The Septuagint’s Version of Solomon’s Misconduct

This article was originally published in Vetus Testamentum 15:3 (1965), pp. 325–35.

I

In a previous article in this journal I pointed out that behind the re-ordering of some of the material in the LXX 3 Reigns lies a pedantic sense of timetabling.¹ Elsewhere I have shown that the LXX chapters of the Ahab story are marked both by this same pedantic timetabling and also by a tradition of exegesis that was mercifully, if not favourably, disposed towards Ahab.² I wish now to call attention to another group of differences between the LXX and the MT, at the root of which lie similar motives and traditions. This group concerns the activities of Solomon, and notably his reprehensible activities. The Midrash Hazita (Song of Songs) says,³

He [i.e. Solomon] committed three sins. He acquired too many horses, he took too many wives, he accumulated too much silver and gold, as it says, And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones (2 Chr 9:27)

In several places where these three sins are recorded, the LXX shows textual disturbances and sometimes alternative translations; but there is one passage that is specially interesting in this connection. It is the paragraph which in the MT runs from 9:15 to 25 and purports to tell us the reason for the levy which Solomon raised. Its contents may be set out as follows:

1. Verses 15–19. The reason for the levy: to build the temple, the palace and a number of cities, including Gezer, which Pharaoh gave as a wedding gift to his daughter.
2. Verses 20–23. Composition for the levy: the survivors of the subjugated Canaanites, not the Israelites, who in fact held posts of honour.
3. Verse 24. Removal of Pharaoh’s daughter from the city of David to the house which Solomon had built for her. The building of Millo.
4. Verse 25. Announcement that Solomon sacrificed three times a year on the altar which he built for the Lord, and that the temple was now completed.

In the LXX verse 16 is missing from its place in this paragraph and is found at 4:32; verse 23 finds itself at 2:35h; verse 24 is at 2:35f, while a slightly different form of verse 24a is at 9:9; verse 25 is at 2:35g; and an alternative translation of verse 15b and verses 18–19 appears at 2:35i. What is left of the paragraph is placed not at 9:15ff as in the MT, but at 10:23ff. Now while we cannot hope here to come to any decision as to the position of this material in the original Hebrew text, we can at least make some preliminary observations on the LXX order. And it is perhaps significant that two of the smaller verses that the LXX omits from this paragraph and transfers elsewhere (vv. 16 and 24a) refer to Solomon’s wife, the daughter of Pharaoh; while the removal of the paragraph as a whole to 10:23 has the effect of relating it very closely to the topic of Solomon’s accumulation of gold and silver, which is the leading theme of the context there, both in the LXX and the MT.

II

Let us take first the passages relating to Solomon’s marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter. In addition to the two already mentioned, a third passage bearing on this subject is placed differently in the LXX from what it is in the MT. The position may be sketched as follows (the text is Rahlfs’, the enumeration that of BM):

Montgomery’s comment on this is (ICC Kings, p. 102):

OGrr. omit our v. 1 (i.e. v. 1 of MT ch. iii) and 9¹⁶ in place, and present them together after 5¹⁴ (Gr. 4^31·32 ). It is a question where the historic item of the marriage originally stood. Some scholars, e.g. Benzinger, Kittel (cf. BH), Burney, Šanda, Skinner, would connect the item of the marriage with 9¹⁶ , and place the material where OGrr. put it, after 5¹⁴ . However no authority is to be assigned to the placing of the additions in the Old Greek; the passage in question is a convenient summary of references to the queen.

Montgomery’s judgment is certainly right as far as it goes, but more should be said. A desire to have ‘a convenient summary of references to the queen’ might well account for the grouping of the material at LXX 4:31 and 32, but it would not explain the peculiar position of LXX 9:9b. On the other hand the ‘timetable’ motive will explain the position of all the three verses concerned. LXX 4:31, which announces Solomon’s marriage, tells us that Solomon brought his wife into the city of David until he finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house. This information is placed accordingly immediately before the negotiations with Hiram for the building of the temple and palace. And immediately the building programme is completed, the LXX has its verse 9:9b in place to tell us that then Solomon did in fact bring Pharaoh’s daughter out of her temporary abode into the newly-built palace. The timetabling is very exact! In fact its timing has been further emphasised by the additional (compared with the MT) phrase at the end of verse ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις. And whereas an alternative translation of this verse, which now finds itself in the ‘Miscellany’ at 2:35f, follows the MT of 9:24 and keeps together both the a and the b sections of the verse, the LXX here at 9:9 omits section b (‘then did he build Millo’) as being irrelevant to the topic of Pharaoh’s daughter. Again, the grouping of 4:32 with 4:31 does, of course, as Montgomery says, secure ‘a convenient summary of references to the queen’, but it does more. In the MT’s equivalent of LXX 4:32, Pharaoh’s wedding gift to his daughter is mentioned along with a list of cities which Solomon built: Pharaoh took Gezer, burnt it, slew the inhabitants and gave it to his daughter; Solomon then rebuilt it. The way by which Solomon came to possess Gezer is here only incidental to the mentioning of Gezer as one of the important cities which Solomon built. But to the LXX the chief interest in the verse is the fact that Gezer was given as a dowry to Solomon’s wife; and since dowries are always given at the time of the wedding, the LXX’s sense of timetable has dictated that the verse shall stand immediately after 4:31, which announces the wedding.

‘Timetable’, then, has been the leading consideration behind the LXX’s order here, and it has every appearance of being over-exact and of the same pedantic stock as the timetabling in chapters 5/6. But it is just possible that another influence has contributed to the placing of LXX 9:9b in its present position. In the Midrash Rabbah, Numbers (Naso) 10:4, we find the following story:⁴

Hence it is written, The words of king Lemuel (Prov. xxx 1). Why was Solomon called Lemuel? R. Ishmael said: On the selfsame night that Solomon completed the work of the Holy Temple he married Bathiah, the daughter of Pharaoh, and there was great jubilation on account of the Temple, and jubilation on account of Pharaoh’s daughter, and the jubilation on account of Pharaoh’s daughter exceeded that of the Temple; as the proverb says: ‘Everybody flatters the king’. The reason why he was called Lemuel is because he cast off the yoke of the kingdom of heaven from his shoulders; as if to say, ˙Lamṁah lȯ ėl⁵ ) (‘what use is God to him’). At that instant the Holy One, blessed be He, conceived the intention of destroying Jerusalem. Hence it is written, For this city hath been to Me a provocation of Mine anger and of My fury from the day that they built it, etc. (Jer. xxxii 31). Our Rabbis say: Pharaoh’s daughter brought him a thousand kinds of musical instruments and ordered that they should be played to him that same night, and she kept saying to him: ‘This is how they play to such and such an idol, and this is how they play to such and such an idol’. What did Pharaoh’s daughter do further? She spread a sort of canopy above him and set therein all manner of precious stones and pearls which glittered like stars and constellations, and every time Solomon wished to rise he would see these stars and constellations, and so he went on sleeping until four hours in the day. R. Levi said: On that day the continual offering was sacrificed at four hours of the day. . . . Now Israel were grieved, for it was the day of the dedication of the Temple, and they could not perform the service because Solomon was asleep and they were afraid to wake him, out of their awe of royalty. They went and informed Bathsheba his mother, and she came and woke him up and reproved him.

Again in Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus (Shemini) 12:5, we read:⁶

R. Judah said: All the seven years during which Solomon was building the Temple he did not drink wine. After he had built it and taken Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh, to wife, he drank wine that night, and there were two celebrations on that occasion: the one in rejoicing for the erection of the Temple, the other in rejoicing for the daughter of Pharaoh. Said the Holy One, blessed be He: ‘Whose [rejoicing] shall I accept, of these or of the others?’ At that moment it entered His mind to destroy Jerusalem. This is [indicated by] what is written, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldaeans . . . . and the Chaldaeans . . . . shall come and set this city on fire . . . . For this city hath been to Me a provocation of Mine anger and of My fury from the day that they built it (Jer. xxxii 28ff).

Similarly the Gemara at Niddah 70b⁷ states:

One verse says, For the Lord hath chosen Zion, but another verse says, For this city hath been to Me a provocation of Mine anger and of My fury from the day that they built it even unto this day. The former applied to the time before Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh while the latter applied to the time after Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh.

Now in addition to the major question of difference in dating between the LXX and these traditions, there are also other differences: the traditions speak of Solomon marrying Pharaoh’s daughter, and marrying her on the night of the completion of the temple before the dedication of the temple; the LXX in its verse 9b of chapter 9 is speaking not of the marriage, but of the removal of Solomon’s wife from David’s city to the new palace. And the LXX’s τότε in ix 9b seems to refer to a time immediately after the dedication of the temple, though it is conceivable that its additional phrase, ‘in those days’, is meant to blur the precision of the τότε and imply that the bringing up of Pharaoh’s daughter happened round about the time of the completion and dedication of the temple. Nevertheless there are two striking resemblances. The traditions stress the fact that the celebration of Solomon’s marriage took place at the completion of the temple; the LXX tells of the bringing up of Solomon’s wife from David’s city on the completion of Solomon’s palaces. Actually the temple took seven years to build and the palaces, which took thirteen years to build, were not commenced until the temple was finished. So the temple was completed in Solomon’s eleventh year, the palaces in his twenty-fourth. But the LXX, as I have pointed out elsewhere⁸ goes out of its way to stress (8:1) that the dedication of the temple did not take place until the completion of both temple and palaces. And so the LXX insists that the bringing up of Pharaoh’s daughter into the new palace occurred about the time of the dedication of the temple, for it places it at the time of God’s second appearance to Solomon which both MT and LXX date as happening ‘when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the Lord and the king’s house. . .’ (9:1).

Secondly the traditions assert that it was at the moment when Solomon was being led astray by Pharaoh’s daughter that the intention of destroying Jerusalem first entered God’s mind. In view of this it is very interesting to find that the LXX by placing the bringing up of Pharaoh’s daughter at 9:9b has secured the following flow of thought:

9:7: And I will remove Israel from the land, and this house which I sanctified by My name I will cast away out of my sight . . . .

9:8: . . . . Wherefore has the Lord done so. . . .?

9:9: And they shall say, Because they forsook the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and laid hold on strange gods and worshipped them and served them, for this cause He brought on them this evil. Then Solomon brought up Pharaoh’s daughter out of the city of David into his house which he built for himself in those days.

There is, then, a good deal of sympathy between the LXX and the later traditions. There is, of course, no question of the traditions having influenced the LXX; but comparison does help to show the nature of the LXX’s re-ordering of the text: it does not represent the original Hebrew text; it results from exegetical and homiletic activities somewhere along the line of tradition.

III

We must next consider the implications of the fact that the LXX places its equivalent of the MT’s paragraph 9:15–25—or rather what is left of it—at 10:23 ff. In the MT the paragraph is the second of two ‘oddments’ which complete the information on Solomon’s building programme after the big items—the building, the dedication and God’s second appearance—have been related, and before the narrative goes on to deal with the next sizeable subject, Solomon’s vast income from one source and another. The first ‘oddment’, 9:10–14, tells of Solomon’s gift to Hiram of Tyre in recognition of Hiram’s help in the building programme; the second ‘oddment’ explains the reason for, and composition of, the labour-levy which Solomon raised in the course of building operations (see above, p. 3). The LXX’s transposition has the effect, as we have noticed above (p. 3–4), of putting the paragraph in the middle of a section dealing with Solomon’s enormous income of gold. The resultant sequence of thought is: LXX 10:21, 22 (= MT 10:21, 22), καὶ πάντα τὰ σκεύη τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Σαλωμων γεγονότα χρυσᾶ, καὶ λουτῆρες χρυσοῖ, πάντα τὰ σκεύη οἴκου δρυμοῦ τοῦ Λιβάνου χρυσίῳ συνκεκλεισμένα· οὐκ ἦν ἀργύριον, ὅτι οὐκ ἦν λογιζόμενον ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις Σαλωμων. ὅτι ναῦς Θαρσις τῷ βασιλεῖ ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ μετὰ τῶν νηῶν Χιραμ· μία διὰ τριῶν ἐτῶν ἤρχετο τῷ βασιλεῖ ναῦς ἐκ Θαρσις χρυσίου καὶ ἀργυρίου καὶ λίθων τορευτῶν καὶ πελεκητῶν.. LXX 10:23 ff. (= MT 9:15 ff.) αὕτη ἦν ἡ πραγματεία τῆς προνομῆς ἧς ἀνήνεγκεν ὁ βασιλεὺς Σαλωμων οἰκοδομῆσαι τὸν οἶκον Κυρίου καὶ τὸν οἶκον τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ τὸ τεῖχος Ιερουσαλημ καὶ τὴν ἄκραν, τοῦ περιφράξαι τὸν φραγμὸν τῆς πόλεως Δαυιδ, καὶ τὴν Ἀσσουρ καὶ τὴν Μαγδαν καὶ τὴν Γαζερ καὶ τὴν Βαιθωραμ τὴν ἀνωτέρω καὶ τὴν Ιεθερμαθ καὶ πάσας τὰς πόλεις τῶν ἁρμάτων καὶ πάσας τὰς πόλεις τῶν ἱππέων . . . . In such a context the first thing we must do is to question the meaning of τῆς προνομῆς. It stands, of course, as the equivalent of the MT’s מַס, which is translated a little lower (v. 24) as φόρος, the standard translation of מַס in 3 Reigns as in 2 Reigns, Judges and 2 Chronicles. It is possible that προνόμη is intended merely as an alternative translation with the same meaning as φόρος, ‘forced-labour levy’. But strictly προνόμη in normal Greek does not mean ‘forced-labour levy’, but rather ‘foraging’, ‘foray-party’. In the LXX, on the other hand, it seems consistently to mean ‘spoil’; it is used of spoil that contains prisoners-of-war as well as cattle and things, and the verb προνομεύω can, in consequence, mean ‘to lead away captive’. Since, then, droves of captives were often used as forced-labour gangs, it may be that προνόμη is intended to carry some such extension of meaning here. But the curious fact is that if προνόμη were allowed its normal meaning ‘spoil’ or ‘forage’, it could with the greatest of ease be taken as referring to what immediately precedes, thus:

One ship came from Tarshish in three years with gold and silver and carved and hewn stone. This was the business of the spoil which Solomon brought up, namely to build the house of the Lord and the king’s house and the wall of Jerusalem . . .

In other words προνόμη would refer to the cargoes which the ships brought and the sentence would then explain why Solomon imported all these valuables.

Now there are two considerations which make it probable that somebody—if not the original translator, then perhaps the reviser who was responsible for placing this whole paragraph in this position—understood προνόμη in this sense and construed the sentence in this way. First the LXX has a significant difference in the cargo brought by Solomon’s ship. The MT says that the ship brought gold and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks; the LXX lists only gold and silver and carved and hewn stone, that is, the LXX list contains nothing that would not be useful for building, which the following verse declares to have been the purpose of the προνόμη. Secondly the sentence construed in this way offers an excuse for Solomon’s importation of great quantities of gold and silver: he needed it for building. Later exegetes, we know, laboured to show the limits of the Deuteronomic prohibition of royal accumulation of wealth. In the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 21_b_, the Mishnah says:⁹ ‘He shall not multiply horses unto himself—only as many as suffice for his chariot. And silver and gold he shall not greatly multiply unto himself—only as much as is required for “aspanya”.’ The Gemara comments:

Our Rabbis taught: And silver and gold he shall not multiply ‘lο’ [unto himself] : I might think [this meant] even for ‘aspanya’. Therefore Scripture writes, ‘lo’; only for himself [i.e., his own use] may he not multiply silver and gold, but he may do so for ‘aspanya’. Thus, it is only because Scripture wrote ‘lο’: but otherwise, might we have thought that the prohibition extended even to money for ‘aspanya’? — [the word] is necessary here only to permit him a more generous provision.

The distinction drawn here, then, is that the amassing of gold and silver is permitted for aspanya (i.e. soldiers’ pay) but prohibited for personal use. The LXX’s explanation, that he needed the gold and silver for building the temple, the palace and several cities, offers a different excuse, but it could well be prompted by a desire to rescue Solomon from the charge of having amassed gold and silver for his personal use. And not without cause; for the nearby verse (v. 21) says that all the drinking and household vessels in one of Solomon’s palaces were of gold, not of silver, since silver had been rendered common and valueless by the regular arrival of Solomon’s ship. And that might easily have given the impression that this ship with its cargo of gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks served nothing more than Solomon’s personal pleasure, had not someone changed the cargo from luxury items to building necessities, and inserted the paragraph, verses 23–25, precisely at this point to explain that the ship’s spoil (or foraging expedition) was necessary for building public works.

Moreover, a mistaken translation a line or two later in the Greek provides what appears to be a further excuse for Solomon’s collection of so much money to build so many cities. After listing all the buildings and cities which Solomon built and all ‘the business with which he busied himself to build in Jerusalem and in all the land’ the Greek adds a purpose clause: τοῦ μὴ κατάρξαι αὐτοῦ πάντα τὸν λαὸν τὸν ὑπολελειμμένον ἀπὸ τοῦ Χετταιου καὶ τοῦ Αμορραιου . . . οὓς οὐκ ἐδύναντο οἱ υἱοὶ Ισραηλ ἐξολεθρεῦσαι αὐτούς. The translation, τοῦ μὴ κατάρξαι αὐτοῦ, clearly results from a misreading of the noun מֶמְשֵׁלְתּוֹ as if were composed of מִן + the infinitive + accusatival suffix; but given the mistake, the sentence makes quite good sense if one does not put a stop after αὐτοῦ as Rahlfs does, but allows the following accusative πάντα τὸν λαὸν κτλ. to stand as the subject of the infinitive, and puts the stop after ἐξολεθρεῦσαι αὐτούς. So construed the sentence tells us the reason why Solomon was obliged to build so many cities all over the land and particularly cities for chariots and cities for horses: it was to prevent the survivors of the Canaanite nations from getting the upper hand and ruling over him. And this interpretation of the text to provide an excuse for his accumulation of cities for his horses and chariots may well have been prompted by the Deuteronomic law that the king was not to multiply horses unto himself. At least later exegetes felt the need to explain the proper scope of this commandment. In the above-mentioned passage of the Talmud (Sanhedrin 21b) the Gemara says:

Our Rabbis taught: He shall not multiply horses to himself [lo]: I might think, [this meant] not even such as are required for his horsemen and chariots. Scripture therefore states: ‘lο’ [to himself]: for himself he may not multiply, but he may multiply as many as are required for his chariots and horsemen. How then am I to interpret the word horses?—As [referring to] horses that stand idle . . . . Thus it is only because Scripture wrote lο’ [to him] : but otherwise, might we have thought that even those necessary for his chariots and horsemen are forbidden?—It is necessary here to permit a large number.

At any rate, it can hardly be an accident that the LXX by its transposition of the paragraph and by its different interpretation of ממשלתו has forestalled objections which could be raised against the Solomon of the MT on the ground of the Deuteronomic prohibitions.

IV

It remains just to point out that in accounting for these differences between the LXX and the MT, we must be prepared to envisage not merely Hebrew texts differing from the MT but also different levels of translation in the Greek. The strange miscellany of oddments which occurs at ii 35 a-1 contains verses which are lacking from the LXX paragraph 10:23–25 (as compared with the MT paragraph 9:15–25) and also alternative translations of verses that are present in that paragraph. The matter is very complicated and full discussion must be reserved for another occasion. It will be enough here to quote one instance. Both the miscellany and the later paragraph have a phrase which does not occur in MT’s corresponding paragraph, 9:15–25, but does occur later in the MT at 11:27. This in itself might indicate that both the miscellany and the later LXX paragraph were following a Hebrew text somewhat different from the MT. But the miscellany and the later paragraph each have a different translation of what is obviously similar Hebrew:

MT 11:27 שְׁלֹמֹה֙ בָּנָ֣ה אֶת־הַמִּלּ֔וֹא סָגַ֕ר אֶת־פֶּ֕רֶץ עִ֖יר דָּוִ֥ד אָבִֽיו LXX 2:35e καὶ ᾠκοδόμησεν τὴν ἄκραν ἐπάλξιν ἐπʼ αὐτῆς· διέκοψεν τὴν πόλιν Δαυιδ. LXX 10:23 . . . . τὴν ἄκραν, τοῦ περιφράξαι τὸν φραγμὸν τῆς πόλεως, Δαυιδ . . . . LXX 11:27 Σαλωμων ᾠκοδόμησεν τὴν ἄκραν· συνέκλεισεν τὸν φραγμὸν τῆς πόλεως Δαυιδ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ.

---

The translation at 11:27 is, of course, nearest to the MT. The translation at 10:23 is very close to that of 11:27, and its different verb, περιφράξαι, and its different construction—infinitive of purpose instead of indicative of fact—may not necessarily betoken a different translator. But the translation of 2:35e cannot possibly be by the same hand as either 10:23 or 11:27. Klostermann has pointed out that the translator of 2:35e read פֶּרֶץ as פָּרַץ = διέκοψεν and Montgomery has explained the rest of this mysterious translation:

After המלוא, the Akra, the translator read סגר את as one word, which he collated with מסנרת, fortress, rampart, 2 Sam. 22⁴⁶ = Ps. 18⁴⁶ , Mic. 7¹⁷ and properly translated with the military term ἔπαλξις. The following ἐπʼ αὐτῆς i.e. for Jerusalem, in c, was added for interpretation.¹⁰ The translation at 2:35e, then, is hopelessly mistaken, the translation at 10:23 is tolerably correct. Without anticipating the results of fuller investigation, it is tempting to suppose that 22:35e is the older translation which may have been ousted from its place when the newer and more correct translation, 10:23, took its place. And this in turn creates a strong suspicion that the positioning of the whole paragraph in which 10:23 occurs may not be the original LXX positioning, but the work of a reviser.

---

Footnotes

¹ VT XV (1965), p. 153–166.

² ZAW 76 (1964) pp. 269–80.

³ Translated by Maurice Simon, M. A., Sondrio Press, London, 1951, p. 15.

⁴ Translated by J. J. Slotki, M. A., Soncino Press, London, 1951, p. 351.

⁵ The letters indicated by dots combine in Hebrew to form the name Lemuel (Slotki’s note).

⁶ Translated by Rev. J. Israelstam, B. A., Soncino Press, London, 1951, p. 158.

⁷ Translated by Rev. Dr. I. W. Slotki, M. A. Litt. D., Soncino Press, London, 1948, p. 490.

⁸ VT XV (1965), p. 153–166.

⁹ Translated by J. Shachter, Soncino Press, London, 1935, p. 116.

¹⁰ See J. A. Montgomery, ‘The Supplement at End of 3 Kingdoms 2’, ZAW 50 (1932), 124–29.