OG Daniel 11:26 — Wounded and Slain
Here in the Old Greek of Daniel 11:26, the Old Greek says:
‘and many will fall, wounded.’
The Hebrew says:
‘and many will be slain.’
There’s a difference between being wounded (but alive) versus being slain or killed! What’s the cause of this discrepancy?
The simplest explanation is that our Greek translator misread the Hebrew, the Hebrew scroll was damaged, or it contained a copyist error, because wounded and slain only differ by one letter (וּ):
- Slain: חֲלָלִים (halalim)
- Wounded: חֲלוּלִים (halulim)
However, Theodotion’s Greek translation from Hebrew in the 2nd century AD also says ‘wounded’. So perhaps this was a common error in Hebrew copies, or… We have it backwards?
Yes, perhaps the Hebrew text acquired a copyist error, adding the letter (וּ), meaning that the Old Greek and Theodotion translations are both correct, while the Hebrew is wrong.
Maybe, but we don’t know.
However, given that we have two witnesses to the Hebrew text, and both say ‘wounded’, we’re inclined to think that the Old Greek is probably correct here, and that the Hebrew may have acquired a silly copyist error sometime after the 2nd century AD.
Historical sources about the battle don’t help us here. They don’t give us enough details to know whether there was or was not an unusual number of wounded.
Either way, the difference is not large and doesn’t really change the meaning of the verse.