Psalm 1/Notes/Grammar.v. 4.701997

In v. 4, the Septuagint repeats the words "not so" (Hebrew: לֹא כֵן): "Not so (οὐχ οὕτως) the impious, not so (οὐχ οὕτως) !" (trans. NETS). All of our other witnesses to the text agree with MT in reading "not so" only once. As Origen (3rd century AD) himself writes, "Some add the words 'not so' a second time. But the Hebrew does not have it, and none of the translators [i.e., Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, et al.] used this repetition" (Greek text in Barthélemy 2005, 2). It is not clear whether the Septuagint translator had a Hebrew exemplar that repeated the words or whether the translator himself added them for some reason. At the end of the same verse, the Septuagint has another addition: "like dust that the wind flings from off the land (ἀπὸ προσώπου τῆς γῆς)" (trans. NETS). The fact at there are thmultiple additions in this verse suggests that the translator was deliberately amplifying the text or else using a Hebrew manuscript that did so (see Barthélemy 2005, 1-3).