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Exodus 4:24–26: A Textual Re-Examination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

William Dumbrell
William Dumbrell
Affiliation:
Moore College, Sydney, Australia
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Extract

Complicating the exegesis of this difficult passage are certain textual problems with which this present submission is to be concerned. With the Masoretic Text of v. 24 — wayehî badderek bammālôn wayyipgešēhû YHWH wayebaqqēš hamîtô — the Versions are in substantial agreement. The Syriac text twice inserts ‘Moses’ into this verse, as the subject of the sentence and as the object of mût, but this is an obvious intrusion designed to clarify a difficult context, while the Targum (expectedly) and the Old Greek prefix an equivalent for Heb. mal'āk before YHWH. It is probable that the double mention of a setting (i.e. badderek/bammālôn) is the preservation of two ancient variants. J. Morgenstern, who with others, has rightly noted this, draws attention to the peculiarity of the article with mlwn (i.e. bammālon), since the contextual situation is generally vague and in a journey of many days there may have been several such stops, though on the other hand the article with derek occasions no difficulty since the journey as a whole is referred to. Morgenstern preferred to read bammālôn as a nominal form from the root mûl, translating ‘now upon the journey, at the circumcision Yahweh attacked him (i.e., the child) and sought to kill him.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 285 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1972

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References

1 For a brief, but comprehensive survey of positions taken to that date cf. Fohrer, Georg, Überlieferung und Geschichte des Exodus, BZAW 91 (Berlin, Töpelmann, 1964), 45–47Google Scholar. Additionally, note Mose, Der Blutbräutigam, Schmid, H., Judaica 22/2 (1966), 113–18Google Scholar.

2 The Bloody Husband (?) Ex. 4:24–26) Once Again, HUCA 34 (1963), 35–70Google Scholar, esp. 68/9.

3 Cf. Joh. deGroot, The Story of the Bloody Husband, OTS 2 (1943), 10–17Google Scholar.

4 Cf. Barth, Jakob, Die Nominalbildung in den Semitischen Sprachen (Leipzig, 1891), 326Google Scholar, for comparable forms in Hebrew.

5 The noun occurs twice in the Joseph narrative, apart from elsewhere in the Old Testament.

6 Der Blutsbräutigam, Ex. 4:24–26, ZAW 50 (1932), 1–8Google Scholar.

7 Ḥatan-Damim, (Heb.), Eretz-lzrael 3 (1954), 93–96Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Lane, E. W., Arabic-English Lexicon (London, 1865), 703–04Google Scholar.

9 A. Goetze, Long or Short a? Notes on Some Akkadian Words, Or. NS 16 (1947), 239–50, esp. 246–47.

10 Cf./CAD Vol. 6, ḫatänu, p. 148, for the Akkadian evidence.

11 Der Blutbräutigam. Eine textkritische und exegetische Studie zu Ex. 4. 24–26, Alttestamentliche Studien Friedrich Nötscher gewidmet (Bonn, 1950), 120–28Google Scholar, esp. 123.

13 Mitchell, T. C., The Meaning of the Noun ḤTN in the Old Testament, VT 19 (1969), 93–112Google Scholar, has fully treated the noun in its biblical occurrences. His conclusion that the nominal form ḥtn simply means ‘relation by marriage,’ in the Old Testament, and that narrower meanings are to be derived from the particular contexts ignores (as it may) specific Masoretic interpretation of ḥōtēn as father-in-law, ḥātān as son-in-law. Since this distinction is generally sustained by the relevant contexts (though Judges 1.16 and 4.11 could well be repointed ḥātān) the Masoretic pointing must be taken to indicate some difference.

13 Op. cit. 124–25, note 5.

14 Greek prospiptō pros of prostration at one's feet is common enough. Only here does the Greek verb render Heb. nāgae, and though the Heb. verb with a following preposition is close in meaning to prospiptō, the use of the Greek verb here seems clearly interpretative.

15 I.e., and orthographical confusion between ʼyt andʽ nt.

16 At Jeremiah 42 (35).5, LXX A.

17 Though the use of nätan in the Hopheal Perfect is not otherwise attested in the Old Testament. The verb is common enough in the Hopheal imperfect in the sense of ‘be put,’ etc. (cf. Lev. 11.38 and 2 Sam. 18.9). Whether or not the attested imperfect forms are Qal passive or Hopheal, the analogous (and grammatical) Hopheal perfect would have been huttan. Perhaps the translator had imagined that the sense of the verb here was “is provided, at hand,’ or ‘is set’ (i.e., staunched). Heinisch, Paul, Das Buck Exodus übersetzt und eklärt (Bonn: 1934)Google Scholar (Die Heilige Schrijt des Alten Testaments 1/2), 64 in suggesting that Heb. nittan was the Vorlage of Greek ʼestē comes close to our proposal.

18 In view of the LXX paidiou mou one is tempted to think in terms of the loss of an original benî. Apart, however, from the remote possibility of a contextual haplography with the concluding ly of the previous verse, there is no textual indication as to how this may have arisen. There is some evidence (Lagarde's edition of the Bohairic, the Old Latin, one citation of Cyril of Alexandria and the LXX mss. Abmv) for the omission of mou, and this may suggest that the suffix in the LXX was interpretative (or indeed that the whole phrase tou paidiou mou may have been, if our second suggestion of an original mûlātô is adopted). In view of the following wayyōʼmer (v.27) the loss of a waw in either an original benô or mulātô would be perfectly explicable. Perhaps the principle of a double duty consonant to explain this loss could be invoked, though this seems less likely. On this last question cf. most recently, Watson, W., Shared Consonants in Northwest Semitic, Biblica 50 (1969), 525–33Google Scholar.

19 Whatever the original position may have been it is clear that the son has become the object of the history of tradition. On this question of the progression from history to history of tradition in this episode cf. Childs, Brevard S., Myth and Reality in the Old Testament (London, SCM Press, 1960)Google Scholar (Studies in Biblical Theology No. 27), 58–63.

20 The LXX has not translated the kî recitativum of v. 25b, but this should not be considered unusual.

21 Cf. the use of ʼāz in v. 26a, and Childsʼ remarks on p. 59, op. cit.

22 Was Zipporah a priestess? In view of her background and the controversy on Nb. 12.1ff. this is not unlikely.

23 The question of ultimate Midianite provenance has been discussed most recently by Kosmala, H., The Bloody Husband, VT 12 (1962), 14–28Google Scholar.