Genesis 2:17 (LXX)

In this post, I would like to examine a verse from the ancient (3rd century BC) Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX). Also known as the Greek Old Testament, this version of the Old Testament was the one used by Paul and the other New Testament writers (see more by clicking the Septuagint link above).

Translation

Our text is Genesis 2:17, which in the Ralphs edition of the LXX is as follows:

ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ ξύλου τοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν, οὐ φάγεσθε ἀπ᾽αὐτοῦ· ᾗ δ̓ ἂν ἡμέρᾳ φάγητε ἀπ̓ αὐτοῦ, θανάτῳ ἀποθανεῖσθε.

And my translation, to be expounded below, is:

But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; but on whatever day you eat from it, you will die.

Commentary

Let's take the verse one phrase at a time.

A tree

ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ ξύλου τοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν

The opening phrase of our verse begins with the preposition ἀπὸ (apo) meaning "from" or "away from", followed by the coordinating conjunction δὲ (de) meaning "but" or "and". Here δὲ is contrastive ("but") as opposed to developmental ("and"), since in this verse God is qualifying the command he began giving in the previous verse: "The LORD God commanded Adam ..." (Gen. 2:16). Since δὲ is postpositive, it is never the first word in a Greek sentence, but it should be translated as the first word in English. Thus so far we have "but from".

Continuing along, we translate τοῦ ξύλου (tou xulou) as "the tree". The noun and article here are required to be in the genitive case because of the preceding preposition ἀπὸ ("from"), which takes a noun in the genitive. This is followed by another article in the genitive τοῦ ("the"), together with the infinitive form of the verb γινώσκω (ginōskō), “to know”. Translating this woodenly so far, we thus have "but from the tree the to know".

The infinitive verb is followed by the accusative noun καλὸν (kalon) which means beautiful or good (where we get the word calligraphy: kalon "beautiful" + graphē "writing"), and the noun πονηρόν (ponēron) which means "evil" or "bad." The word in between these two nouns is the coordinating conjunction καὶ (kai) which can mean a variety of things (e.g., and, also, even, namely), but here simply means "and".

So far we have reached the end of the first part of our verse (the stuff before the comma). How should we translate it so far? As is often the case with Greek phrases involving an infinitive, any attempt at a literal word-for-word translation must be abandoned. Rather, we must understand the sense of what the Greek is saying, and then try to communicate the same thing into English. Taking the meaning of the entire thing together, we get something like "but from the to-know-good-and-evil tree". I have thus translated this as "but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" to communicate this more smoothly into English. We could have also said something like, "the knowing good and evil tree" or "the tree of good and evil knowledge" but I have tried to preserve the order of the Greek words as much as possible (e.g., the word knowledge comes before good and evil).

A command

οὐ φάγεσθε ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ

Moving along to the next part of our verse, we have the adverb οὐ (ou) meaning "not" followed by the verb for "to eat" φάγεσθε (phagesthe, where we get the word esophagus). The verb here is second person plural (y'all). This is interesting, since in the previous verse it says that God commanded Adam, and yet here the verb is plural (y'all shall not eat), indicating that both Adam and Eve are in view. This verb is also in the middle voice. While English has two voices, active and passive, Koine Greek also has the middle voice. Whereas active voice indicates that the subject is doing the action, and passive voice that the subject is receiving the action, the Greek middle voice indicates that the subject is doing the action but in a way that indicates subject-affectedness. Think: "you eat [in a way that affects yourself]". Since eating is something that affects or has consequences for oneself, especially in light of God's command, the middle voice makes sense here.

As for the tense of the verb, the ending -εσθε (esthe) can signify future tense (an action in the future) in the indicative mood (the mood of reality or actuality), or aorist tense (signifying a completed action usually in the past) in the imperative mood (the mood of command). The morphology of the future indicative and the aorist imperative is identical for this verb in the second person plural. So which is it?

Whether we choose between the future indicative (a description of the future) or aorist imperative (a command) is actually not too crucial, since in Greek the future indicative is often used as a command: "you will do this". However, if I had to choose, I would take the verb as an imperative, since this fits well with the context; in the previous verse God is the subject of the verb ἐνετείλατο (eneteilatō) "commanded". So I have gone with "you shall not eat" rather than "you will not eat".

The final part of this phrase, ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, is easy enough. We have again the preposition ἀπὸ ("from") and then the third person pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou) meaning "it", in the genitive case (the genitive is required by the preposition). The omicron 'ο' here drops out from ἀπὸ because the next word starts with a vowel, and we get an apostrophe instead (this is called elision); hence we get ἀπ᾽.

A time

ᾗ δ᾽ ἂν ἡμέρᾳ

The next phrase is interesting; there is a lot going on in these four small words. We start with the relative pronoun ᾗ (hē) meaning "which", followed by the coordinating conjunction δὲ, which here is either contrastive ("but") or explanatory ("for"), and is undergoing elision because the following word begins with a vowel, so the epsilon drops out and we get: δ᾽. This is followed by the untranslatable particle ἂν (an) which makes a definite statement contingent (i.e. who becomes whoever). Finally, we have the noun ἡμέρᾳ (hēmera) "day" in the dative case. The use of the dative case here is a dative of time, specifying the point in time when something takes place. Putting these together so far, we get: "But on whatever day".

An action

φάγητε ἀπ̓ αὐτοῦ,

φάγητε (phagēte) is a second person plural aorist active verb in the subjunctive mood, the mood of possibility or probability: y'all might eat. The use of the subjuntive mood here makes sense in light of the previous particle ἂν which is often involved in hypothetical or conditional statements. It is also interesting that the verb is again plural here, suggesting mutliple people eating, while God's command in v. 16 addressed only Adam. In context, the plural here must be referring to both Adam and Eve. The genitive phrase ἀπ̓ αὐτοῦ (ap autou) here again means "from it". So we could have "But on whatever day you might eat from it". However, the contingency of the verb "might eat" is already present from "whatever" so we don't need to translate the "might" in English. So, I have translated this more smoothly as, "But on whatever day you eat from it."

A consequence

θανάτῳ ἀποθανεῖσθε.

Wrapping up our translation, we have the phrase θανάτῳ ἀποθανεῖσθε (thanatō apothaneisthe), "[to] death y'all will die". The noun for "death" θανάτῳ (thanatō) is in the dative case. The dative case generally suggests locality or relationship. Here it seems to me that we might have a dative of destination ("to/towards the realm/space of death"), since the verb ἀποθανεῖσθε (apothaneisthe) is intransitive (does not take a direct object). The verb is future tense, plural, and has the middle voice. Since the verb by itself already contains the idea "you will die", it is possible the additional use of the dative noun θανάτῳ is being used for emphasis here. We see this same noun and verb construction elsewhere in the LXX. For instance, "Manoah said to his wife, 'We are certainly going to die [θανάτῳ ἀποθανούμεθα], because we’ve seen God!'" (Judges 13:22; NRSV). So, we could take the translation of this noun-verb combination here in Gen. 2:17 as "you will surely die". However, since which dative is in use here is uncertain, and since I suspect this phrase is just an idiomatic way of saying "you will die" (many English translations of this phrase don't include "surely"), I have left it as "you will die" in the translation above. (Here is a complete list of all of the occurrences of this phrase in the LXX for those interested in making their own judgement: Gen 2:17; 3:4; Num 26:65; Judges 13:22; 21:5; 1 Sam 14:39, 44; 20:14; 22:16; 2 Sam 14:14; 1 Kings 2:37, 42; 2 Kings 1:4, 6, 16; 8:10; Jer. 33:8).

Reflections

What can we gather from our translation of this verse from the Greek Old Testament?

Singular vs Plural

One thing that stood out to me was the use of the plural verbs for "to eat" and "to die" in this verse. Since the previous verse says that God commanded Adam, I would have expected singular verbs here. It is difficult to say what, if anything, the theological significance of the plural here might be. Since God addresses Adam but the command is for both Adam and Eve, does this speak to family roles and make a statement about Adam's leadership and responsibility over his family (i.e. God addresses Adam on behalf of his family)? An important translation lesson here is also that the distinction between singular and plural is often missed in English, since "you" is used for both singular and plural in English. In order to remedy this, maybe we could adopt using the colloquial Southern phrase y'all (you + all) to clarify a plural "you"  in translation.

Dative of time

It was also interesting that the time of the action of the future verb "y'all will die" is specified by the dative word for day ("on whatever day"). In other words, the use of the dative case here makes clear that the dying will happen on the same day as the eating. (For those interested in similar uses of the dative of time with the word for "day" [ἡμέρᾳ], see e.g., Matt 17:23; 24:20; Mark 6:21; Luke 12:20; Gal 6:9 in the New Testament, and in the Old Testament, e.g., Gen 3:5; Exod 10:28; 32:34; Lev 7:16.) I wonder what we should make of this in light of the fact that later in Genesis 5:5, we learn that, "Altogether, Adam lived a total of 930 years, and then he died." Perhaps this is an instance of a thousand years being like one day in God's sight (cf. Ps 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8). Or, perhaps the death God was speaking of was spiritual rather than physical, representing separation from God and the shame brought about by sin. There are definitely many angles from which to ponder this tension between Gen 2:17 and Gen 5:5.

Sin and God's knowledge

Finally, another thing that stood out to me was the fact that, immediately after giving the command not to eat from the tree, God follows this up by saying, "but on whatever day you eat from it". It is interesting that the phrase doesn't begin with the conditional word εἰ (ei), "If you eat from it ..." but rather the conjunction δὲ which the majority of the time simply means "but" or "and". If we take the conjunction here as explanatory ("for"), then God is offering a reason for obeying the command. However, if we take it as contrastive ("but"), it would be like saying to your kid, "Don't eat from the cookie jar, but when you do eat from it ..." It would thus be as if God knows that despite his command, Adam and Eve will eat from the tree regardless. If so, I wonder what this might have to say about sin, human freedom, and God's knowledge of the future.

Food for thought.