Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Shai Heijmans" <shaih AT post.tau.ac.il>]

Dear list,

Michael wrote:

> Greetings to all,
> A (hopefully) quick question: what are your educated
> speculations as to what the translator(s) of the LXX's
> rendition of Psa. 2:12(DRAXASTHE PAIDEIAS, "[you all]
> trap instruction"?) was reading in the Hebrew.

I think this is an early midrashic interpretaion that has been incorporated
into the LXX :

The midrash states that "bar" in this verse means "the instructions of the
Tora" (in hebrew: "elu tsava'ot ve'azharot shel hatora, sheniqret bar; kema
de'at amar nashqu bar..."), and nashqu bar means therefore "get hold of the
instructions of the tora". See Vayyiqra Raba (Vilna), parasha 12.5 and
parallels (Bamidbar Raba 10.4; Midrash  Mishlei 11.24; Yalqut Shimoni II
964; and cf. Bavli.Sanhedrin 92a [the bit before what Ron Tavalin quoted]).

I am not that good in Greek, but in my Greek-Dutch dictionary (good old
Wolters-Noordhoff) "drassomai" means "vatten, grijpen, vangen" which seems
good enough for my explentation.

As I mentioned before on this list, the ancient translations are full of
these midrashic interpretations (especially where the hebrew is diffcult),
and the LXX is no exception.

Regards,

Shai Heijmans
Tel Aviv university