Annotatio CXXV

”The man said, whose eye is stopped up.” — Numbers 24:3

Augustine, Bishop of Kissamos, weighing Jerome’s version in this part, thus admonishes in his Annotations: “‘The man said, whose eye is stopped up.’ הגבר שתם העין, ha-gever shetum ha-ayin — that is, ‘The man whose eye is open,’ as the Hebrews interpret, and as the Chaldaic [Aramaic] edition translates; wherefore it was taken in the contrary [sense] by Jerome. And I wonder why the Septuagint did not follow the Hebrew — [the Seventy] who translated according to the Hebrew, Φησὶν ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἀληθινός, that is, ‘The true man said.’ Whence it comes about that I suspect Jerome did not render it in that way [deliberately], but that a negation is missing in our codices: so that it must read, ‘The man said, whose eye is not stopped up.’ For otherwise Balaam would be saying things contrary to himself, who a little after protests that he is a hearer of the words of God.”