Jonah 3:7 Septuagint

[00:00:00]Jonah chapter 3 verse 7. The prior verse we saw the king of Nineveh has repented at Jonah's preaching. Let's see what happens next.

[00:00:16]Legon. And then we'll finish what they say here in a second. Notice the kai here is just continuing the narrative from the prior verse and our first verb here is ekeruthe which is from keruso.

[00:00:27]Now we've seen that verb multiple times already in chapter 3. We saw it like verses 1 and 2 and verse 5. It means to proclaim or preach with theta eta and the epsilon in the front and it's going to be a third singular aorist passive indicative. So it was proclaimed.

[00:00:38]Presumably by the king. We uh get to that in a second. We don't know that yet. And then next is erethe. Now this is from lego but it's undergone a fairly substantial stem change to er and then the rho doubles. You got a theta eta plus an epsilon. This is also a third singular aorist passive indicative from lego. So it was said. So it was proclaimed and it was said in Tate Ninuae. Now uh just a minor comment here. So it's in Nineveh but notice that they do put the article here. Now that doesn't actually mean like it's in the Nineveh. What's happening here this is going to point back to the prior instances where Nineveh was introduced.

[00:01:15]It's a very common way to use the article. So you don't have to translate it with the. It's just uh making it clear that it's has a a prior antecedent. Now it's uh in Nineveh. Now it's paratu so from the king. So the king who in the prior verse had repented. But if you look this up in an English Bible that is drawn on the Masoretic text you'll see that it'll say something to the effect of by a decree or something like that. There is a noun there in the Masoretic. And that's picked up by Symmachus. He has apo tou dogmatos from the decree of the king. So that didn't really take root in the broader Greek tradition. I'm not sure why they would have dropped that out if it were in the Hebrew that they were translating from, but the overwhelming Greek tradition just lacks that word there, even though it is at least in the Masoretic text. And also from, and so it's from the king, and it's also from the megastono, that's from Megasthenes, this is going to be the nobles. And it's his nobles saying, so nice little nominative singular masculine present active participle this introducing the subject or the the content of what they say. So, let's take a look at that.

[00:02:22]Hoi anthropoi kai ta ktenē kai hoi boes kai ta probata mē geusastōsan mēden mēde nēmēthōsan nēmestōsan mēde hyper sime hydōr pietōsan.

[00:02:38]Now, there's an interesting little transition here we'll get to, but let's just start with the anthropoi there. So, the men and the ktenē, that's going to be your domesticated animals of some sort. We've seen this back in Genesis, and the boes, that's going to be your cattle, very common word for cows plural. And the probata, that's going to be sheep. So, just getting into all the different livestock.

[00:03:01]And what are they supposed to do?

[00:03:02]They're not supposed to, so notice the negating mē there, but buddy it up with an imperative from guo, and that sastōsan is going to be the third plural aorist middle imperative form. And this means to taste.

[00:03:17]So, do not let men or the domesticated animals or the cattle or the sheep, let them not taste, and then the subject there is nothing. Let them not taste nothing. It's a little double negative there, it's pretty common in the Greek.

[00:03:30]And then mēde here is going to be nor.

[00:03:33]So, this is going to be your accusative here.

[00:03:35]Mēde, even though they look similar, mēde is going to be the conjunction nor.

[00:03:39]Nēmestōsan, that's yet another stōsan ending. You see the that that form there, it's from nemo, which means to feed or to graze.

[00:03:49]And uh that's going to be another third plural aorist middle imperative again. So, let them not feed or graze. Uh nor hudor um water pietosan, and that's going to be a third plural aorist active imperative uh from pino, which means to drink. So, putting it all together, uh this whole group of people, let them not taste anything or nothing, nor graze or eat, nor drink water. That's the basic uh sense there.

[00:04:24]So, that is his command.