Jerome – Translation of the Twelve Prophets According to the Hebrew
| Document: | Translation of the Twelve Prophets according to the Hebrew |
| Incipit: | Non idem ordo |
| Addressee: | Paula and Eustochium |
| Date: | 393 |
| Latin Text: | R. Weber and B. Gryson, eds., Biblia sacra: iuxta Vulgatam versionem (Stuttgart 1994). [text provided by Douay-Rheims Bible Online] |
| English Translation (Preface Only): | Translated by K.P. Edgecomb (see below.) |
| Notes: | This was eventually incorporated into the Vulgate. |
Jerome’s Preface to his Translation of the Twelve Prophets*
The order of the Twelve Prophets is not the same among the Hebrews as it is among us.1 For which reason, according to how it is read there, they are also arranged here. Hosea is composed of short clauses and speaking as though by aphorisms. Joel is clear in the beginning, more obscure at the end. And they each have their individual properties up to Malachi, who the Hebrews name Ezra the scribe and teacher of the Law. And because it is too long to speak of all these things now, I would only you were warned this, O Paula and Eustochium: the book of the Twelve Prophets to be one; and Hosea a contemporary2 of Isaiah; and Malachi in fact to have been of the times of Haggai and Zechariah. And those in which the time is not set down in the title, under those kings which they were to have prophesied under, they also prophesied after those which have titles.
END OF THE PROLOGUE
1 The order of these books in the LXX and Old Latin is: Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. See my page on the Dates of the Twelve Minor Prophets.
2 Greek here: συνχρονος
*We thank Kevin Edgecomb for permission to publish his translation on our page.
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Created by JRZ
Updated 2/24/2014, MS
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