Endnote 9 – Are the Ebla Tablets Relevant to Biblical Research?

The Septuagint recognized God as the subject of the second half of the verse, “A man’s pride will bring him low, but the Lord will gloriously support the humble.” To effect this translation it parsed kaµbôd as the adverbial accusative “gloriously” and, without any apparent textual support in the Hebrew original, inserted kyrios, “Lord.” But the point of the proverb appears to be that Glory by definition can bestow glory on the humble. Introducing kyrios, the Greek version sacrificed the linguistic economy and syllabic balance of the original Hebrew which numbers nine syllables in each half of the verse: ga’aûwat ’aµdaµm tasûpîlennû // ûsû^epal-rûah yitmoµk kaµbôd.