Deuteronomy 32:43 in the ESV and the NRSV Has Two Emendations

 

A Textual Criticism Issue:  Should the Septuagint or the Dead Sea Scrolls Emend the Masoretic Text?

By Charlie J. Ray, M.Div.

 

Evangelical scholars today place a high priority on proving that the Bible is accurate according to the extant manuscript evidence that underlies the modern English translations today.  All parties in the disputes agree that only the original autographs are the actually inspired or God-breathed words of God.  There are numerous complications entailed by the Evangelical dogmatics which assert that modern textual criticism can reconstruct the original autographs of the Bible from the original language texts in Koine Greek and Masoretic Hebrew.

This paper will examine only one example of a textual criticism issue that compares a reading from the Hebrew Masoretic text of Deuteronomy 32:43 and Hebrews 1:6 of the Koine Greek New Testament.  Advocates of modern reasoned eclecticism claim that Hebrews 1:6 indicates that the Masoretic Text of Deuteronomy 32:43 shows that the Masoretes or the Jews edited out part of the verse during the transmission of the text or that it was somehow accidentally left out due to a scribal error.  The basis for this claim is that at least one manuscript tradition of the Septuagint has the exact phrasing of Hebrews 1:6 as it is recorded in the Greek New Testament.  A further assertion is that at least one Hebrew manuscript discovered at Qumran in the Dead Sea Scrolls has a version of Deuteronomy 32:43 that contains the missing phrase that is recorded in one edition of the Septuagint.  Allegedly, the Greek wording of the Septuagint verse in Deuteronomy 32:43 is an exact phrasing match to the wording in Hebrews 1:6.

It is my contention that this is not necessarily a proof that the Masoretic Text is in error and that the LXX and the DSS scrolls are a correction to the Hebrew of the MT.  I will approach this problem using logic as the basis for my critique of the reasoned eclecticism position.  The science of modern textual criticism is based on the fallacy of induction or the fallacy of asserting the consequent.  If there are allegedly errors in the Masoretic Text, there could be other explanations for the apparent discrepancies.  Presupposing that the apparent errors are actual errors, leads to asserting the consequent for the simple reason that it is just as possible that the LXX adds to the text of the Masoretic Hebrew text and that the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that the text was altered to fit with the Septuagint reading.  There are, of course, other possible explanations for why the DSS manuscript has the alternate reading.  This paper will dig into the scholarship and offer an opinion at the end of this paper.

Since the English Standard Version of the Bible[1] is now the go to translation for many Reformed denominations and congregations, I want to first examine the translation of Deuteronomy 32:43 in the ESV and then talk about the footnotes in the 2002 edition and the 2025 edition.  There is at least one change in the footnotes for 2002 to 2025 in regard to Deuteronomy 32:43.

Apparently there was a matter of controversy over the footnotes in the ESV in earlier editions.  The 2002 edition reads as follows:

“Rejoice with him, O heavens; bow down to him, all gods,(4) for he avenges the blood of his children(5) and takes vengeance on his adversaries.  He repays those who hate him(6) and cleanses(7) his people’s land.”(8)[2]

The 2025 edition has the following text with footnotes:

“Rejoice with him, O heavens;(9) bow down to him, all gods,(10) for he avenges the blood of his children(11) and takes vengeance on his adversaries.  He repays those who hate him(12) and cleanses(13) his people’s land.”(14)[3]

The first thing to notice is that in the updated edition that there is an additional footnote following the word “heavens”.  The second thing to notice is that there is an additional phrase in the verse that is not included in other translations:

Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people. (Deut. 32:43 KJV)

The added phrase in the ESV is after footnotes 4 and 10 respectively in the above quote.  I will first examine those two footnotes and offer a critique before proceeding to the other footnotes.  Of the several translations that I checked, only the New Revised Standard Version adds the phrase “bow down to him, all gods.”  The only difference is that the NRSV translates “bow down” as “worship”.  The NASB 1995, the Legacy Standard Bible, the NIV, the NET, and even the RSV[4] all leave out the additional phrase.  Footnote #4 in the 2002 edition of the ESV reads: 

Dead Sea Scroll, Septuagint; Masoretic Text Rejoice his people, O nations[5]

            What is going on with this footnote?  Footnote 10 from the 2025 edition of the ESV reads as follows:

Masoretic Text lacks bow down to him, all gods,[6]

Notice that the comment from the 2002 edition has been changed to remove the acknowledgment that the sources of the phrase come from the reading in the Septuagint manuscripts and from a manuscript found at Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Footnote #10 in the 2025 edition completely removes the information about the sources and simply says that the phrase is not included in the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text.  Whether intentional or not, the footnote in the 2025 edition splits the verse in order to remove the information earlier admitted in the 2002 edition of the ESV.  I tend to think that this is intentional because Bible readers familiar with other translations, especially the KJV and the NKJV translations, will be quick to notice that the ESV emends the Masoretic Text by adding a verse found only in an obscure DSS manuscript discovered in Qumran sometime after 1947 in the original Hebrew.  Presumably, the fact that the DSS confirms a reading from one of the Greek manuscripts of the Septuagint tradition.  But the question is whether or not this proves that the Masoretic Text is wrong and somehow mistakenly dropped the phrase from the Hebrew text?

            To their credit, most of the modern translations do not emend Deuteronomy 32:43 using the DSS or the LXX.[7]  Next, I will examine the reasoning behind the decision of the ESV translation committee to emend the verse with the added phraseology and the theological implications that result from that conjectural emendation.  Also, why did the ESV change the translation of “nations” to “heavens”?   I will also examine that issue before moving on to the argument that Hebrews 1:6 is a direct quote from the LXX as stated by Greg Lanier.[8]

Hebrews 1: 5– 14 draws on multiple Old Testament passages to make exalted claims about Jesus’s divinity. Hebrews 1:6 is one of the most impressive, as the Father commands even angels to worship his “firstborn” son— a status no mere human could enjoy. But the quoted text is drawn from the longer Greek of Deuteronomy 32:43 and is not present in the Masoretic Text (recall table 5.3 in chap. 5). A portion is also attested in 4Q44 of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Thus, the Old Greek wording used in Hebrews may reflect an earlier and better text than the shorter Masoretic Text form (which is why some modern Bibles like the ESV present a composite form at Deut. 32:43). Whatever the case, this additional wording from Moses’s final song allows the author to drive home the huge difference between Jesus and angels.[9]

            Although Lanier and Ross were not part of the translation committee for the Old Testament of the ESV, the reasoning used is most likely the same.  For some reason moderate Evangelicals tend to repeat the arguments of theological liberals, baptizing them with their Evangelical views as if this justifies the liberal arguments.  So, exactly what is the LXX reading that is supposedly quoted in Hebrews 1:6 and how does that match up with the Hebrew reading from the DSS 4Q44?  The first thing to notice is that the LXX reads “sons of God,” not “angels”.  The other difference is that the Hebrew of DSS 4Q44 reads “gods”[10], not “sons of God”.  The Hebrew word is elohim, which is sometimes in reference to God and other times a reference to angels or false gods.

The discrepancies are numerous.  Furthermore, the emendation used to justify the reading in the ESV and the NRSV is based on a tiny fragment of a Hebrew parchment found at Qumran, which is dated to 50-1 B.C.  Instead of confirming Hebrews 1:6, the emendation that is lauded by Lanier and Ross in Deuteronomy 32:43 undermines the Masoretic Text as the standard and objective foundational text for the translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew original.  A further discrepancy is that the LXX does not exactly match Hebrews 1:6 because in the New Testament the verse reads “angels” not “sons of God”.  In short, the supposed match between Hebrews 1:6, 4Q44, and the LXX is very loose and mostly based on conjecture and on an extremely small fragment of a Hebrew manuscript found in the DSS.  The only other evidence is the portion of the LXX found in Codex Vaticanus, which has both the Old Testament with apocrypha in Greek and the New Testament in Greek.[11]

A short rejoinder regarding the theological implications of the Lanier and Ross view is in order.  First, it does not logically follow that because the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text is dated to the Leningrad Codex of about 1008 A.D. that it is therefore less trustworthy than the LXX or the DSS, including a fragment from 4Q44.  The Bomberg edition of the Hebrew Masoretic Text, which is preferred by the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Reformation Bible Society, is dated to the 15^th century A.D.  Dr. Jeffrey Riddle argues that the tenacity of the text means that the readings that are preserved in the Bomberg edition of the Hebrew Masoretic Text were providentially kept pure in all ages because those were the readings that God caused the church to accept as canonical Scripture over the centuries.

Another question arises concerning Hebrews 1:6. Is it really necessary to make conjectures as to how the apostolic writer came to write this verse?  What we do know is that the text has been universally accepted as the God-breathed and written word of God from the beginning.  Just as the apostle Paul quoted pagan poets in the book of Acts without implying that the writings of the poets were inspired, so the writer of Hebrews could possibly be aware of the LXX without viewing it as replacing the Masoretic Text.  A further possibility is that the writer of Hebrews viewed the allusion to the LXX as theological support for the deity of Christ without regarding that translation as a correction of the extant Hebrew of his day.  In other words, it is a huge jump in logic to presuppose that the writer of Hebrews had access to an earlier Hebrew manuscript that agreed with the LXX.  This is an entirely subjective conjecture on the part of Lanier and Ross.

Furthermore, there are other emendations added to the text of Deuteronomy 32:43 which Lanier and Ross completely ignore.  The MT reads goyim or “nations”, not “heavens”.[12]  Another entire clause gets added from the LXX: 

6 Dead Sea Scroll, Septuagint; Masoretic Text lacks He repays those who hate him[13] 

None of the modern translations that translate from the MT add this clause to the verse.  Only the ESV and the NRSV add the verse as far as I can tell.  This is another reason that I do not recommend the ESV.  Not only is it based on the RSV, a liberal translation of the Bible, but it goes even further astray from the RSV by emending the Old Testament based on conjectural readings from the DSS and the LXX.  Even the RSV of 1952 did not go that far—at least in regard to Deuteronomy 32:43.  Finally, the phrase “bow down to Him all gods” is a bias towards henotheism, or the acknowledgment that other gods exist in reality rather than simply being either empty idols or demonic fallen angels.  The Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament rejects the ancient near eastern idea of henotheism.  There is only one God.  All of the others are either idols with no real god behind them or they are viewed as demons under God's control. 

 

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[1] All Scripture references in this paper refer to the King James Version, 1900 edition, unless otherwise noted.  References from the English Standard Version are only pertaining to the topic of this paper, namely textual criticism, translation issues, and the footnotes from the 2002 and 2025 editions of the English Standard Version.

[2] English Standard Version.  2001. (Wheaton: Good News, 2002).  Thinline edition. 

[3] ESV, Ibid.  2025 edition.  The footnote numbering is different.

[4] The RSV was published in 1952 before the Dead Sea Scrolls became popularized.

[5] ESV, 2002 edition.

[6] Ibid., 2025 edition.

[7] Hereafter the Dead Sea Scrolls will be abbreviated to DSS, and the Septuagint will be referenced as LXX.

[8] “Hebrews 1:6 (Deuteronomy 32:43) Again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him [Heb. omits phrase].’”  Lanier, Greg; Ross, William A.. The Septuagint (p. 157). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

[9] Ibid., pp. 157-158.

[10] See:  https://dssenglishbible.com/scroll4Q44.htm

[11] 0240  Dt 32:43–33:11: Image 1.  Brannan, Rick, ed. Manuscripts of the Septuagint. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020. Print. Manuscripts of the Bible.

[12] ESV 2025, footnote 9.

[13] ESV 2002, footnote 6.