Proverbs 7 in MT and LXX: Form and Content

Proverbs 7 MT and LXX 149
Verse 9
b a *
a # ++ 1?++
a’ b’ *
*""#
2 . *
The MT offers two parallel stichs, although the relationship between their
elements is not altogether clear: “in the twilight, in the evening // at the
time of night and darkness.” Instead of the short, asyndetic, parallel stichs
of the Vorlage, the translator creates quite a continuous narrative-like text,
beginning with + participle, and continuing with 1: “and
speaking in the dark of the evening when there happens to be the stillness
of night and of darkness.”
The writer of Prov 7 went out of his way to create a pitch-dark setting: this
unfortunate encounter could happen only under the veil of darkness.
Furthermore, he creates an opposition between the present night and the
full moon on which her husband is expected back. 44 Finally, the dark night
on which the adultery takes place anticipates the punishment that will take
the sinner to the sinister chambers of death, to Sheol. The translator,
probably unaware of the meaning of in this context, replaces it with
‘silence’, 45 which he feels suits the nocturnal scene, 46 but he thus
unfocuses the main goal of the writer.
The additional , which suits the translator’s efforts to create a
well-connected (conjunctive ), continuous (participle )
narrative, is nonetheless difficult to explain. It is not clear why he would
44 Note the Akkadian ina isin that indicates the feast of the first day of the month;
CAD 7:196, s.v. isinnu.
45 Interestingly, one of the terms for the underworld is %, understood as
‘silence’; Ps 94:17; 115:17 (rendered by +).
46 Baumgartner, Étude critique, 76, asserts that the translator derived from
‘sleep’, so also C.H. Toy, Proverbs (ICC; Edinburgh, 1899) 148; G. Mezzacasa, Il libro
dei Proverbi di Salomone: Studio critico sulle aggiunte greco-alessandrine (Roma, 1913)
130. There is, however, a way to go between sleeping and silence.