ἧπαρ τῶν αἰγῶν in Septuaginta (1 Regn. 19, 11–17) and Josephus (AJ 6, 11, 3–4)

Abstract

A comparison of the episode with the trick of Michal in the Hebrew text as it stands in 1 Sam. 19. 11–17 with the story in the First Book of the Kingdoms in the LXX shows one striking discrepancy: instead of a goatskin ) כּבְִיר הֳעִזִים ) in the Masoretic text the translation of the Alexandrians spoke of ἧπαρ τῶν αἰγῶν (“goat’s liver”) lying on the bed along with teraphim under the same covering installed by the daughter of Saul to feign her quasi-ill bedridden husband David and so to outwit the king. As it seems, a certain oddity of the Greek variant could be (and sometimes was) explained through the ductus of Hebrew letters daleth and resh ( ד and ר) that might easily be taken for one another, so that כבר could falsely be read as כבד and understood as כבֵָד , i. e. ‘liver’, which was a Hebrew word in common use in opposition to כּבְִיר (presumably ‘a rug‘) that occurs only twice and only in this episode of the Bible. This change from goatskin to the goat-liver came most probably at the time of translation from Hebrew to Greek, if it had not appeared earlier and was not discussed already in Jewish milieu. Nevertheless, the authority of the LXX as well as Bildungsprestige of Hellenism was such that deviant readings as ἧπαρ τῶν αἰγῶν gained authority from such persons as Philon, St. Paul or Josephus Flavius, who not only follows (Ant. Jud. VI 11. 3–4) the Septuagint version of the story, but tries to support the would-be realistic trustworthiness of the narrative in the Septuagint through the idea of a natural ability of liver to vacillate (its πήδημα) when touched, which could give an impression of a living person keeping to his bed due to illness (ἀσθμαίνειν). In this situation Vulgata reasonably preferred the veritas Hebraica, so that even such versions of the Bible which generally adhere to the LXX often prefer to follow the Hebrew original on this point.