Adopting, Taking Hold of, & Clinging to False Sabbaths

Approximately 200 years before Christ, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. This Greek translation is called the Septuagint. The Septuagint can help us see how Jews at that time understood the Hebrew Scriptures.

I want us to look at one phrase in Amos as an example. In Amos 6, the prophet rebuked the Jews who were at ease in Zion and were not concerned about the affliction of their brothers. In Amos 6:3, the recipients of the prophet’s rebuke are described as people who, among other things, “cause the seat of violence to come near” (KJV).

I consulted 33 translations, and all of them say something similar to the KJV, except for 3 of them, which say something quite different. Zondervan’s translation of the Septuagint says that the people were “adopting false sabbaths.” The Pulpit Commentary’s translation of the Septuagint says they were “clinging to false sabbaths.” The translation of the Aramaic Peshitta says they were “approaching the Sabbath of violence.”

How did these translators see “false sabbaths” or “the Sabbath of violence,” while others saw “the seat of violence”? The Hebrew text, when read with the vowel points, says va-tagiyshun / shevet / chamas, and means, as the KJV says, “[Ye] cause the seat of violence to come near.” However, the pointing system that tells readers how to pronounce the vowel sounds did not yet exist when Amos wrote this, nor did it exist when the Septuagint was translated. The translators of the Septuagint saw only v-t-g-y-sh-v-n / sh-v-t (or possibly sh-b-t ) / ch-m-s. The key to unlock this mystery is the center word. Is it SHeVeT (“seat”), or SHaBaT (“sabbath”)? The two words are spelled the same way. Without the vowel points, it can mean either one.

The Jews who translated the Septuagint obviously understood it as “sabbath,” because they translated it as ephaptomenoi sabbaton pseudon. The first Greek word can mean to adopt or to cling to. It is also used in Amos 9:5, which says that God “takes hold of the land,” ephaptomenos tes ges.

The second Greek word, sabbaton, is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew shabbat. The -on suffix pluralizes it so it means “sabbaths.”

The third Greek word, pseudo[n], is a translation of the Hebrew chamas. Chamas usually means “violence,” but it can also mean simply “wrong,” as in Job 21:27, “the devices which ye wrongfully imagine against me.”

Pseudo means fake, phony, bogus, counterfeit, wrong, just as it does in English. The New Testament speaks about false prophets (pseudoprophetes), false teachers (pseudodidaskalos), false apostles (pseudapostolos), false brothers (pseudoadelphos), and false messiahs (pseudochristos). And the Septuagint speaks about sabbaton pseudon, because the translators understood Amos to be speaking about Jews who had abandoned God’s Sabbath and adopted, took hold of, and were clinging to false sabbaths.

I’m sure glad that Christians didn’t make the same mistake those stupid Jews made! . . .Oh, wait a minute . . .

| DB