Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dan Wagner <Dan.Wagner AT datastream.net>]

> > By the way, the 'athbash (?4X in MT) is glossed (1X; Jer. 
> > 51:41), translated (1X; Jer. 51:1), omitted (2X; 25:26 and 
> > perhaps 25:25 if indeed unknown _ZMRY_ is corrupted from 
> > _WMKY_ and thus 'athbash for repeated _(YLM_), but never 
> > transliterated by LXX. 

Also, considering the fact that the LXX generally didn't seem to know what
to do with it, but did sometimes find it in its Vorlage (except perhaps for
the 2 omissions, perhaps, though i'm included to think they just didn't know
what to do with it, considering other problems in Jeremiah's LXX) might be
evidence that its origin was original or at least early, not by a late
redactor. It's probable that the translation of 51:1 as "upon the dwelling
Chaldeans" is just a good guess by the LXX based on parallelism in context.

Actually, looking again, it seems to be omitted from LXX in 51:41 also,
though surely present in its Vorlage. Those two verb forms together
preceding the subject would be unusual in Hebrew (though easy to do in
Greek, so the LXX translators must have just not known what to do and
glossed over the first subject, $$K).

Does anyone know when 'athbash first appears in extant Near Eastern
literature?

Dan Wagner