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Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: July 23rd, 2011, 9:56 am
by James Ernest
Doing a quick, random drop-in here. Verse 5 is kind of a mess, no? Both “every place of the mountain will be Seion” and “Seion will be every place of the mountain” strike me as nonsensical. Is it possible to understand καὶ ἥξει καὶ ἔσται as "it will come to pass that" and solve the problem you note ("The clause cannot be construed as . . . because . . .") by taking νεφέλη as a kind of predicative appositive to πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν καὶ πάντα τὰ περικύκλῳ αὐτῆς ? Sorry to be making up terminology. What pops into my head is a construction like John 12:46, ἐγὼ φῶς εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἐλήλυθα, where ἐγὼ is the subject of ἐλήλυθα and φῶς functions in the way I have in mind for νεφέλη in this Isaiah passage. Something like: "And it will come to pass that every place of Mount Sion and all its region will cast a shadow as a cloud by day: as [a cloud] of smoke, and as [a cloud] of burning fire by night." I'd be a bit happier if the text read καὶ ἡμέρας ὡς rather than ἡμέρας καὶ ὡς: "will cast a shadow as a cloud: by day as [a cloud] of smoke, and as [a cloud] of burning fire by night."

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: July 23rd, 2011, 12:22 pm
by Jason Hare
Hello, James.

I just wanted to let you know that I've split your post off of the main discussion to allow for it to be answered directly. This is what we're discussing in the thread Where to make comments on verses? by Louis Sorenson.

Regards.

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: July 25th, 2011, 9:44 pm
by Ken M. Penner
4.5 καὶ ἥξει, καὶ ἔσται πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν καὶ πάντα τὰ περικύκλῳ αὐτῆς σκιάσει νεφέλη ἡμέρας καὶ ὡς καπνοῦ καὶ ὡς φωτὸς πυρὸς καιομένου νυκτός· πάσῃ τῇ δόξῃ σκεπασθήσεται
James Ernest wrote:Verse 5 is kind of a mess, no? ...
"And it will come to pass that every place of Mount Sion and all its region will cast a shadow as a cloud by day: as [a cloud] of smoke, and as [a cloud] of burning fire by night." I'd be a bit happier if the text read καὶ ἡμέρας ὡς rather than ἡμέρας καὶ ὡς: "will cast a shadow as a cloud: by day as [a cloud] of smoke, and as [a cloud] of burning fire by night."
FWIW,Codex Sinaiticus has a raised-dot punctuation between καὶ ἥξει and καὶ ἔσται.
Yes, the John parallel is helpful.
Silva has
5Then he will come, and as for
every site of Mount Sion and all that surrounds it,
a cloud will overshadow it by day and will be like
smoke and like a light of fire burning by night.
With all glory will it be covered.
Ottley has
And he shall come, and it shall be, every place of the mount
Zion, and all that is round about her; a cloud shall shadow it by
day, and like as when smoke and as a light of fire burneth by
night; it shall be sheltered by all the glory (of the Lord),
Brenton has
And he shall come, and it shall be with regard to every place of Mount Sion, yea, all the region round about it shall a cloud overshadow by day, and there shall be as it were the smoke and light of fire burning by night: and upon all the glory shall be a defence.
Brenton takes the neuter surroundings as an accusative. Brenton and Silva both add a "will be". They all seem to take the nominatives as a sort of casus pendens "as for".
My first take on the translation was an attempt not to resort to casus pendens, but I am not at all happy with the result:
And it will come, and every place of the mountain will be Seion and a cloud will shade all the places surrounding her by day and by night like smoke and like burning fire light it will be covered with all the glory.

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: September 6th, 2011, 4:09 pm
by A Fincke
James, you hit the nail on the head! LXX with ἥξει for ברא does 2 things. 1) It strips a letter to show that for ברא what is meant is בר "son." Now the "son" of יהוה that "will come" is "ηξει," which sounds like "Yesha." 2) The Son that comes and casts a shadow over the land is the One whom you quote as claiming to be a "light." But at the crucifixion that light turned into an ominous shadow. Isaiah really has a funny sense of humor.

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: September 24th, 2011, 4:42 am
by timothy_p_mcmahon
A Fincke wrote:Isaiah really has a funny sense of humor.
Actually, I think you have quite an imagination.

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: September 24th, 2011, 9:30 am
by Andrew Fincke
Here's what happened: IQIsa-a has the original text: ויברא יהוה על כול מכון הר ציון ועל מקראה ענן יוממ "And the Lord created on all the establishment of Mount Sion and on its Bible a cloud by day." All the rest of the verse - the part about "smoke and brightness of fire" up through 6a, the reference to Jonah in his Sukkah basking in the sunshine, isn't there. מקרא "Mikra" is the Holy Scripture. See Even Shoshan, The New Dictionary (Hebrew, 1993), 771, definition 3. The term is Mishanic. The darkness at the crucifixion caused confusion in those expecting light. This confusion made the yeshiva students take out their Bibles (מקרא), put on their skull-caps - חפה (chuppa) at the end of verse 5 - and burn the midnight oil ("smoke and the brightness of fire, flame at night") in search of the missing link. Dillmann, Der Prophet Jesaja, 1899, 41 saw this long before the scroll came out of Cave 1 when he said: "But nothing's lost if we delete 5b, which adds nothing to the sense, and is either an error or a gloss." However, Dillmann's castigation of the Septuagint of Isaiah: "exudes bad readings, omissions and misundersstandings" isn't correct - at least not here. The Greeks took advantage of the Hebrew textual malaise and produced a Christian midrash. Dillman's also wrong to see in מקראה "a defective spelling; the plural is meant... i.e church congregation." The spectators at the crucifixion were hardly sitting in pews. Dillmann is viewable online at http://books.google.com/books?id=KFtCAA ... &q&f=false.

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: September 24th, 2011, 11:05 am
by Ken M. Penner
Andrew Fincke wrote:1QIsa-a has the original text: ויברא יהוה על כול מכון הר ציון ועל מקראה ענן יוממ "And the Lord created on all the establishment of Mount Sion and on its Bible a cloud by day." All the rest of the verse - the part about "smoke and brightness of fire" up through 6a, the reference to Jonah in his Sukkah basking in the sunshine, isn't there.
No comment on the rest of your post, other than to note that 4Q55 (4QIsa-a) has the rest of the verse, in fragments 4-5.

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: September 26th, 2011, 11:36 pm
by A Fincke
Good poinjt, Ken! מכון means "establishment." The "establishment on Mount Zion (based on) its Bible (מקראה) is the Jewish establishment - the New Testament scribes. חפה means "cover the head" - see 2 Sam 15:30, and כל כבוד "all honor" is the head - which also means "chief, foremost." The oblique reference to Jonah at 4:6a (cf. Jonah 4:5-6, the identity in verse numbers is apparently coincidental) is the attempt to explain Jonah 3:8, which has the cattle donning sackcloth and "crying mightily unto the Lord." Read ולבהמה "and to the cattle" in Isa 4:6b for ketiv ולמחסה "and to a hiding place, refuge." The letters are similar. The difference between man and cattle is that the one needs shade from the heat, the other wears the cloth to protect from rain. Since Jonah is a type of the Crucified, having survived a 3-day internment (in his case in the whatle), the cloud that covered the earth at the crucifixion - so it was perceived by the human onlookers - becomes a protective divine glow in the eyes of the Divine Sacrifice, Who followed in the footsteps of David, who "ascended the Mount of Olives - ascending and crying - and his head was covered." The indefinite "head" in "his head" refers to the top of the mount. See 2 Sam 15:32: "And as David reached the head (peak, smmit)." That the crucifixion took place on the Mount of Olives is new to me. That the editors of the masoretic text chose the longer version, which connects yeshiva students with talmidim (pupils) of the Master, is not surprising. I go with IQIsa-a.

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: September 27th, 2011, 11:26 pm
by A Fincke
The Hebrew on which the Greek is based is: ובא והיה כל מקום הר ציון וכל סביבותיה הציל ענן יומם ועשן ונגה אש להבה לילה The problem is כל מקום הר ציון "all the place of Mount Zion," which the Greek has in the nominative case (πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σιων) and thus devoid of object relationship to the verb "will overshadow." The solution is to emend πᾶς "all" to πατήση "he will tread." The word is at Deut. 11:24: "Every place where the sole of your (plural) foot will tread will be yours (plural)" πάντα τὸν τόπον οὗ ἐὰν πατήση τὸ ἴχνος τοῦ ποδὸς ὑμῶν ὑμῖν ἔσται. The change of παση to πατηση brings with it the change of כל "all" to על "upon," and the connection to 2 Sam. 15 30-32 is clear. David ascended the Mount of Olives - ascending and weeping - with his head covered (חפוי) and barefoot (יחף). "David came to the head/chief in order to do obeisance to God" (verse 32). The additional σκιάσει "will overshadow" in the LXX of Isa. 4:5 becomes clear. "Overshadow" (הציל, make a צל "shadow") has as homonym "save, deliver" (also הציל from root נצל). Isaiah's prophecy becomes crystal clear in the Greek text. The son (בר) comes (בא) to do obeisance to the head/chief (יהוה, God the Father). In so doing He treads on "all the place of Mount Zion" (with cross in hand) and on "all the establishment" (מכון) of Jewish religion - that is on "its Bible" (מקראה). His reward for so doing was that He suffered, and thus Alexandrinus has πασθήσεται from πασχω "suffer" for the concensus: σκεπασθήσεται "be covered" ending the verse. For the last four words: πάση τῇ δόξῃ σκεπασθήσεται read πατήση τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ πασθήσεται "He will tread (on the establishment) in His glory and suffer," which basically reiterates Isa. 9:6: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder." LXX has "principality, leadership" for "government." The added αὐτοῦ "his" in the conjecture for the end of Isa. 4:5 is supported by the Boharic.

Re: Isaiah 4:5 - πᾶς τόπος τοῦ ὄρους Σειὼν...

Posted: September 28th, 2011, 12:23 pm
by A Fincke
Thw "overshadow" (σκιάσει) addition at Isa 4:5 isn't so much a reference to the darkness at the Golgotha event - which little interested Isaiah - but rather to Luke 1:35: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." That completes the Trinity, which 4:5 populates with the Father (יהוה), the Son (בר) - Whose essence is that He came (בא) - and the Holy Spirit, Whose task was to overshadow.