Series Introduction

I’m facilitating an online Koine Greek reading group and we’re working through the short and apocryphal book of Bel and the Dragon. The text we’re using is the Old Greek (OG) version from Henry Barclay Swete’s 1909 edition of The Old Testament in Greek: According to the Septuagint. I will be posting the text here each week with accompanying vocabulary glosses for words that appear fewer than fifty times in the Greek New Testament. I will also try to throw in some brief commentary and illustrations drawn by my ten-year old daughter.

14 ὁ δὲ Δανιὴλ ἐκέλευσε τοὺς παρʼ αὐτοῦ ἐκβαλόντας πάντας ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ κατασῆσαι ὅλον τὸν ναὸν σποδῷ, οὐθενὸς τῶν ἐκτὸς αὐτοῦ εἰδότος. καὶ τότε σφραγισάμενος τὸν ναὸν ἐκέλευσε σφραγίσαι τῷ τοῦ βασιλέως δακτυλίῳ καὶ τοῖς δακτυλίοις τινῶν ἐνδόξων ἱερέων· καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως.

Verse 14

δακτύλιος, signet

Δανιηλ, Daniel

ἐκτός, except

ἔνδοξος, notable

ἱερεύς, priest

κατασήθω, to strew

κελεύω, to command

ναός, temple

οὐθείς, no one

σποδός, ashes

σφραγίζω, to seal

Translation and Commentary

14 And Daniel commanded them from him, sending away all from the temple, to strew the whole temple with ashes (no one except him having known}. And then sealing the temple, he commanded to seal it with the signet of the king and the signets of certain notable priests. And so it happened.

There are lots of minor differences between Swete’s and Ralhfs text (accenting, capitalization, versification), but the only major difference (if you can call it major) shows up in verse 14. Swete opted for a variant that inserts the participial form of σφραγίζω after τότε as you can see below. Here are the two texts with the additional word in bold.

Bel 14 (Swete) ὁ δὲ Δανιὴλ ἐκέλευσε τοὺς παρʼ αὐτοῦ ἐκβαλόντας πάντας ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ κατασῆσαι ὅλον τὸν ναὸν σποδῷ, οὐθενὸς τῶν ἐκτὸς αὐτοῦ εἰδότος. καὶ τότε σφραγισάμενος τὸν ναὸν ἐκέλευσε σφραγίσαι [sealing the temple, he commanded to seal] τῷ τοῦ βασιλέως δακτυλίῳ καὶ τοῖς δακτυλίοις τινῶν ἐνδόξων ἱερέων· καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως.

Bel 14 (Rahlfs) ὁ δὲ Δανιηλ ἐκέλευσε τοὺς παρ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐκβαλόντας πάντας ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ κατασῆσαι ὅλον τὸν ναὸν σποδῷ οὐθενὸς τῶν ἐκτὸς αὐτοῦ εἰδότος. καὶ τότε τὸν ναὸν ἐκέλευσε σφραγίσαι [he commanded to seal the temple] τῷ τοῦ βασιλέως δακτυλίῳ καὶ τοῖς δακτυλίοις τινῶν ἐνδόξων ἱερέων· καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως.

Want to read more? Continue to Bel and the Dragon Part 8

For more resources on Bel and the Dragon try the following:

Bel and the Dragon in A New English Translation of the Septuagint

An Introduction to the Apocrypha by Bruce M. Metzger

Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions by Carey A. MooreDaniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel by John J. Collins