Jonah 2:7 Septuagint

[00:00:00]Jonah chapter 2 verse 7 continuing to read how Jonah is expressing his physical and spiritual despair to the Lord. Let's continue katabaines game.

[00:00:14]Okay, on a beta of thorazos mood curio of the osmo.

[00:00:18]Our first verb here is katabaines from katabaino which is a first singular active indicative. I have descended or I have gone down. But this is a bit of a tricky thing here. If you recall the prior video, I had pointed out that the lekatzve harim had been sort of borrowed from this verse where I think it does belong and put into six at the end.

[00:00:40]And then here we have the rendering of yarad with katabain. And so in the majority it's something like I have gone down to the sort of feet of the mountains or the base or ends of the mountains. Something like that. But that portion of the mountains bit has been sort of dragged up in the prior verse.

[00:00:54]So here we simply have I have descended as you'll see to the earth if you will.

[00:01:00]Um which is going to create its own problems with respect to how we maybe see this relationship to the Hebrew, but it makes sense on its own. So I've descended to the earth. And what he really means by that in this kind of context is sort of down to the bottom of the ocean where you know you have the sand and so forth or whatever at the bottom. And then hays here is a relative pronoun that's been added in my opinion relative to presumably the Hebrew source. And of course it's matching the gay here, the earth. So it's describing of which And then we have hoy makloy. That's going to be like prison bars or bolts. It's like something that holds you in. Al tays there again referring back to the land.

[00:01:39]So of which its bars is something how you would maybe take that whole phrase.

[00:01:46]Katakoy that's a barrier or an enclosure and ionioy modifying. See how it matches in case number gender the katakoy there.

[00:01:54]So eternal enclosure. So sort of stepping back, here's the basic flow of uh this sentence at least in Greek, which is not going to match what you see in the Hebrew because there's been all this kind of modifications going on with respect at least to the Masoretic. So, I have descended to the earth uh whose bars and the sort of implicitly are, you throw that in there, uh eternal enclosure. So, he feels like he's down at the bottom of the ocean. He's going to be bound there forever is the basic sense, almost like it's Hades or something.

[00:02:23]Uh the reason why this all is a bit convoluted is because of the shifting of how presumably the translator was was understanding the flow of the text.

[00:02:32]The Masoretic, and I do think the Masoretic here is is more clear. Uh basically have the bars of the sort of prison bars of the earth were behind me forever. So, this earth actually goes with this clause, and you don't have the relative clause uh in the the Hebrew because uh katabain is kind of with the prior verse, if you will. So, it's all a bit convoluted, uh but hopefully the basic sense of it even in Greek does make sense. Then, we kind of get back to normal here. Uh katabainos from katabaino, but in this case it's a third singular imperative.

[00:03:03]It's actually just a declarative statement in the Masoretic, but here in the Greek it's uh kind of a command, and it's something like may the thora, which is corruption or decay of my life, and actually some manuscripts in Greek at least try to grapple with that cuz it it's kind of weird to say that the decay of my life will rise up. Uh and so, some have added this preposition here to give it a sense of may my life come up from decay or out of decay, I think is what some scribes were trying to do.

[00:03:36]But, as the the old Greek stands, uh he says, "Okay, I'm down at the bottom of the ocean. I'm behind the bars of the earth." It's sort of down, overwhelmed, and he says, "Okay, the may the decay and the corruption of my life uh come up, Lord my God." Notice the use of vocative there. So, even though the imperative is directed at the corruption of his life, he's still addressing via the vocative the Lord his God. And so, uh this is a really interesting I mean it's a bit convoluted in the Greek, especially when you compare it to the Hebrew that we have at least, uh regardless of whatever the translator had in front of him. It does make sense, but uh it's a beautiful way that Jonah here is expressing these desires that he has to sort of Here here we have this turn from despair to now, "Okay, I'm praying to the Lord my God that I might be delivered from this." So, you kind of see a big transformation in Jonah's disposition here having gone through this trial now.

[00:04:32]Uh and he's desiring to sort of come up out of that. So, very interesting stuff.