Does God Hate Divorce? Malachi 2:16

I recently heard an interesting discussion about the contested text and meaning of the (in)famous Malachi 2:16 reading that "God hates divorce," so I wanted to take a closer look. 

כִּֽי־שָׂנֵ֣א שַׁלַּ֗ח אָמַ֤ר יְהוָה֙ אֱלֹהֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְכִסָּ֤ה חָמָס֙ עַל־לְבוּשׁ֔וֹ אָמַ֖ר יְהוָ֣ה צְבָא֑וֹת וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּ֥ם בְּרוּחֲכֶ֖ם וְלֹ֥א תִבְגֹּֽדוּ׃

For I hate (Cn: Heb he hates) divorce, says the LORD, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless. (NRSV)

כִּֽי־שָׂנֵ֣א שַׁלַּ֗ח MT ] כי אם שנתה שלח DSS-4Q76 ἀλλὰ ἐὰν μισήσας ἐξαποστείλῃς LXX cum odio habueris dimite V אֲרֵי אִם סְנֵית/סְנֵיתָ/סני את) לַה פַטרַה) T | > S | prb l שׂנאתִי BHS.

In this case, the MT is somewhat unclear and ambiguous. The verb seems to be third person and could perhaps be read as "he hates divorcing" (with God as implied subject) or even "he hates (and) divorces" (with the faithless one as implied subject). But in the grammatical context, there is no obvious third person masculine antecedent. The faithless one is addressed in the second person in the previous verse, but if this clause is quoted divine speech ("says the LORD"), we would probably expect the first person if God were the subject.

Because of the awkwardness of the MT, some have emended to שׂנאתִי (with BHS) to smooth out the grammar, yielding "I hate divorcing" (with God as subject). Alternatively, others have read the verb as a participle with implied first person pronoun, yielding "(I) am hating divorcing," with similar meaning. The Syriac Peshitta apparently just omitted the whole problematic text, which probably attests to the difficulty already in antiquity, long before our earliest Masoretic manuscripts. 

A serious textual alternative comes from the common second person reading of 4Q76 (4QXIIa), the LXX, Vulgate, and Targum Jonathan. The Hebrew grammar of 4Q76 is still awkward, but the idea can perhaps be rendered roughly as "if you hate (her), divorcing (her)" or "if you hate (her), (and you) divorce (her)" (faithless as subject). The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible translates it, "For if you hate and divorce." The LXX and Vulgate understand the text in the same way, with both verbs understood as something the faithless one is doing. NETS reads, "But if, since you hate her, you should send her away." The Targum situation is a bit complicated by the lack of a good critical edition, but seems to support the second person tradition of reading. Of the three variants I noted from the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon entry and Safaria, סְנֵיתָ and סני את are unambiguously second person "you hate." The reading סְנֵית could potentially be read as "I hate" or "you hate," depending on the dialect (I'd have to look into the grammar of Targum Jonathan more closely).

The agreement of all of these witnesses against MT is indeed impressive, but I admit I am very skeptical. It is easy for me to see how the second person readings could arise as exegetical clarifications of a difficult, ambiguous text. But it is very difficult for me to imagine anyone creating the MT text from the second person readings. Omission of אם seems less likely than grammatical facilitation. The reading שנתה also reflects a common, non-etymological orthography that is highly suspect. I suppose א and ת were easily confused in the old Hebrew script, but I'm still dubious that the MT can be derived reasonably from the other reading. It is worth pointing out that the LXX also translates the awkward third person jussive in וּבְאֵ֥שֶׁת נְעוּרֶ֖יךָ אַל־יִבְגֹּֽד "and against the wife of your youth let him not deal treacherously" at the end of v. 15 with the second person ἐγκαταλίπῃς, showing that the problem of referent actually starts in v. 15 and is clarified throughout by the LXX. Similarly, BHQ reads "The difficulty perceived in M is its apparent inconsistency with the provision for divorce in Deut 24:1. 4QXIIa follows the same tradition of Jewish exegesis as reflected in T (so also G and V), while S adopts the simpler expedient of omission." It is worth pointing out that both T and V use imperatives meaning, "if you hate (her), divorce her!" I'm not really convinced of that reading, as I don't think it fits the context and the third person forms elsewhere in the verse. But perhaps this too could be a rhetorical challenge, more than a literal command to divorce the wives.

If we reject the second person "you hate" reading as exegetical, the question remains what to do with the earlier MT. As I see it now, it doesn't make much sense to render it with God as the subject, because the grammar of the third person self-reference would be highly awkward: "(God) hates divorcing, says the LORD". On the other hand, the third person reference to the faithless one as subject shows good continuation from v. 15 (where the faithless one is commanded indirectly in the third person not to betray his wife), and the collocation of the terms שנא and שלח are more naturally read as the normal process of despising and divorcing one's wife (cf. Deut 24:3, where the two terms are used in the same order). The real problem is why the final part of verse 15 וּבְאֵ֥שֶׁת נְעוּרֶ֖יךָ אַל־יִבְגֹּֽד shifts person reference mid-clause. But Mal 2:16 itself doesn't seem that problematic to me, even if grammatically a bit awkward.

So does God hate divorce? Probably... I can't imagine any divorce is ever completely untainted by at least one party's sin, even if it's the least bad option available. But does Mal 2:16 explicitly state that? Probably not, at least in an absolute sense. Whether we follow the MT or the second person interpretive reading, the exegetical tradition and most plausible reading of the text seems resoundingly in favor of interpreting this(/these) act(s) of hating and divorcing as something the unfaithful one is doing (or at least potentially doing). That said, if the unfaithful ones who divorce their wives are said to betray them and wrap themselves with violence, it still seems pretty clear that God is no fan of unjust divorce. 

Peshitta of Jeremiah et al.

Brill announces the forthcoming publication of the next volume of the Peshitta Institute on the Peshitta of Jeremiah, Lamentations, Epistle of Jeremiah, Epistle of Baruch, and Baruch.

New TC Books on Jeremiah and the Syriac of Exodus

SHELLEY L. BIRDSONG

The Last King(s) of Judah

Zedekiah and Sedekias in the Hebrew and Old Greek Versions of Jeremiah 37(44):1–40(47):6
[Die letzten Könige von Juda. Zedekia und Sedekias in der hebräischen und altgriechischen Fassung von Jeremia 37(44):1–40(47):6.]
2017. XVII, 255 pages.
Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 89
Abstract:

Published in English.

Zedekiah ben Josiah was the last king of Judah, and under his leadership, in 586 BCE, Jerusalem was destroyed. Interestingly, the Hebrew and Old Greek versions of Jeremiah present very different portrayals of Zedekiah, prompting a variety of literary and historical-critical questions. In this study, Shelley L. Birdsong uses a multi-critical approach to highlight the two unique characterizations of Zedekiah and address their relationship text- and form-critically. She argues that the Greek text depicts Zedekiah as a manipulative and mysterious Machiavellian prince, whereas the Hebrew presents him as a hesitant and kind king who metaphorically mirrors the fall of his capital. Following this literary comparison, the author employs several scholarly methods to substantiate the claim that the Hebrew text is a later edited text. Overall, she demonstrates the importance of doing character studies in Septuagint scholarship and using multiple methods to create a more comprehensive picture of biblical characters.

EXODUS ACCORDING TO THE SYRIAC PESHITTA VERSION WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATION
English Translation by Mark Meyer; Text Prepared by George Anton Kiraz & Joseph Bali
Abstract:

This volume is part of a series of English translations of the Syriac Peshitta along with the Syriac text carried out by an international team of scholars. Mark Meyer has translated the text, while Kiraz has prepared the Syriac text in the west Syriac script, fully vocalized and pointed. The translation and the Syriac text are presented on facing pages so that both can be studied together. All readers are catered for: those wanting to read the text in English, those wanting to improve their grasp of Syriac by reading the original language along with a translation, and those wanting to focus on a fully vocalized Syriac text.

Review of "Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction"

Alessandro Bausi (General editor), Pier Giorgio Borbone, Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, Paola Buzi, Jost Gippert, Caroline Macé, Marilena Maniaci, Zisis Melissakis, Laura E. Parodi, Witold Witakowski, eds. Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction. Hamburg: Tredition, 2015.

ISBN: 978-3-7323-1768-4 (Hardcover; €56.29)
ISBN: 978-3-7323-1770-7 (Paperback; €29.01)
ISBN: 978-3-7323-1769-1 (Ebook; €2.99)
Free download (see link above)

In 2015, the Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies research network published the results of international and interdisciplinary dialogues funded by the European Science Foundation between 2009-2014. The basic premise of the network is that the study of Oriental manuscript traditions is relatively poorly developed in relation to the Occidental traditions (mainly Greek and Latin). The network brought together scholars working on Arabic, Armenian, Avestan, Caucasian Albanian, Christo-Palestinian Aramaic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Slavonic, and Syriac manuscript traditions to discuss questions of methodology, terminology, and cultural contact. These scholars were divided into five subject teams (1: codicology and palaeography, 2: philology/text criticism, 3: digital approach to manuscript studies, 4: cataloguing, 5: manuscript preservation), and the chapters are divided accordingly, with only a subsidiary role for the digital humanities in the general introduction.

Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies: An Introduction is not intended simply as a proceedings volume, subject lexicon, or encyclopedia, but rather as a book to be read cover-to-cover. Coming in at around 700 pages of content-rich and dense material, that is asking a lot of any one scholar. It took me nearly a year of close, occasional reading and a lot of persistance to reach the end, but it was also extremely rewarding. Though the word "Introduction" occurs in the title, readers beware, this is not an introduction for beginners, but rather an advanced introduction for experts to broaden their cultural and theoretical horizons. While not exhaustive in its coverage of every aspect of every tradition, it devotes sections to the topics with most comparative relevance for each tradition, which is a highly effective strategy for an interdisciplinary introduction. The multiple Oriental traditions examined are particularly important for biblical scholars, since the Bible and related literature were translated into most of these languages in antiquity, and these traditions often provide important (or in some cases even the only) textual evidence for the works we study on a daily basis.

The long general introduction provides adequate background information about the project, research approaches, manuscript traditions, and legal and ethical complications, which orients the reader for the rest of the volume. The short surveys of manuscript traditions could even serve as concise substitutes for the detailed analyses in chapter 1, for those without the motivation to read the more substantial contributions.

I do, however, highly recommend reading chapter 1 on codicology in its entirety. Following a general introduction to oriental codicology, specialists in each cultural area describe the materials and tools used in their respective manuscript cultures, attested book forms, the making of the codex, the layout of the page, text structure and readability, scribes, painters, and illuminators, as well as bookbinding methods. In this discussion, Hebrew manuscript culture fares extraordinarily well, with the thorough documentation provided as part of the SfarData project. I am particularly happy with the decision to include Greek codicology among the "Oriental" traditions to be compared, because of the key role Greek manuscript culture played in many Oriental manuscript cultures. In fact, I could not help but wish that the Latin tradition had also been discussed, perhaps mainly out of sheer curiosity, but also because of interactions between Latin traditions and geographically dispersed traditions like Greek and Hebrew. The chapter was long--and sometimes tedious--to read through sequentially, but very rewarding. Indeed, as the editors state, it is probably more valuable from this perspective than as a reference work, because it is often lacking in detail and documentation. For instance, in working on a Greek codex recently, I looked back at the information on page numbering and quire signatures, which was helpful for a general overview, but did not have much in the way of detail, statistics, or examples to compare. The already imposing book would have become excessively unwieldy if the editors had chosen to incorporate so much detail, but it does limit its value as a reference work. One disappointing aspect of the book was the focus almost exclusively on codices. In the Greek and Hebrew sections, for instance, there is hardly more than a paragraph each on (sc)rolls, which are too general to be of much help.

After 200 pages of codicological minutiae, chapter 2 on paleography was a breath of fresh air. The general script types and developments for each manuscript tradition are broadly outlined and illustrated. These sections are enough to give scholars in other fields a good idea about the types of scripts extant in a manuscript culture, but will be of less value for specialists. You will not, for instance, find tables of letter forms or detailed descriptions and typologies.

Chapter 3 on textual criticism and text editing was interesting, but perhaps of less relevance to most biblical scholars. After a brief theoretical and practical introduction to textual criticism and scholarly editing, the book devotes 100 pages to selected examples of editorial projects and phenomena in the various Oriental traditions. Because of the often narrow focus of these examples, I regularly struggled to tease out their comparative relevance. Many of them dealt with problems peculiar to a particular manuscript culture, literary tradition, or genre, which I doubt will be of much interest to many other than those theoretically engaged in the discussion of what it means to edit a text. There was unfortunately little help offered for those working in biblical textual criticism, with its massive and complex documented traditions.

Chapter 4 on cataloguing seemed a bit tedious to me, but everyone working with manuscripts needs to be aware of the various approaches to cataloguing and describing manuscripts. There is also some helpful, practical guidance for those who find themselves in the unfamiliar position of cataloguing manuscripts and for those wondering what to include in a description of a manuscript. To sum up a recent trend in cataloguing, include as much information as you can in the amount of time you have, and preferably provide pictures!

Chapter 5 on conservation and preservation was a somewhat unexpected, but pleasant surprise. Working with manuscripts as often as I do, I am frequently in contact with curators and conservators, and this chapter gave me greater insight into their cold, dark world of climate-controlled vaults and storage boxes. The chapter discusses the core principles of preservation and conservation, as well as some basic points about preferred methods, dangers, and environmental conditions. The final section on digitization lays out the possibilities, practicalities, and problems of digitization, which I found both informative and balanced. Overall, this chapter gave me a much greater appreciation for the work of the conservator and the importance of preserving textual artefacts for future generations, and I would recommend it to anyone working regularly with manuscripts.

The references at the back of the book are daunting, but thankfully each section has its own references list referring to the full reference at the end of the book, which is very helpful. And the book concludes with a series of indices, which will be helpful for readers of the printed book, but largely redundant for those using the searchable PDF. Furthermore, the editors are to be commended for making the book freely available online, as well as in book form at reasonable prices. In this, and every other way, COMSt represents an up-to-date and accessible reflection of the current state of each subfield, and I highly recommend this book.