Annotatio LXXXIII

”The raven, going forth, did not return.” — Genesis 8:7

The Septuagint, translating that which is read affirmatively in the Hebrew concerning the raven sent out by Noah — וַיֵּצֵא יָצוֹא וָשׁוֹב [va-yetze yatzo va-shov], that is, “And going forth it went forth and returned” — expressed [it] negatively, καὶ ἐξελθὼν οὐκ ἀνέστρεψεν, that is, “And going forth it did not return” — which our Vulgate edition also follows.¹ Augustine, Bishop of Kissamos, in his Annotations, writing against this interpretation, says: “This error caused expositors to weave in here most fabulous questions, asking in what place the raven was absent for so many days outside the ark, and where it settled when the waters were not yet dried up, and whether the raven returned to Noah into the ark after the drying of the waters: because Moses, according to the depraved Scripture, says, ‘And it did not return until the water was dried up.’ The negation, therefore, must be removed both from our and from the Greek codices; and, according to the Hebrew truth and Josephus’s interpretation, it must be read that the raven returned into the ark.” Aloysius [Ludovico], Bishop of Verona, in the Catena on Genesis, harmonizes the Vulgate Septuagint edition and ours together with the Hebrew truth, in these words: “This passage is not badly translated, as some think; for, when it is said in the Hebrew or Chaldaic edition, ‘The raven went forth, by going forth and returning, until the waters were thus wanting upon the earth,’ this negative is included — that, after the waters were dried, it did not return: so that at its first going-out it flew about around the ark, as if it wished to return, until the waters should be dried; thence, having gone forth completely, it did not return — as our text sounds, with the Greek and with Josephus.”