2. The language. — Although the Greek, whence the remaining te.vts which we possess are in the main derived, is exceedingly ambitious and at times eloquent, the liter.iry form of large portions (especially chs. 1-9) in which the Hebrew parallel- ism is observed indicates that Greek is not the originiil language in which the work was com- posed ; for those Israelites who composed original works in Greek naturally .adopted Hellenic literary styles, the tragedian Ezekiel (Clem. Alex. Strom. I. xxiii. 155) writing iambics, the Jewish Sibyl hexameters, and Josephus imitating Thucydides. Further, numerous passages display the irresponsi- bility of a translator. That the original language was Hebrew is made certain by the preservation in the Jewish Oral Tradition (Genesis liahba, 96, and Jer. Hagiga, ii. 1) of a fragment which is clearly grossly mistranslated in 14""-, ical ydip rb wpaxOiv (rvv ry dpdaavrt KoXaodrjaeTCLf Sti roOro Kal 4v elduXot^ iBvui' i-miTKOiri] Icrrai, 'for that which is done shall be punished with the doer; on this account there shall be a visitation also on the idols of the Gentiles,' where the first proposition is meaning- le.ss, while the attempt to give it a meaning in the AV, 'for that which was made shall be punished together with him that made it,' assigns to the two verbs Trpdrray and dpav a sense which they have in no Greek writing of any period,* and introduces a proposition which is very little better than the other. The true proposition is ' that which is wor- shipped (i31'm) shall be punished together with the worshipper (nmt'n) ; wherefore he says " and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgements" (Ex 12'^).' The verb iny in both Jewish and Chris- tian Aramaic frequently represents the Greek Trpir- TfiK, and this sense of 'to do' is WTongly given it in the LXX of Dt 12*' ; that the Greek oif Wisdom is in this case a mistranslation of the maxim quoted by the Rabbis does not therefore admit of question. And, as the text occurs in the middle of a paragraph with which it is closely related, the inference drawn extends further than the actual verse.
" In 15<^ ol SpiijvTtt means ' the doers,' but is a mistranslacion of c-aian, Ps 1158.
686
WISDOM OF SOLOMON
WISDOM OF SOLOMON
The work is otherwise used by tlie Oral Tradition, yet perhaps not in such a way as to permit of any inference with regard to its hinguage. In Exodus Rabba, 25, the manna is described as ' having in it all sorts of tastes, so that each Israelite was tasting what he wished ' ; this represents Wis 10-", irpis iraaav tjSovt^v tVxi^oc7-a /cat 7r/)6s ira.<xav dp/iortoc ycdaiv^ but the correspondence is not quite literal. In Mechilta, 13, on Ex 12™ { = Pesikta, 7) it is stated that, when the lirst-born of any Egyptian died, the i.ither made an image of him, winch he set up in his house ; this comes from Wis 14", wliere it is suggested that idolatry thus arose, the intention being also to account for the apparent identilication of the gods of Egypt with their lirst-born in Ex 12'-. The Oral Tradition employs it for a dillerent pur- pose ; if its phrase I'lip'n ns be the original of eira^a TToi^ffos, the language must have already been affected by Greek. In the Midrash Tanchuma, i. 796 (ed. Warsaw, 1879), the substance of 18^ is thus given : ' they [the Egyptians] thought to bind them [the Israelites] in the prison-house; He brought upon them the darkness.' In Bab. Sank. 636 (end) the sulistance of 14'-- " is represented by ' the Israelites knew that the idols had no reality in them and only worshipped them in order to con- summate unlawful unions,' though the correspond- ence may be accidental.
The text of 14^^ appears to contain an indication of the language in which the book was written, but it is not easy to interpret. ' Moreover this was not enough for them that they erred in the knowledge of God ; but whereas they live in a great war of ignorance, they call such great evils peace' (rd roirauTa KaKO. etpTjvTjv Trpoaayopeuoujiv). It is certain tliat the Greek word dprivri is not a name for any idolatrous system ; but the Hebrew phrase ' to call peace to ' (di'^b' d.iS in-ip-i, Jg 21'^ ; cf. Dt 20'") means not to designate by the name 'peace,' but to invite to peace, or oiler friendship to ; and this is what the phrase appears to signify in the passage cited, since the justilieation of the proposition in what follows is that the idolaters keep on per- petrating various atrocities. The thought is then somewhat like 1".
The fact of the work being a translation accounts for the infelicity of many passages, in some of which the underlying Hebrew can be restored with certainty, e.g. 4"*, 6^ovrai Kal i^ovdevrjaovaiv, ' thej^ shall see and despise,' where the context requires ' they shall see and pine away' ; the original iond', which signifies both, can be restored with certainty from Ps 112'" ; in 13'°, ' or a useless stone, the work of an ancient hand,' ' useless ' is the new-Hebrew sense of Sidd, which should have been rendered 'carved.' The word ' hand' should probably have been ' monument,' which is another sense of the Hebrew word for ' hand.' In 3'", fJTis ouk (yvw KolTtif iv TrapaTTTufiaTi, the last words probably stand for Hebrew Siyn (as in Ezk 3-", 18-*) and should have been rendered ya/iLK-fiv. In 12^, ijjxa.s oCk vai.devoii' Tous ix^P^^^ Tifj-wv iv tivpioTTiTt fj.a(TTLyoiSf the sense required by tlie argument is ' in order to teach us Thou dost chastise our enemies with leniency ' ; if /ivpwTijTi, ' in ten-thousand-ness,' is apparently a mistranslation of some Hebrew word which seemed to be an abstract noun from nut or nizi, but it is not clear what ; possibly Ksno read xnia, since these letters are confused in many scripts. In 19' (of the Israelites in the bed of the Red Sea), ws yap 'l-mroi ive/XTjOtja-au Kal (is dfj.vol SiecrKipniaaVj ' they fed like horses and skipped like lambs,' the author clearly did not intend ' fed ' ; from Is 63" as ex- plained by Kimchi it would seem that the original had is-i, ' they ran ' (used of horses in Jl 2', Am 6'-), misread lyi. Kimchi's words are, 'just like the horse which runs (p.i) in the desert where there is no stone nor mud whereon he can stumble.