HAND OR FINGER? A SHORT NOTE ON JOB 29:9 AND ITS SEPTUAGINT TRANSLATION

In Job 29:9, the Septuagint and its ancient revisions diverge slightly from the Masoretic Text: instead of putting their hands over their mouths when Job appears on the city square, the notables use their fingers. This translation is all the more astonishing since elsewhere in the Septuagint, the Hebrew terms for such a gesture are rendered literally in Greek. The purpose of this short note is to show that the translator of the book of Job deliberately replaces one gesture with another because the meaning of the gesture mentioned in the Hebrew text is not entirely obvious in a Hellenistic context.