Biblical Greek and post-biblical Hebrew in the minor

Greek versions. On the verb συνϵτ �ζω “to render

intelligent” in a scholion on Gen 3:5, 7
Jan Joosten

To cite this version:

Jan Joosten. Biblical Greek and post-biblical Hebrew in the minor Greek versions. On the verb
συνϵτ �ζω “to render intelligent” in a scholion on Gen 3:5, 7. Journal of Septuagint and Cognate
Studies, 2019, 52, pp.53-61. �hal-02644579�

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Biblical Greek and post-biblical Hebrew in the minor Greek versions.

On the verb συνετίζω “to render intelligent” in a scholion on Gen 3:5, 7
Jan Joosten, Oxford

Les numéros correspondant à la pagination de la version imprimée sont placés

entre crochets dans le texte et composés en gras.

<53> The post-Septuagint Jewish translations of the Hebrew Bible are for the most part
known only fragmentarily, from quotations in Church Fathers or from glosses figuring in the
margins of Septuagint manuscripts. Once upon a time a full version of Aquila, Theodotion,
Symmachus must have existed. Origen transcribed all three of them in his Hexapla, where
Jerome and Eusebius could consult them. Some of them may have lived on for a while in late
Antiquity among specific groups.1 Eventually, however, they perished. Partial exceptions
exist, but they are are rare: a text going under the name of Theodotion <54> was adopted
early on for Daniel, and nearly came to supersede the Old Greek version.2 For some books—

1
Both Reinhard Ceulemans and Olivier Munnich have argued that what has come down to us of the Three
originated mostly in the Hexapla, see R. Ceulemans, “Greek Christian Access to ‘The Three’, 250-600 CE,” in
Greek Scriptures and the Rabbis (ed. T. Michael Law & Alison G. Salvesen; CBET 66; Leuven: Peeters, 2012),
165-191; O. Munnich, “Les révisions juives de la Septante. Modalités et fonctions de leur transmission. Enjeux
éditoriaux contemporains,” in La Bible juive dans l’Antiquité (éd. Rémi Gounelle, Jan Joosten; Histoire du
Texte Biblique 9; Prahins: Zèbre, 2014), 141-190. This may well be true. However, some of the later versions
may have lived on into Late Antiquity among Jewish or Jewish-Christian groups, and Christians may have come
into contact with them at various points. Note that Clement of Alexandria quotes Ezek 18:4-9 from Aquila or
Theodotion in Stromata II 22,135,1-2. The Greek Acts of Pilate quote the Old Testament according to a version
that may perhaps be identified as Theodotion, see J. Joosten, “Le texte biblique cité dans les Actes de Pilate” in
La littérature apocryphe chrétienne et les Ecritures juives (éd. R. Gounelle, B. Mounier; Publications de
l’Institut Romand des Sciences Bibliques 7; Prahins: Editions du Zèbre, 2015), 181-192.
2
A similar situation is found for Ezra-Nehemiah if one accepts that 1 Esdras is in fact the Old Greek equivalent
of this book. In any case, the “Septuagint” of Ezra-Nehemiah (2 Esdras) belongs to the Theodotionic group. The
case of Job is rather different: most Septuagint manuscripts offer the Old Greek to which fragments of
“Theodotion” have been added where the Greek version seemed to be lacking. See P. J. Gentry, The Asterisked
Materials in the Greek Job (SCS 38; Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1995), 390.
Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations—no “Old Greek” version ever existed, and
translations in the style of Theodotion or Aquila are the very first ones that were produced.3
Naturally, it is these versions that survived until today. Apart from such special cases,
however, only fragments of the minor versions were preserved.4
Their shattered attestation impedes the analysis of these versions. Much of a
researcher’s energy is taken up by the need to gather and sift the evidence, and then to
present it in a clear way which nevertheless respects the uncertainties surrounding it. When
all these more or less mechanical operations have been carried out, little time and energy
remains to study the exegetical principles involved in the later versions. What do they set out
to achieve? And why do they diverge from the Septuagint, to which they all relate as much as
to their Hebrew source texts? Few global studies have addressed such questions.5 There
remains a place, therefore, for smaller-scale in-depth studies addressing single passages. The
intention of the present paper is precisely this: to provide a number of philological and
exegetical remarks on a single rendering reported from the margins of Septuagint
manuscripts and attested also by a Church Father. The remarks will draw on what is known
about the minor versions, but, it is hoped, will also contribute to their study by adding new
observations.
*

3
Some of these late and ultra-literal versions were nevertheless revised according to even stricter rules of
literalism. See notably Peter Gentry’s studies on “Septuagint” and Aquila of Ecclesiastes, e.g. “Issues in the
Text-History of LXX Ecclesiastes,” in Die Septuaginta: Texte, Theologien und Einflüsse. 2. Internationale
Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), – Wuppertal, 23. – 27.7.2008 (edited by Wolfgang
Kraus and Martin Karrer; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 201-222.
4
The fragments are gathered in the works of Bernard de Montfaucon, Hexaplorum Origenis quae supersunt
(Paris, 1715), conveniently accessible in the reprint in PG 15, and Frederick Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quae
supersunt, vols. 1–2 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1875). On plans and preparations for a new collection, see A.
Salvesen, “A ‘New Field’ for the Twenty-First Century? Rationale for the Hexapla Project and a Report on Its
Progress” in The Text of the Hebrew Bible and Its Editions. Studies in Celebration of the Fifth Centennial of the
Complutensian Polyglot (ed. by Andrés Piquer Otero and Pablo Torijano Morales; Leiden: Brill, 2016), 286-
310.
5
See the exemplary study of Alison Salvesen, Symmachus in the Pentateuch (JSS Monographs 15; Manchester:
University of Manchester, 1991).
In a reading reported in the second apparatus to the Göttingen edition of Genesis, the verb
συνετίζω “to render (the eyes) intelligent” is substituted for διανοίγνυμι “to open (the eyes)”
in two verses:

Gen 3:5
‫ִהים ִכּי ְבּיוֹם ֲאָכְלֶכם ִמֶמּנּוּ ו ְנְִפְקחוּ ֵעינֵיֶכם‬,‫ִכּי י ֵֹדַע ֱא‬
“for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened”

<55> LXX
ᾔδει γὰρ ὁ θεὸς ὅτι ἐν ᾗ ἂν ἡμέρᾳ φάγητε ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, διανοιχθήσονται ὑμῶν οἱ ὀφθαλμοι
“for God knew that on the day you would eat of it, your eyes would be opened”

Second apparatus
διανοιχθήσονται] θ´ συνετισθήσονται s-130 (M, 135)6
“(… your eyes) will be rendered intelligent”

Gen 3:7
‫שׁנֵיֶהם ו ַיְֵּדעוּ ִכּי ֵעיֻרִמּם ֵהם‬
ְ ‫ו ִַתָּפַּקְחנָה ֵעינֵי‬
“Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked”

LXX
καὶ διηνοίχθησαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ τῶν δύο, καὶ ἔγνωσαν ὅτι γυμνοὶ ἦσαν
“And the eyes of the two were opened, and they knew that they were naked”

Second apparatus
διηνοίχθησαν] θ´ συνετίσθησαν M 343(s nom)-344´
“(the eyes of the two) were rendered intelligent…”

1. Attribution

6
The reading is transmitted with a few variants (συνετίσθησαν, συνετίσθητε), which are almost certainly simple
mistakes.
A first question these readings raise is which translation they reflect. The problem of
attribution affects many readings of the Three. When a reading is attributed to a single
version, and appears to reflect the typology of that version as far as it is known, the
identification will be widely accepted. But many readings are attributed to different versions
by different sources, or do not seem to fit the profile of the version to which they are
ascribed. Many readings are transmitted without attribution. Some of these problems indeed
come up in regard to the variant readings involving συνετίζω in Gen 3:5, 7.
The readings are attributed to Theodotion in the margin of a number of minuscules in
verse 5, and in the margin of other minuscules as well as the Codex Coislianus 1 in verse 7.
This information is recorded in the Göttingen edition of Genesis, with the further indication
that ms. 342 has the reading sine nomine. Montfaucon and Field, however, in their editions of
the remains <56> of the Hexapla, noted that the readings are attributed to Symmachus in the
eleventh book of the Hexaemeron of Anastasius of Sinai, an author of the seventh century.7
They quote this source from a manuscript, but the work has recently been edited for the first
time and is now accessible to all.8
There are different ways to resolve these conflicting indications. The alternative
readings may have been found in both Theodotion and Symmachus, as Montfaucon indeed
conjectures.9 However, since no source attributes the readings to both versions, it seems more
likely that one of the two attributions is in error. As was seen above, John Wevers privileges
the information transmitted in the margins of Septuagint manuscripts. Alison Salvesen, in her
excellent study of Symmachus in the Pentateuch, appears to follow Wevers, for she does not
include the readings in her book. No doubt the plurality of Septuagint manuscripts attesting
the attribution to Theodotion has weighed heavily on their decision. Perhaps also the late date
of Anastasius played a role.
Nevertheless, one cannot refrain from observing that the attitude toward the process
of translation that transpires from the renderings is more typical of Symmachus than

7
Anastasius of Sinai, Hexaemeron, XI, I, 1 ὁ Σύμμαχος εἰς τὸ Διανοιχθήσονται, συνετισθήσονται
τέθεικεν. Ὁμοίως καὶ εἰς τὸ Διηνοίχθησαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ τῶν δύο, συνετίσθησαν εἴρηκε, τουτέστιν
ἐσοφίσθησαν καὶ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἦλθον…
8
C. Kuehn, John Baggarly, S.J., eds., Anastasius of Sinai: Hexaemeron (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 278;
Rome: PIB, 2007).
9
Montfaucon, PG 15, 176: “forte est utriusque.”
Theodotion. Theodotion is known for strict, sometimes pedantic, adherence to the Hebrew
source text. One wonders why he would have diverged from the Septuagint reading at all:
διανοιχθήσονται and διηνοίχθησαν are perfectly good renderings of the Hebrew words in the
source text. Moreover, in all other passages where the Theodotionic equivalent of the Hebrew
verb ‫ פקח‬is known, it is ἀνοίγνυμι or διανοίγνυμι.10 It is true that “Theodotion” is not a
unified label. In different books it may correspond to versions of different dates and
backgrounds.11 It is also true, however, that within the entire Theodotion family, a high
degree of lexical stereotyping obtains. These considerations make the attribution to
Theodotion unlikely.
Symmachus, for his part, is much better known for creative interpretations. Examples
in the creation story are the rendering of ‫“ מות תמות‬dying you will die (on the day you eat of
the fruit of the tree)” in Gen 2:17 as θνητὸς ἔσῃ <57> “you will become mortal”, and the
translation of “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil” in Gen 3:22
as ἴδε ὁ Ἀδὰμ γέγονεν ὁμοῦ ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν “see, Adam has
altogether become one to know good and evil of himself.” These renderings respond to
famous exegetical problems in the passages concerned, and find echoes in other ancient
translations and commentaries. Precisely such a rendering is what we find in Gen 3:5, 7. In
light of these considerations, Anastasius’s attribution seems on balance more probable.

2. The biblical background of the verb συνετίζω

As a rule, readings from the later versions are transmitted only if they diverge from the
Septuagint. Many typical words of the Three are rare or unattested in the Septuagint. This
does not mean their vocabulary is wholly original. On the contrary, in many instances, one
observes that a reading in the recentiores links up lexically with words of the Septuagint,

10
See the asterisked portion of Job 27:19; Dan 9:18 θʹ ; as well as the verses that occur in the kaige sections of
Kings: 2 Kgs 4:35; 6:17, 20; 19:16. Similarly Aquila in Ps 146/145:8.
11
See e.g. P. Gentry, “New Ultra-Literal Translation Techniques in kaige-Theodotion and Aquila,” in Die
Sprache der Septuaginta/The Language of the Septuagint (edited by E. Bons and J. Joosten; LXX.H 3;
Gütersloh, Gütersloher, 2016), 202-220.
either words used in loco or, more often, elsewhere in the Greek version.12 Whether one
thinks of the later versions as recensions of the Septuagint or new translations, they certainly
interact with the Old Greek version and are in constant conversation with it. The link to the
Septuagint is particularly clear in the readings in Gen 3:5, 7.
The verb συνετίζω occurs 13 times in the Septuagint, and is attested also for the
minor Greek versions. In addition it is found a few times in non-canonical writings dependent
on the Septuagint. Absent from the New Testament, it makes a modest comeback in patristic
Greek, both in quotations from the Septuagint and in original writing.13 The verb is wholly
unattested in ancient Greek writings that are neither Jewish nor Christian. It is not found in
inscriptions and documentary papyri. Although its distribution alone does not suffice to argue
that συνετίζω is a vox biblica, a closer look at some of its earliest attestations suggests that it
is. Notably, the verb is used seven times in the Septuagint of Psalms to render the hiphil of
‫“ בין‬to understand”: <58>

Ps 118/119:27
Make me understand (‫ֲהִבינֵנִי‬, συνέτισόν με) the way of your precepts.14

Within the Septuagint, συνετίζω does not occur in the Pentateuch. In fact, apart from Psalms,
it is found only in translation units associated with the Theodotionic school.15 This means the
occurrences in Psalms are likely the oldest ones in the Septuagintal corpus. The question
arises, then, whether the Psalms translator may not have coined the verb in imitation of the
Hebrew hiphil: just as ‫ הבין‬is causative in relation to ‫בין‬, so συνετίζω is causative in relation to
συνίημι, the usual equivalent of ‫בין‬. The hypothesis cannot be proven, and the absence of
συνετίζω in non-biblical Greek may be due to the vagaries of attestation. Even if this is so,

12
Another case illustrating how the vocabulary of the Three relates to that of the Septuagint is discussed in J.
Joosten, “Source-language Oriented Remarks on the Lexicography of the Greek Versions of the Bible,” EThL
81 (2005): 152-164.
13
See J. Joosten, “The verb συνετίζω ‘to instruct’ in the Septuagint Psalms and beyond,” forthcoming in ”Må de
nu förklara…” Om bibeltexter, religion, literature. Festskrift för Staffan Olofsson / ”Let Them Now Explain…”
Bible texts, Religion, Literature. Festschrift for Staffan Olofsson.
14
See also Ps 118/119:34, 73, 125, 130, 144, 169.
15
See in more detail, Joosten, “The verb συνετίζω.”
however, the frequency of the verb in the biblical corpus needs to be explained. From obscure
origins in native Greek, the verb rose to prominence only in the biblical tradition.
There can be little doubt, therefore, that the marginal reading on Gen 3:5, 7, although
diverging from the Septuagint in those verses, is rooted in Septuagintal tradition. To a Jewish
reader, the verb would have a biblical ring, and perhaps even evoke specific passages such as
Ps 118/119:27 quoted above.

3. The exegetical rationale

Much of what is contained in the Three is of an exegetical nature. It is profitable to
distinguish two types of interpretation, each of which plays a large part, although in different
proportions, in the various later translations: linguistic exegesis, and contextual exegesis. The
Three had a different understanding of Hebrew from the Seventy, and many passages had
come to be explained differently in Jewish circles by the time the minor versions were
produced. Although the renderings in Gen 3:5, 7 consist of a single word, they may
correspond at once to linguistic and contextual issues.
A contextual factor is the figurative meaning of the “opening of the eyes” in Gen 3.
Nothing indicates that the eyes of the first-created man and woman are closed, literally, when
the serpent speaks to the woman of the benefits of the tree. In Gen 3:6 is is told that the
woman “saw that the tree was good” well before eating from its fruit. Manifestly, the phrases
“your eyes will be opened” and “their eyes were opened” are not to be taken literally. What is
meant is that through the act of eating they will gain a different understanding <59> of their
situation—a better one according to the snake, although not necessarily according to the
narrator. In light of this figurative meaning, the rendering “to be made intelligent” makes
excellent sense. A similar operation appears to underlie Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, where the
occurrence of ‫ פקח‬in Gen 3:7 was rendered not with the literal ‫“ פתח‬to open”, as in Onkelos,
but as ‫“ אתנהר‬to be illuminated”.
Whether the contextual factor was the only one motivating the rendering is doubtful,
however. The figurative sense obtaining in Gen 3:5, 7 is a frequent one, and in other passages
where it is found the Greek versions render it literally.16 In addition to the figurative meaning,

16
See Gen 21:19; 2 Kgs 6:17, 20; Prov 20:13. Note, however, that the Aramaic Targums do generally offer
distinct renderings for the figurative passages.
a purely linguistic reason may have been at work. A different understanding of the Hebrew
verb ‫ פקח‬may have triggered the rendering. While in Biblical Hebrew ‫ פקח‬almost always
refers to the opening of eyes, literally or figuratively, in post-Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic
the root also acquires other meanings, notably: “to open the mind, to make open-minded.”17
The adjective ‫ פקח‬means “seeing” in BH, but “bright, intelligent” in later Hebrew. The reviser
who used συνετίζω appears to have been familiar with this later meaning, which he found
congenial to the passage in Gen 3. A similar interpretation of the root ‫ פקח‬is found once in the
Septuagint:

Ps 146:8 MT
‫ְיהָוה ֹפֵּקַח ִﬠ ְו ִרים‬
The LORD opens (the eyes) of the blind.
Ps 145:8 LXX
κύριος σοφοῖ τυφλούς
The Lord makes the blind skilled.

The meaning of the Hebrew text in this Psalm is that God will give sight to the blind. The
Greek translation “he will make the blind wise” diverges from the source text because the
Hebrew verb was understood differently. The rendering in Psalm 146/145:8 makes it all the
more certain that the marginal rendering of Gen 3:5, 7 is not simply contextual but has a
linguistic basis too.
That Symmachus sometimes bases his renderings on Aramaic or late Hebrew was
already pointed out by Geiger.18 <60>

4. The translation of idiomatic expressions

17
See M. Jastrow. A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic
Literature (London: Luzac, 1903).
18
A. Geiger, “Symmachus der Uebersetzer der Bibel,” Jüdische Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft und Leben 1
(1862), 39-64, in particular 61; see also A.-F. Loiseau, L'influence De L'araméen Sur Les Traducteurs De La
LXX Principalement, Sur Les Traducteurs Grecs Postérieurs, Ainsi Que Sur Les Scribes De La Vorlage De La
Vorlage de la LXX (SCS 65; Atlanta: SBL, 2016), 221-222.
A last point concerns the translation technique that transpires in the marginal readings to Gen
3:5, 7. The rendering with συνετίζω, although contextually motivated, is somewhat jarring
because the subject of the verb are the eyes: “your eyes will be made intelligent.” The Greek
phrase would seem to conflate the literal and figurative meaning of the Hebrew text.
Literally, the text of Genesis refers to the “opening of the eyes”, but the contextual
implication is one of intellectual perception. “Your eyes will be opened” means: “you will be
made intelligent.” The marginal reading, however, implies “your eyes will be made
intelligent.”
In this conflation of literal and figurative meanings, Symmachus echoes a technique
that is used rather often in the Septuagint. In an earlier publication I have pointed out that
idiomatic expressions are translated in the Septuagint in one of three ways: literally,
figuratively, or with a combination of the literal and the figurative meaning.19 For example,
the Hebrew phrase ‫“ ישר בעיני פלוני‬to be straight in one’s eyes,” meaning “it pleases one,” may
be rendered literally:
1 Sam 18:26 εὐθύνθη ὁ λόγος ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς Δαυιδ
the matter was made straight in the eyes of David

or freely:
1 Kgs 9:12 οὐκ ἤρεσαν αὐτῷ
they did not please him

or, as happens rather often, in a mixture of literal and free:

Judg 14:3 ἤρεσεν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς μου
she was pleasing in my eyes

The rendering in Gen 3:5, 7 resembles this last technique. This resemblance tends to show
that the later translator linked up with the Septuagint not only in the choice of the verb
συνετίζω, but also in the translation technique. <61>

19
See J. Joosten, “Translating the Untranslatable: Septuagint Renderings of Hebrew Idioms,” in “Translation Is
Required”: The Septuagint in Retrospect and Prospect (ed. R. Hiebert; SCS 56; Atlanta: SBL, 2010), 59-70.
Conclusions
The rendering of the phrase “to open (the eyes)” in Gen 3:5, 7 as “to render (the eyes)
intelligent” can with some probability be attributed to Symmachus, in spite of the attribution
to Theodotion in codex M and some later Septuagint manuscripts. Using the verb συνετίζω
instead of the Old Greek διανοίγνυμι, the later translator links up with typical Septuagint
vocabulary. Similarly, the combination of literal and free translation harks back to
Septuagintal models. The exegetical motivation of the rendering may be complex, with the
change in meaning of the Hebrew verb ‫פקח‬, from “to open” to “to make open-minded”
playing an important part.
These conclusions may not be earthshattering, but to those who are interested in the
Septuagint and its vocabulary they are still worthwhile. They confirm and deepen our
appreciation of the later Greek versions. They also illustrate the inner life of the Greek Bible,
whose textual history was in constant contact with the Hebrew source text yet not indentured
to it in the updating of its message.

ABSTRACT
The rendering of the phrase “to open (the eyes)” in Gen 3:5, 7 with the verb συνετίζω “to
render (the eyes) intelligent,” instead of the Septuagint’s διανοίγνυμι “to open,” can with
some probability be attributed to Symmachus, in spite of the attribution to Theodotion in
codex M and some later Septuagint manuscripts. The exegetical motivation of the rendering
may be complex, with the change in meaning of the Hebrew verb ‫פקח‬, from “to open” to “to
make open-minded” playing an important part.