Matthew 18:21-22

[BartholomewB]

The Hebrew words mean “seventy-seven”. Shivim is “seventy”, ve is “and”, and shivah is “seven”. This Bible Hub page (link below) lists twenty-something English translations of this verse in Genesis. You will see that only two of them opt for “seventy times seven” and nearly all the rest for “seventy-seven”, while one or two dodge the issue by glossing it over.
http://biblehub.com/genesis/4-24.htm

 

[Gorgias]

The Hebrew words mean “seventy-seven”. Shivim is “seventy”, ve is “and”, and shivah is “seven”. This Bible Hub page (link below) lists twenty-something English translations of this verse in Genesis. You will see that only two of them opt for “seventy times seven” and nearly all the rest for “seventy-seven”, while one or two dodge the issue by glossing it over.
http://biblehub.com/genesis/4-24.htm

The question, then, is why the translation “-fold” is used. I mean, if the word only means “seventy-seven”, and “seven” (earlier in the verse) really does have a suffix that means “-fold”, then are we saying that the more accurate translation is really just “if Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven”…?

 

[BartholomewB]

the more accurate translation is really just “if Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven”…?

Yes, that’s it, exactly. The “-fold” is a suffix added by some translators for the purpose, I suppose, of making their meaning clearer, or possibly just as a stylistic adornment. Your guess is as good as mine! Here is a word-for-word translation of Lamech’s threat to exact “seventy-sevenfold” vengeance:

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/4-24.htm

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

the more accurate translation is really just “if Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-seven”…?

Yes, that’s it, exactly. The “-fold” is a suffix added by some translators for the purpose, I suppose, of making their meaning clearer, or possibly just as a stylistic adornment. Your guess is as good as mine! Here is a word-for-word translation of Lamech’s threat to exact “seventy-sevenfold” vengeance:

http://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/4-24.htm

OK. So… the “ta-yim” suffix really does mean “-fold”, and we don’t find that in the “seventy-seven”? That is, the “seventy-seven” really is a cardinal number.

What’s interesting, then, is that we find another example of how the Septuagint introduces additional meaning into the text, and how we as Christians understand embrace that additional meaning. (I’m thinking of the almah/parthenos ‘controversy’ in Isaiah 7:14.) So, if the Genesis passage in the Septuagint an adverbial form which means ‘-fold’, such that Jesus uses the same form and thereby says, “seventy-times seven” (or, more awkwardly, “seventy-ied seven”), then don’t we look at that and say, “huh! Lookie there! Jesus really did say seventy-times seven!!!”

Or, do we try to go to a text Jesus didn’t quote (by virtue of the difference) and try to make it match that text?

 

[BartholomewB]

What’s interesting, then, is that we find another example of how the Septuagint introduces additional meaning into the text,

You call it “additional meaning”; a less generous spirit might call it “a mistranslation”. Why did the Egyptian translators make that change? I don’t know. What do you suggest?

 

[Gorgias]

You call it “additional meaning”; a less generous spirit might call it “a mistranslation”. Why did the Egyptian translators make that change? I don’t know. What do you suggest?

I guess I look to Matthew’s use of ‘parthenos’ in Mt 1:23 and translators’ lack of desire to change it back to ‘almah’. If there’s no change from the Septuagint’s rendering back to the Hebrew in that verse, then why change the Septuagint’s ‘hebdomekontakis’ (as quoted by Jesus in Mt 18:22) back to the Hebrew’s use of ‘seventy-seven’?

 

[Zach]

According to the St. Joseph NABRE footnotes for 18:22 “seventy-seven times: the Greek corresponds exactly to the LXX of Gn 4:24”. This is in conflict with what was said earlier that the LXX translated it 77 times 7 from the Hebrew 77 times

 

[Gorgias]

According to the St. Joseph NABRE footnotes for 18:22 “seventy-seven times: the Greek corresponds exactly to the LXX of Gn 4:24”. This is in conflict with what was said earlier that the LXX translated it 77 times 7 from the Hebrew 77 times

I think you’re misinterpreting the note.

In the Greek, it’s λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς Οὐ λέγω σοι ἕως ἑπτάκις, ἀλλὰ ἕως ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά.

The cardinal number ‘seventy’ is ἑβδομήκοντα. The form we have here is adverbial, so it’s not “seventy”, but rather “seventy times”. It modifies “seven”, so the phrase in the Greek is equivalent to “seven, taken seventy times.”

So, the Greek of Mt 18:22 corresponds to the Greek of the Septuagint (as the note states). What it’s not stating is that English translation of the NAB doesn’t correspond to the Greek.

 

[BartholomewB]

The cardinal number ‘seventy’ is ἑβδομήκοντα .

That’s certainly the rule that Luke follows. In Acts 27:37 Luke gives the number of people aboard the ship, in some manuscripts, as 276 and in others as “about 76.” In both cases, the Greek for seventy-six is ἑβδομήκοντα ἕξ (hebdomekonta hex), sometimes written as separate words and sometimes as one word. In Luke 10:1, “the Lord appointed seventy-two others,” the Greek word is ἑβδομήκοντα δύο (hebdomekonta duo).

 

[Zach]

So essentially the NABRE corresponds to what Jesus would have said if he directly quoted the original Hebrew Gn 4:24 but since he most likely quoted the original Greek the NABRE does not correspond to what Jesus actually said.

 

[BartholomewB]

… but since he most likely quoted the original Greek …

When Peter asked Jesus that question about forgiveness and Jesus answered him, what language were they speaking? Most of the authors I’ve read think Aramaic was the language Jesus habitually used in conversation with the Twelve.

 

[Zach]

Yes speaking Aramaic but referencing the Greek scripture.

 

[steve-b]

When Peter asks Jesus if we should forgive up to seven times most translations have Jesus responding that we should forgive seventy times seven times. This is also how I always heard people say it. Other translations have Jesus responding that we should forgive seventy-seven times. I realize that both translations underlying meaning that our forgiveness should be limitless is more important than the literal number. However I’m curious which one of the translated versions is closest to the original Greek scripture.

From the Greek NT

Mt 18:22, ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά. = 70 x 7

ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά.

 

[Moses613]

The differences there are not actually in the vowel points, which are identical, but in additional signs used only in the Bible to indicate the stressed syllable or the place to pause when reading aloud. Why they should be different in Genesis and Ezra I have no idea. Perhaps if @Moses613 should see this he will be kind enough to explain.

Hi, thanks for asking. These are cantillation marks, called “trop” in Yiddish, probably related to the English (Greek-derived) word “trope”. Ta’amei neginah in Hebrew. Trop comes in several “themes.” So for example, you can have a phrase that is chanted with two different tunes, but each one will have identical elements. Certain trop marks indicate minor pauses, others are more significant like a comma in English, and then there is the “end of verse” mark. In this case, even though they are different, in both verses the word shiv’im is marked with a “servant” trop, linking it to the following word. In the first case, the word veshiv’ah is the end of a verse so it must have the appropriate marking, and according to the rules of cantillation the servant “merchah” sign precedes it. In the second verse it’s in the middle so veshiv’ah has a “zakef katon” symbol that indicates a comma/pause, and preceding it according to the rules must come the “munach” symbol.

 

[BartholomewB]

Thank you, Moses! Well, well, it’s going to take me a minute or two to recover from the impact of that massive load of information. It’s a bit depressing, really, to be made to realize how little I know and how much there is still to learn …

While you’re here, could I ask you another question arising from this thread? I don’t know whether the Septuagint has ever interested you at all, but this discrepancy has aroused my curiosity. In this verse in Genesis the number “seventy-seven” in the original Hebrew has been changed to “seventy times seven” in the Greek text. Have you any idea what the translators may have had in mind when they made that change?

 

[Moses613]

I have a passing interest in the Septuagint, although I’m not sure the one we have today is completely faithful to the original. I don’t know why the translators would have made that change. The Hebrew can certainly only mean 77, a far cry from 70 x 7 = 490. “Seventy times seven” is also definitely not a typical way for the Hebrew Bible to phrase a number, at least not in the Pentateuch. However, while I was reflecting on it, I wondered if whoever translated it could have been working off an alternate reading of the text.
The verse says:
כִּי שִׁבְעָתַיִם יֻקַּם־קָיִן וְלֶמֶךְ שִׁבְעִים וְשִׁבְעָה׃
Lit: If sevenfold shall-be-avenged Cain, [then] Lemech seventy and seven [shiv’im veshiv’ah].
Now, the second word in the verse is shiv’atayim, sevenfold. What if there existed a version where the last word in the verse mirrored it?
וְלֶמֶךְ שִׁבְעִים שִׁבְעָתַיִם - v’Lemech shiv’im shiv’atayim
“Lemech seventy sevenfold”
That would correspond exactly with the Greek version.
As a matter of faith, I believe in the accuracy of the Masoretic text, but alternate texts abounded during the Second Temple period.

 

[BartholomewB]

A possible alternative reading from pre-Masoretic scrolls, now lost. It certainly sounds like a reasonable idea. I remember reading in connection with the Qumran scrolls that in some passages, though I don’t remember in which books, the older text was found to be closer to the Septuagint than the Masoretic text. Thank you for the suggestion!