Annotatio LXXIX

”In the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life.” — Genesis 7:11

The Septuagint interpreters — where we, according to the Hebrew truth, have “In the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month,” etc. — are faulty, and depraved in the number both of the years and of the months.¹ For it has ἐν τῷ ἑνὶ ἑξακοσιοστῷ ἔτει ἐν τῇ ζωῇ τοῦ Νῶε, τῷ δευτέρῳ μηνί, ἑβδόμῃ καὶ εἰκάδι τοῦ μηνός — that is, “In the six-hundred-and-first year in the life of Noah, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh of the month.” There is therefore here a twofold error. For first there is made an addition of one year, whereas the sacred letters most openly attest that Noah entered the ark in the six-hundredth year of his life, and that in the same year the Flood inundated. Then [there] is an error in the number of the days of the month, an addition of ten days being made [an addition of ten days being made] above the seven and ten [seventeen] days which are reckoned in the Hebrew. The first error arises because, a little below, in chapter 8 — when now one year had been completed — it is said, ἐν τῷ ἑνὶ καὶ ἑξακοσιοστῷ ἔτει, etc., that is, “In the six-hundred-and-first year of Noah’s life, in the first month, on the first day of that month, the water failed” [Genesis 8:13].² The second error similarly arises because, below in the same chapter 8, it is written, “In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried” [Genesis 8:14].³ Chrysostom, however, and Procopius follow the number of the Greek codices.