Genesis 15

Notes

1. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 52

   ἐγὼ ὑπερασπίζω σου, "I shield you," a verb, where the Masoretic version reads "I am a shield to you" (מָגֵן, the word that gave "who delivered," מִגֵּן, at 14:20); and ὁ μισθός σου πολὺς ἔσται σφόδρα, "your wage will be very much," a promise in the future, where the Masoretic version reads "your wage made many, very much," which can also be read as one sentence with the first ("I am a shield to you, your very great wage"). The copula "will be" is seeded and marked as a plus. Paul sets this wage beside 15:6: "to the one who works, the wage is not reckoned as grace but as debt" (Rom 4:4).

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 4, 18, 52

   Δέσποτα Κύριε, "Master Lord," where the Masoretic version reads "Adonai ELOHIM" (אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה); the same pair at 15:8. δεσπότης is the address of Simeon's prayer, "Now you release your slave, Master, according to your word, in peace" (Luke 2:29), where the verb is the one Abram uses here: ἐγὼ δὲ ἀπολύομαι ἄτεκνος, "but I am being released childless," the language of dying, where the Masoretic version reads "while I am going childless." ὁ δὲ υἱὸς Μάσεκ τῆς οἰκογενοῦς μου, "the son of Masek, my household-born": the Greek reads מֶשֶׁק ("holding") as a name, and the feminine article makes Masek the household-born woman whose son is Eliezer. Printed as it sounds, marked as a name (18).

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 52, 54

   Ἐπειδὴ ἐμοὶ οὐκ ἔδωκας σπέρμα, "inasmuch as to me you have not given seed," where the Masoretic version reads "Look, to me you have not given seed"; and ὁ δὲ οἰκογενής μου κληρονομήσει με, "now my household-born will inherit me," where it reads "and look, a son of my house is possessing me." The second "look" (וְהִנֵּה) has no Greek word and is marked as a minus. κληρονομέω, "inherit," is the verb of Matt 5:5, "the gentle will inherit the land," and of Gal 3–4 and Heb 11:8, where Abraham "went out into a place that he was to receive as an inheritance."

4. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 52, 54, 143

   καὶ εὐθὺς φωνὴ Κυρίου ἐγένετο, "and straightway the voice of the Lord came to be," where the Masoretic version reads "and look, the word of ADONAI." ὃς ἐξελεύσεται ἐκ σοῦ, "one who shall go out from you," where the Masoretic version reads "from your innards" (מִמֵּעֶיךָ); the alignment does not seed a minus for "innards," and it is marked as a minus after "from you" (54). The copula "came to be" is seeded and marked as a plus.

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 54, 141, 143

   Swete prints εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτόν, "said to him," after the first verb of saying, from Alexandrinus, and no "to him" after the second, where the Masoretic version and Rahlfs have "to him" with the second ("And he said to him, 'So shall your seed be'"). The alignment cannot pair the words and does not seed them; the transposition is marked as a plus and a minus (54). The last words are quoted at Rom 4:18, "so shall your seed be."

6. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness" (KJV), "And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness" (RSV), "And Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (NETS)

   Rulings 2, 4, 46, 52

   καὶ ἐπίστευσεν Ἀβρὰμ τῷ θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην: the New Testament quotes this Greek word for word, with Ἀβραάμ, at Rom 4:3 (and 4:9, 22), Gal 3:6 and Jas 2:23, and Paul builds Rom 4 on its verb. Against the Masoretic version ("And he believed in ADONAI, and he reckoned it to him as justice") the Greek names Abram (a plus), has God for the Tetragrammaton, and makes the second verb passive: "it was reckoned." The Hebrew leaves open who reckoned what to whom (God the faith to Abram, as most read it; or Abram the promise to God as justice, as Ramban read it); the Greek passive names no reckoner, and the New Testament takes the reckoner to be God (Rom 4:6). Three words bind the New Testament here. πιστεύω is first-fixed as "believe," the expected English, because no stranger sense is attested that does not settle the crux of faith and works one way (guide §1.4; 93); "trust" and "have faith" are kept open for the noun πίστις, still to be fixed. λογίζομαι is first-fixed as "reckon," the accounting word, which carries Paul's argument in Rom 4:4 ("the wage is not reckoned as grace but as debt"; compare the wage of 15:1) and which the KJV itself varies with "counted" and "imputed" in one chapter (Rom 4:3, 6, 9–11, 22–24). δικαιοσύνη is already CORE as "justice" (guide §3), and the core gloss holds: "righteousness" is the expected English, and "justice" keeps the word in one family with δίκαιος "just" and δικαιόω, as the Hebrew צְדָקָה "justice" does in the Masoretic version. James reads the same verse against faith without works (Jas 2:21–24), Paul for it (Rom 4:1–5); the English decides neither (46).

7. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 52

   ἐκ χώρας Χαλδαίων, "from the country of the Chaldeans," where the Masoretic version reads "from Ur of the Chaldeans": the Greek reads אוּר not as a city's name but as a region, as at 11:28, 31 (χώρα). Stephen's speech follows the Greek: "he went out from the land of the Chaldeans" (Acts 7:4).

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 52

   τριετίζουσαν, "three years old," each time, where the Masoretic version reads "threefold" (מְשֻׁלֶּשֶׁת, which can mean either three years old or three of each); the Greek decides for the age. περιστερά, "dove," where the Masoretic version reads "fledgling" (גּוֹזָל), so that the Greek pair is the pair of Luke 2:24, "a pair of turtledoves or two young doves."

9. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 52

   ἔθηκεν αὐτὰ ἀντιπρόσωπα ἀλλήλοις, "set them facing one another," where the Masoretic version reads "gave each its piece to meet its fellow." "The birds," plural, where the Masoretic version reads "the bird." The Greek reads "divided" (διεῖλεν) where the Masoretic version reads "severed": διαιρέω is the Greek's ordinary word for the Hebrew בָּתַר, and the difference is the two lexicons'.

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 52, 54, 141, 143

    τὰ διχοτομήματα αὐτῶν, "their sections," stands in apposition to "the bodies" and has nothing behind it in the Masoretic version ("And the raptor came down on the carcasses"); the alignment does not seed it, and it is marked as a plus. The Greek has "birds" where the Masoretic version reads "the raptor." καὶ συνεκάθισεν αὐτοῖς Ἀβράμ, "and Abram sat down together with them," where the Masoretic version reads "and Abram fanned them away" (וַיַּשֵּׁב): the Greek reads the same consonants as יָשַׁב, "sit." The alignment has no unit for συνεκάθισεν, so the difference is carried by this note and not by a mark.

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 52, 53

    φόβος σκοτινὸς μέγας, "a dark, great fear," where the Masoretic version reads "a dread, a great darkness": the Greek makes darkness the quality of the fear. σκοτινός is Swete's spelling of σκοτεινός (Matt 6:23 "your whole body will be dark"). περὶ δὲ ἡλίου δυσμάς, "about the setting of the sun," where the Masoretic version reads "And it was: the sun was about to come in." ἔκστασις keeps "trance" as at 2:21.

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 4, 53, 54, 141, 143

    Swete prints καὶ κακώσουσιν αὐτὸ καὶ δουλώσουσιν αὐτούς, "and they shall maltreat it, and they shall enslave them," from Alexandrinus, where Rahlfs has only καὶ δουλώσουσιν αὐτούς, and the Masoretic version reads "and they shall serve them." The words are Swete's only, the alignment does not seed them, and they are marked as a plus. Stephen quotes the verse with both verbs: "and they shall enslave it and maltreat it four hundred years" (Acts 7:6). The Greek also turns the Masoretic version's "they shall serve them" (the seed serving its masters) into "they shall enslave them" (the masters enslaving the seed).

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 53, 137

    Swete prints τραφείς, "having been fed" (of τρέφω, "feed"), from Alexandrinus, and the Swete scan confirms the reading (leaf n55); D reads τραφεις εν ειρηνῃ. Rahlfs and Göttingen read ταφείς, "buried," and the Masoretic version reads "you shall be buried." The two Greek words differ by one letter. The text is printed as Swete has it (137), and the difference is marked as one of wording: in this text Abram goes to his fathers nourished into a good old age.

14. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 52

    οὔπω γὰρ ἀναπεπλήρωνται αἱ ἁμαρτίαι τῶν Ἀμορραίων, "for not yet have the sins of the Amorites been filled up," where the Masoretic version reads "for not complete is the iniquity of the Amorite." The Greek carries the negation as "not yet" (οὔπω) and makes the sins a measure being filled, the image of 1 Thess 2:16, "to fill up their sins always."

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 52

    φλὸξ ἐγένετο, "a flame came to be," where the Masoretic version reads "and dusk there was" (עֲלָטָה). The Greek has "torches," plural, where the Masoretic version reads "a torch."

16. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 53, 54, 143

    Swete prints ἐκεῖ, "there," and ὁ θεός, "God," from Alexandrinus, where Rahlfs reads ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ, "on that day," and κύριος, with the Masoretic version's "On that day ADONAI." "There" is marked as a difference of wording. διέθετο … διαθήκην, "disposed … a covenant," the verb of the noun, where the Masoretic version reads "cut a covenant"; Luke 22:29 and Heb 9:16–17 use the pair. The Greek has the promise in the future, "I will give," where the Masoretic version reads "I have given," and has the name of the river once, "the great river, Euphrates," where the Masoretic version reads "the great river, the river Euphrates"; the alignment seeds no minus there, and the second "the river" is marked as a minus (54).

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 18, 52, 54

    The Greek has the peoples in the plural, where the Masoretic version reads each in the collective singular ("the Kenite"). Κεναίους and Κελμωναίους (Swete's spelling of the Kadmonites) have no lemma id in the packet and are left untagged. The Greek list has eleven peoples: at 15:21 it adds the Hivites, seeded and marked as a plus.