. I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.12 (Macintosh) with the character encoding set for UTF-8. The Hebrew and Greek worked fine.

SPEdessa and Peshitta fonts are installed. I'm not sure if they are Unicode fonts.

Do you have any idea how I can get Firefox to exhibit Syriac on your blog?

[syriac_helper]

If you have "Estrangelo Edessa" installed then Firefox should display the Syriac for you. At least, it does for me

[JohnFH]

Jim,

Syriac connects up fine in Word for me - almost always - but when I transfer it into html, it sometimes disconnects (note benaya above; connected the first time, but not the second, and I can't seem to fix it).

[JohnFH]

I tinkered a bit more with the post, and straightened out the Syriac connections. Don't ask me how.

[Petr Tomášek (Prague)]

As for the אשר לו לא: The crucial misunderstanding is that the Masoretic oral tradition is not analysed separatelly from the consonantal text (as I strive in my dissertation). If done so, You'll see that it is to be read exactly the opposite as the consonants do (see the accentuation; the "vocalization" of לו and לא is, obviously, homophonic!). No wonder, however, that it conforms to the Targum...

As for the original form: a) it can be a "double reading" (as a result of some "midrashic" process); but not necessarilly. I'd rather see לא לו as original (i.e. the masoretic version, i.e. that of the accentuation and Targum) and לא לו as a reinterpretation of the scribe.