Littérature du Second Temple sur Le Lévitique 23:15

§ 176. (Text of ἀπὸ … μονάδος.) M has ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἐκείνης ἡμέρα πεντηκοστὴ καταριθμεῖται ἑβδόμη ἑβδομάς, ἐφʼ αἷς ἱερὸν ἀριθμὸν ἐπισφραγιζομένης μονάδος. Nicetas ἀπὸ γὰρ ἐκείνης τῆς ἡμέρας πεντηκοστὴ ἀριθμεῖται ἑπτὰ ἑβδομάδες ἱερὸν ἀριθμὸν ἐπισφραγιζομένης μονάδος. Nicetas’s text is followed by Mangey with the correction of ἑβδομάδες to -δων. Nicetas’s ἀπὸ is clearly right (see Lev. 23:15, for reckoning Pentecost from the Sheaf) and the question between his τῆς ἡμέρας … ἀριθμεῖται … and M’s ἡμέρα … καταριθμεῖται is unimportant, but his ἑβδομάδες is impossible; Cohn’s correction to ἑβδομάσι agrees, as he says, with the parallel in De Dec. 160, whereas Mangey’s ἑβδομάδων will make the sacred number 49 instead of 50. Cohn’s correction of ἐφʼ αἷς to ἀφέσεως seems to me much more doubtful. In De Cong. 109 which he cites, and a similar passage in De Mut. 228, an allegory is founded on the connexion of “release” with the Jubile of the fiftieth year. Here we are talking of a different feast which, except for the number 50, has no connexion with the Jubile, and there is no further allusion to the idea of release. The corruption of ἑβδόμη ἑβδομὰς ἐφʼ αἷς in M may have arisen (1) by an assimilation of ἑβδομάδες to the singular verb καταριθμεῖται, (2) by a variation of construction between a relative clause and a genitive absolute.