“And this is His Name, which they shall call, Jehovah our Righteousness.”
But in our language it might be rendered, “by which they shall call him” The pronoun “they” refers to Judah and Israel, at the beginning of the verse. As then “Jehovah” cannot be here the nominative case to “call,” there is no grammatical necessity to make it so in the other passage, though there is nothing contrary to the usage of the language in such a construction. The other passage may be rendered literally thus, —
“And this is He, whom it shall be called on Him, Jehovah our Righteousness.”
The words in the idiom of our language may be thus correctly expressed, “who shall be called.” But however awkward and even unintelligible the literal rendering may be in English, yet it is in Welsh both expressive and elegant. The phrase is word for word the same, and thoroughly idiomatic, —
“Ac eve yw’r hwn y gelwir arno, Jehova ein cyviawnder.”
We shall now refer to the early versions and the Targum.
In the Septuagint, the passage in Jeremiah 23:6, is rendered substantially according to what is done by Blayney; he indeed defends himself by appealing to that version. As to the passage in Jeremiah 33:16, it is wanting in the Septuagint; as supplied in the Complutensian Edition, it is evidently a version of the Vulgate, as is the case in other instances; and as given by Theodoret, it is as follows, —
“This is He who shall be called (ὁ κληθήσεται) The Lord our Righteousness.”
The Vulgate version is the same in both places, —
“And this is the Name which they shall call him, Our righteous Lord.”
The Syriac version is the same in both places, —
“And this is the Name by which they shall call Him, The Lord our Righteousness.”
The Arabic version is the same with the preceding, only “righteousness” is not translated; it is “The Lord Josedek.” It is wanting like the Septuagint as to the second passage.
The paraphrase of the Targum is substantially the same as to both places, —
“And this is the Name by which they shall call Him, Done shall be righteousness for us from the presence of the Lord in his days.”
It appears then from all the Early Versions, except the Septuagint as to the first passage, and from the Targum, that “Jehovah” is not connected with the verb to call, but with “righteousness;” and this, as we have seen, comports with what the usage of the language requires. There can therefore be no reasonable doubt as to the real meaning of these two passages.
As to the peculiar idioms of the Hebrew language, the Septuagint version of Jeremiah and of the minor prophets, is by no means so satisfactory as the Vulgate and the Syriac versions. This is what the Editor can testify after a minute examination.
J.O. Thrussington, September, 1852