A Matter of Trees - I

 

One thing leads to another. I was thinking about the lulav (palm branch) and the etrog (citron) of Sukkot, which also involve myrtle (hadass) and willow (aravah). This, in turn, reminded me of an Israeli folksong that I learned as a young man, in the version of Geula Gill:

Eten Bamidbar - Geula Gill

I thought about translating the words, which are based on Isaiah 41:19, perhaps into my Udugi language. But to do that, or anything like it, I would have to know the exact meaning of the verse. I checked the verse in my Tanakh:

I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shitta tree, and the myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the 'Arava cypress, maple, and box tree together:

I checked the Vulgate, which goes back to the last quarter of the fourth century CE:

dabo in solitudine cedram et spinam et myrtum et lignum olivae / ponam in desrto abietem ulmum et buxum simul

(I will give in solitude the cedar and the thorn tree, and myrtle and the wood of the olive / I will put in the desert the fir, the elm, and the box-tree alike.)

Since the Vulgate often reflects the Septuagint (LXX), which dates to about 200 BCE, I checked that, too:

I will plant in the dry land the cedar and box, the myrtle and cypress, and white poplar:

Note that the LXX gives the names of only five trees, instead of seven.

This was becoming more than a little frustrating. I checked the good, old King James Version:

I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree and the pine and the box tree together.

There was simply no agreement. I was getting nowhere.

I decided to go back to the Dead Sea Scrolls, which go back to the middle (some of them) of the second century BCE (see the screen capture above):

In the wilderness, I will put the cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive; in the desert, I will set the cypress, the yew, and the elm together.

One thing made the DSS version different from all the others: it mentioned "yew," not included in any of the other versions.

Now the LXX is thought to be a little older than the DSS. But the LXX only gives five tree names in this verse. Were there a couple of trees that they didn't know, even then?

(to be continued) 

Copyright © 2022 by Donald C. Traxler.