Ecclesiastes 8:2-4

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Ecclesiastes 8:2 tc The Leningrad Codex (the basis of BHS) reads אֲנִי (ʾani, first person common singular independent personal pronoun): “I obey the king’s command.” Other medieval Hebrew mss and all the versions (LXX, Vulgate, Targum, Syriac Peshitta) preserve an alternate textual tradition of the definite accusative marker אֶת (ʾet) introducing the direct object: אֶת־פִּי־מֶלֶךְ שְׁמוֹר (ʾet pi melekh sh^emor, “Obey the command of the king”). External evidence supports the alternate textual tradition. The MT is guilty of simple orthographic confusion between similar looking letters. The BHS editors and the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project adopt אֶת as the original reading. See D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 3:582-83.
2. Ecclesiastes 8:2 tn The phrase “you took” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.
3. Ecclesiastes 8:2 tn The genitive-construct שְׁבוּעַת אֱלֹהִים (sh^evuʿat ʾelohim, “an oath of God”) functions as a genitive of location (“an oath before God”) or an adjectival genitive of attribute (“a supreme oath”).
4. Ecclesiastes 8:2 tn The words “to be loyal to him” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarification.
5. Ecclesiastes 8:3 tn Or “do not stand up for a bad cause.”
6. Ecclesiastes 8:4 tn Heb “word.”
7. Ecclesiastes 8:4 tn Heb “supreme.”
8. Ecclesiastes 8:4 tn Heb “Who can say…?”