A Handbook on Isaiah

248 Pages·1997·3.071 MB·English

by  Jan De Waard

A Handbook on Isaiah
i
Textual Criticism and the Translator
Volume 1
Edited by Harold P. Scanlin
Published for the United Bible Societies,
New York, New York
by Eisenbrauns,
Winona Lake, Indiana
ii
A Handbook
on Isaiah
by
Jan de Waard
Eisenbrauns
Winona Lake, Indiana
1997
iii
Ç 1997 by Eisenbrauns.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Waard, Jan de
A Handbook on Isaiah / by Jan de Waard.
p. cm. — (Textual criticism and the translator ; v. 1).
Includes bibliographical references (p. )
ISBN 1-57506-023-X (alk. paper)
1. Bible. O.T. Isaiah—Criticism, Textual. 2. Bible. O.T. Isaiah—
Translating. I. Title. II. Series.
BS1515.2.W22 1997
224u.10446—dc21 97-32827
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.†
iv
CONTENTS
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
ISAIAH 1–10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
ISAIAH 11–20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
ISAIAH 21–30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
ISAIAH 31–40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
ISAIAH 41–50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
ISAIAH 51–60 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
ISAIAH 61–66 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
v
vi Contents
Page vi
Blank Page
PREFACE
The United Bible Societies, a global fellowship of 135 national Bible So-
cieties, is currently engaged in over 600 Bible translation projects throughout
the world. It is the Bible Societies’ policy to base their translations on the best
available editions of the ancient texts. UBS and its member societies have
taken an active role in producing critical editions by calling upon leading tex-
tual scholars, specializing in both Old Testament and New Testament, to pre-
pare these editions.
For the New Testament, the American Bible Society, the British and For-
eign Bible Society, the Netherlands Bible Society, and the Württemberg Bible
Society, under the inspiration and leadership of Dr. Eugene A. Nida, brought
together an international team of New Testament textual scholars: Kurt Aland,
Matthew Black, Bruce Metzger, and Allen Wikgren, later joined by Barbara
Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, and Carlo Martini. The result was the publi-
cation of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (1966), now in its
fourth edition (1993), which has served an entire generation of Bible transla-
tors. A perusal of the prefaces to most modern Bible translations reveals that
this edition has formed the basis for their work.
In 1969 the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project was launched, again under
the leadership of Dr. Nida, with Dominique Barthélemy, Alexander R. Hulst,
Norbert Loh˜nk, William D. McHardy, H. Peter Rüger, and James A. Sanders
serving on the committee. The purpose of the project was thoroughly to ana-
lyze about 5,000 textually di¯cult passages in the Masoretic Text with a view
toward offering translators the insights of these leading textual scholars and
providing proposals for translation of these di¯cult passages. This project pro-
duced a ˜ve-volume Preliminary and Interim Report, and under the pen of the
committee’s chairman, Dr. Dominique Barthélemy, the ˜rst three volumes of
the ˜nal report, Critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, have been published.
Based in a signi˜cant measure on the groundbreaking work of Barthélemy
and the rest of the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, it became clear that
the time had come to produce a new edition of Biblia Hebraica, to supersede
the Stuttgartensia edition, which itself was a revision of Kahle’s third edition
of Biblia Hebraica. It is hoped that the ˜rst fascicle of this new edition, The
Megillot, will be published in 1998.
vii
viii BibPliroegfaracephy
All these publications have taken their place as basic tools for original lan-
guage Bible study, text-critical studies, exegesis, and Bible translation. Never-
theless, the United Bible Societies felt that it would be important to offer
Bible translators additional help if they were to make the best use of these
fundamental works. Accordingly, we have launched this series, “Textual Criti-
cism and the Translator,” to provide translators with additional help in
applying the results of these textual studies in their work. We are convinced
that many others will bene˜t from these studies, and we are pleased to launch
this series under the publishing auspices of Eisenbrauns, thereby reaching a
wider audience.
The ˜rst volume in the series is a Textual Handbook on Isaiah, produced by
Dr. Jan de Waard, who combines a high level of competence in Old Testament
textual studies and experience as a translator and translation consultant for the
United Bible Societies. Through this special combination of skills, he com-
bines careful textual analysis with practical recommendations for exegesis and
translation.
Future volumes are being planned to offer similar treatments of other Old
Testament books, as well as an English edition of the introductions to the
three published Final Report volumes by Dominique Barthélemy. These ex-
tensive introductions, totaling over 400 pages in the original French edition,
provide a comprehensive guide to the whole subject of Old Testament textual
criticism and its implications for Bible translation. It is hoped that other vol-
umes will deal with the text of the New Testament.
This series, which we hope will serve to encourage textual studies by both
Bible translators and exegetes, would not have been possible without the vi-
sion of Dr. Eugene A. Nida, who recognized the vital importance of source
texts based on the best of scholarship. Special appreciation and thanks is also
expressed for the monumental work of Dominique Barthélemy which forms
the foundation of the present volume.
Harold P. Scanlin
Series Editor
LIST OF ABBREV IATIONS
BDB Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the
Old Testament
BHK Biblia Hebraica (ed. R. Kittel; 1937)
BHS Biblia Hebraica Suttgartensia (4th edition, 1990)
BJ La Bible de Jérusalem (1973)
BP La Bible: Ancien Testament (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1956–59)
BR M. Buber and F. Rosenzweig, Bücher der Kündung (1985)
C De Heilige Schrift, in opdracht van “Petrus Canisius” (1990)
CTAT D. Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament
EÜ Einheitsübersetzung der Heiligen Schrift: Das Alte Testament
(1974)
FC La Bible en français courant (1986)
GN Die Gute Nachricht: Die Bibel in heutigem Deutsch (1982)
GNB Good News Bible (1978)
GrN Groot Nieuws Bijbel: Vertaling in omgangstaal (1983)
HUB The Hebrew University Bible: The Book of Isaiah (1975–81)
HALAT W. Baumgartner et al., Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zum
Alten Testament
KJV The King James Version
L Luther Translation: Biblia germanica (1545)
LB The Living Bible (1985)
LV De Bijbel naar de Leidse Vertaling (1899–1912)
Moffatt James Moffatt, A New Translation of the Bible (1935)
NAB The New American Bible (1970)
NAV Die nuwe Afrikaans Vertaling (1983)
NEB The New English Bible: The Old Testament (1970)
NFB The New Frisian Bible (1978)
NIV The New International Version (1988)
NJB The New Jerusalem Bible (1985)
NJV The New Jewish Version of the Jewish Publication Society (1985)
NRSV The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
NV Nieuwe Vertaling (1953)
REB The Revised English Bible (1989)
ix