Wednesday, April 23, 2014

"I went in to anoint the city" (LXX Ezek 43:3)

I try reading a passage from the Septuagint everyday and now with the arrival of Nicholas King's The Prophets (2013) based on the Septuagint I have further impetus to read the Greek OT alongside the New English Translation (NET) Greek OT (2007). In Ezekiel 43:3, instead of the Hebrew MT, "he came to destroy the city", we have in the LXX, "I went in to anoint the city".


Quite likely, the LXX translators had a restoration theology that the city of Jerusalem would be restored after its destruction and hence the reading, "to anoint" (chrisai). Similarly in Daniel 9:24, the restoration of the end-times includes "anointing the Holy of Holies" (Daniel Theod, MT).

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