Wondrous things from the banks of the Arnon river Numbers 21:10-20 in the Vulgate (and in rabbinic traditions)

Numbers 21:10-20 provides an itinerary that sketches Israel's journeys through the areas east of the Dead Sea on both sides of the Arnon river. In the course of this journey Israel witnessed a salvation miracle like the one at the Red Sea (cf. Num 21:14-15) and a miraculous well “appeared” (apparuit, cf. Num 21:16), the wider “context” of which is illuminated by the song in Num 21:17-18 – all this according to the text of the Vulgate. In the Hebrew text, the “Vorlage” of Jerome, however, none of this contents is to be found, at least not at first sight. The short paper attempts to describe the interesting relationship between the Vulgate and the Hebrew text of Num 21:13-18. It will show that the translation of Jerome – although it might initially seem to be a very free paraphrase of the Hebrew text – is based on a careful perception of syntactial and lexical aspects of its “Vorlage”. It is to be assessed as an attempt to gain a deeper (and “reasonable”) meaning from a pretty cryptic and “questionable” text by exegetical means.

Furthermore it is observable that the translation and interpretation of Num 21:13-18 in the Vulgate has some striking similarities with “translations” or interpretations of the passage that can be found in rabbinical literature (e.g. in Sifre or in various Targumim). So it is to be investigated, to what extent Hieronymus refers to (or even presupposes) Jewish (rabbinical) traditions in his translation of Numbers 21:13-18 and it will be shown that the Text of the Vulgate, both in v. 14-15 and in v. 16, is not understandable without the knowledge of traditions that are tangible for us in ancient Jewish literature (from Eretz Israel).

Website Matthias Ederer