Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

The Peshitta of the Old Testament - Part 10

Genesis 46:13 in the Masoretic text reads, “And the sons of Issachar: Tolah and Puvah and Job and Shimron.” The HCSB reads, “Issachar’s sons: Tolah, Puvah, Jashub, and Shimron.” There is one obvious difference here, but another difference that could be made. The obvious difference is that between Job and Jashub. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint both read Jashub in the place of Job, as does the Masoretic text in the listing of Issachar’s sons in Numbers 26:24. 1 Chronicles 7:1, which also lists the sons of Issachar, reads Jashib in the consonantal text, but the Masoretic scribes have marked that to indicate that the text should read Jashub. Thus, the question is whether the reading “Job” ought to be retained here. Translators have made different decisions on this matter. Some, such as the HCSB and the NLT, have chosen to go with Jashub, with a footnote to the effect that the MT reads “Job.” Others, such as the ESV, have retained “Job” in the text, but with no note to point out the variation. Others, such as the NKJV, have retained “Job” in the text, but noted the variant Jashub. The complicating factor here is, of course, the fact that other occurrences of the name are clearly Jashub. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint, however, both tend to regularize the spelling of names, so that we cannot tell from their reading whether the text they read from had Job or Jashub. My own preference would be to follow the lead of the NKJV, which is to retain the clear Masoretic reading in the text, but with a note explaining the variation.

There is another difference here that is not obvious. That difference has to do with the name Puvah. The MT here reads puvvah. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Syriac Peshitta both read pu’ah. The difference between the two is that the latter includes the consonant aleph, while the former does not. In 1 Chronicles 7:1 and in Judges 10:1, the MT also has the reading pu’ah. Again, the reading found in Genesis 46:13 in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Syriac Peshitta may be a case of harmonization. We should also remember that in older days, there does not seem to have been a great deal of concern about the standardized spelling of names, though that is perhaps more the case with English than with Hebrew. For example, the Bishop Ussher who was famous for having concluded that creation took place in 4004 BC has his name spelled either Ussher or Usher. Many of the other Puritan writers show the same sort of variation in spelling, such as Brookes and Brooks both referring to the same man.

Genesis 49:4 MT reads “”because you went up to you father’s bed; then you defiled it—he went up to my couch.” The Samaritan, the Syriac and the Targum read, “you went up to my couch” in the last clause. This may again be an example of the versions smoothing out a rough transition from second to third person, so most of the modern translations have retained the “he” in the last clause. However, there are other difficulties with this verse that we will discuss next week.

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