I had the privilege of preaching a few Sundays ago and I read a passage from Exodus 24. When I got to verse 10 in my TNIV it said, “and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky.” I paused and told the congregation that I didn’t know what “lapis lazuli”* was and asked if anyone else did. Everyone with a KJV shouted “sapphire!”
The reason I bring this up is because I just came across the same term in Ezekiel 1:26 in the NIV2011, which says, “Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man.” The MT has אבֶן־סַפִּיר (sapphire stone) and the LXX agrees with it in using λίθου σαπφείρου (sapphire stone); note that the reference in Exodus lacks אבֶן/λίθου.
So anyway, I know what a sapphire is, and I’d venture to guess that most other folks do too, but how many people who aren’t up on their gemology are going to be familiar with lapis lazuli? And I realize that the Vulgate uses lapidis (stone) in both verses, but it also uses sapphyri/sapphirini (sapphire). I think this is one of those examples where “antiquated” translations are easier to understand than those using modern vernacular.
B”H
*Also used a few times in the NLT, NASB, NJPS, NET, and once in the NAB and NJB.
That’s just a lazy modern translation, is the the problem.
@Chuck: No. It’s not lazy translation. That’s a far more accurate translation. The translation “sapphire” is anachronistic.
LSJ: “σαπφείρος, (proparox.), ἡ, lapis lazuli, of which two chief kinds, κυανῆ and χρυσῆ, are mentioned by Thphr.Lap.23, 37, D.P.1105; cf. LXXEx.24.10, al., J.AJ3.7.5, Peripl.M.Rubr.39. (Cf. Hebr. sappīr, perh. not Semitic.)”
“In antiquity and as late as the Middle Ages, the name sapphire was understood to mean what is today described as lapis lazuli.”
Page 102 from Gemstones of the World: Newly Revised & Expanded Fourth Edition by Walter Schumann.
Granted, modern “sapphire” is more readily understandable than lapis lazuli, but “sapphire” will also mislead readers. They may both be blue, but they are not the same.
Chuck: I’m gonna say it stupid modern translation!
Mike: Sapphire is little more than a transliteration both both the Hebrew and Greek words!
Sapphire is little more than a transliteration both both the Hebrew and Greek words!
Indeed, but that doesn’t make it accurate. If anything merely transliterating the words is highly misleading.
Mike: I sit abashed. But then, I’ve nevr bought a woman a ring. ;-)
lapis is kinda like blue and gold granite, it’s beautiful. it’s not translucent like a sapphire though.
“transliterating the words is highly misleading”
Reminds me of a preacher I heard recently who went on about God being literally a despot; “thats what the greek says!”
Mike: I vote we revise what we call a sapphire and have it match what they were talking about!
Nathan: I’ve never seen one.
Kim: But that is what it says! :-P
It’s an interesting issue.
My understanding is that gem scholars date sapphires to ancient Sri Lanka/India/etc., while blue stones from the ANE had to be lapis. So it’s unlikely that sapir meant “sapphire” and very likely that it meant “lapis.”
(As has already been pointed out, the Hebrew sapir sounds like “sapphire,” but that doesn’t count for much in terms of accurate translation.)
But that’s only part of the answer.
Another question is how people use “sapphire” and “lapis.” (Like you, I don’t use “lapis” at all.) It seems that the word “sapphire” for a long time meant “blue stone,” not necessarily specifically a sapphire. And for that matter, I believe that not all sapphires are blue. There are pink sapphires, for example, and there could be red sapphires, but we call those “rubies.”
As I see it, though, there’s a third question, and that is whether or not translating the variety of stone is the only criterion of success. Even if sapir was “lapis,” “sapphire” may still be the right translation, if the point was the connotations of the stone rather than the technical variety.
In Exodus 28:18, the point does seem to be the actual variety, but in Ezekiel 1:26, for example, we find something that appeared like a throne and looked like sapir. In Ezekiel, I would certainly translate “sapphire” (“looked like sapphire” making much more sense than “looked like lapis”). And then, once we have sapphire in Ezekiel, perhaps it makes sense to make the text in Exodus match?
-Joel
Joel: Good points.