This is a continuation of y^ehôvâh’s (יהוה) instruction to Moses: They^[1] are to eat those things by which atonement (kâphar, כפר; Septuagint: ἡγιάσθησαν, a form of ἁγιάζω) was made to consecrate and to set them apart, but no one else may eat them, for they are holy.^[2]  I thought to skip the next two verses as an aside with no direct correspondent in Leviticus 8.  The Holy Spirit thought better (Exodus 29:29, 30 NET):

The holy (qôdesh, הקדש; Septuagint: ἁγίου, a form of ἅγιος) garments that belong to Aaron are to belong to his sons after him, so that they may be anointed in them and consecrated (mâlêʼ, ולמלא; Septuagint: τελειῶσαι τὰς χεῖρας) in them.  The priest who succeeds him from his sons, when he first comes to the tent of meeting to minister in the Holy Place (qôdesh, בקדש; Septuagint: ἁγίοις, another form of ἅγιος), is to wear them for seven days.

I won’t consider ἁγίου or any other form of ἅγιος here except to highlight how often the word serves as a pointer to the source of holiness.  Nor will I look again at τελειῶσαι τὰς χεῖρας.  The Hebrew word translated may be anointed was למשחה (mishchâh), which was translated χρισθῆναι (a form of χρίω) in the Septuagint.  I will consider other forms of χρίω in the New Testament.

The book of Hebrews begins by contrasting Jesus to angels: For to which of the angels (ἀγγέλων, a form of ἄγγελος) did God ever say, “You are my son!  Today I have fathered you”?  And in another place he says, “I will be his father and he will be my son.”^[3]  Malachi had prophesied:

Here in the last book of the Old Testament the One who shall suddenly come to his temple was called both the Lord (ʼădônây, האדון) and the messenger (malʼâk, ומלאך; Septuagint: ἄγγελος) of the covenant.  It makes sense then that Hebrews, what I am considering the first book written of the New Testament, would begin by demonstrating that this particular messenger (ἄγγελος) was not of the phylum of the angels (ἀγγέλων, a form of ἄγγελος) in the spiritual kingdom.

The quotation—“You are my son!  Today I have fathered you”—was verbatim from the Septuagint.

As I consider the full text from the Tanakh and an English translation of the Septuagint, I hear a kind of corrective to the translators’ attitude that their “instruction” was the point of the psalm.

The author of Hebrews clearly put the focus back on the anointed Son of the Hebrew psalm rather than the “instruction” of the rabbis who translated the Septuagint.  The quotation—I will be his father and he will be my son—was also verbatim from the Septuagint.

Jesus, the messenger of the covenant, was not only the son of God but the son of David, as y^ehôvâh promised David through the prophet Nathan.

But when he again brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him!”^[4]  This is a bit more problematic since the quotation—Let all the angels of God worship him—is verbatim in the Elpenor version of the Septuagint only.

It is scrambled some in the BLB version of the Septuagint with προσκυνησάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες in one clause and ἄγγελοι θεοῦ in another.  The phrases ἄγγελοι Θεοῦ (angels of God) and υἱοὶ Θεοῦ (sons of God) are reversed relative to the Elpenor version and the quotation in Hebrews 1:6.  On top of that both clauses are missing entirely in translations from contemporary Hebrew.

It didn’t make any sense.  Why would the Masoretes keep Kiss the Son and discard let all the angels of God worship him, when the most likely referent for him was y^ehôvâh?  Though I asked the question, I didn’t really expect an answer.  I was, however, curious why the author of Hebrews thought this vanishing quote related to Jesus.  More to the point, why did Jesus teach his disciples that it referred to Him?  So I looked more closely at the available referents for him.

He set the borders of the peoples according to the number of the children (bên, בני) of Israel (yiśrâʼêl),^[5] caught my attention since the NETS read, “he fixed boundaries of nations according to the number of divine (θεοῦ, another form of θεός) sons” (ἀγγέλων, a form of ἄγγελος).  Why would anyone translate bên yiśrâʼêl (children of Israel) ἀγγέλων θεοῦ (NETS: “divine sons;” Elpenor English Translation: angels of God).  A note (14) in the NET offered a clue:

…a Qumran fragment has “sons of God,”… “Sons of God” is undoubtedly the original reading; the MT and LXX have each interpreted it differently.  MT assumes that the expression “sons of God” refers to Israel (cf. Hos. 1:10), while LXX has assumed that the phrase refers to the angelic heavenly assembly (Pss 29:1; 89:6; cf. as well Ps 82).

Suddenly, the answer I wasn’t expecting was right in my face.  The Masoretes kept Kiss the Son because they thought the Son was Israel.  And they weren’t wrong.  Jesus is as much a son of Israel as He is a son of David.   In an essay, “In Psalm 2:12, is Kiss the Son a mistranslation by the Christians?” on Jews for Jesus online, Joseph Sarachek^[6] was quoted:

Ibn Ezra rejects the simple and acceptable meaning of ‘bar’ as pure and inclines to translate it as son, referring it to the “anointed one” in v. 2 and making it the apposite of “Thou art my son” in v. 7. Bar would then allude to Israel.

I still didn’t have a clue why they might discard something as innocuous as Let all the angels of God worship him!  Who did they think him was?  Eventually I came to Deuteronomy 32:15 (Tanakh):

But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked–thou didst wax fat, thou didst grow thick, thou didst become gross–and he forsook G-d who made him, and contemned the Rock of his salvation (NETS: “God his Saviour”).

The Hebrew word translated salvation was ישעתו (y^eshûʽâh).  Yeshua, apparently, is way too close to the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Jesus) for the Masoretes to allow any suggestion that the angels of God might worship Him.  Given a choice between the Rock of his salvation and the more innocuous Let all the angels of God worship him, the latter, it appears, was chosen for elimination.

This Rock was translated with some form of θεὸς (See Table above) in the Septuagint every time it occurred in Moses’ song.  Not so with the story of the Rock recorded in Exodus (17:6 Tanakh):

Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock (tsûr, הצור; Septuagint: πέτρας, a form of πέτρα) in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock (tsûr, בצור; Septuagint: πέτραν, another form of πέτρα), and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.’  And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel.

Later Moses, frustrated with the people, struck the Rock in anger when HaShem had told him to speak to it.  Here the Rock was called by a different name in contemporary Hebrew, though not in Greek in the Septuagint (Numbers 20:7-12 Tanakh):

And HaShem spoke unto Moses, saying: ‘Take the rod, and assemble the congregation, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock (selaʽ, הסלע; Septuagint: πέτραν, another form of πέτρα) before their eyes, that it give forth its water; and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock (selaʽ, הסלע; Septuagint: πέτρας, a form of πέτρα); so thou shalt give the congregation and their cattle drink.’

And Moses took the rod from before HaShem, as He commanded him.  And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock (selaʽ, הסלע; Septuagint: πέτρας, a form of πέτρα), and he said unto them: ‘Hear now, ye rebels; are we to bring you forth water out of this rock (selaʽ, הסלע; Septuagint: πέτρας, a form of πέτρα)?’  And Moses lifted up his hand, and smote the rock (selaʽ, הסלע; Septuagint: πέτραν, another form of πέτρα) with his rod twice; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their cattle.  And HaShem said unto Moses and Aaron: ‘Because ye believed not in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.’

Paul wrote believers in Corinth (1 Corinthians 10:1-4 NET):

For^[7] I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses^[8] in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.  For they were all drinking from the spiritual rock (πέτρας, a form of πέτρα) that followed them, and the rock (πέτρα) was Christ.

The translators of the Septuagint weren’t wrong to call the Rock of HaShem’s Salvation (y^eshûʽâh, ישעתו) God.

I haven’t even gotten to a form of χρίω yet, but will pick it up from here in another essay.  A table comparing Psalm 2:12 in the Elpenor and BLB versions of the Septuagint, tables comparing Deuteronomy 32:3, 4; 32:6; 32:8, 9; 32:12; 32:15; 32:18, 19; 32:27; 32:30, 31 and 32:36 in the Tanankh, KJV, NETS and Elpenor English translations, and a table comparing 1 Corinthians 10:1, 2 in the NET and KJV follow.