Un’ulteriore accezione di σῶμα nei LXX

In the Septuagint's Version, in 1 Sam 31:10b.12aγ (bis); Nah 3:3bα.β, the Greek substantive σῶμα, takes an further connotation, instead of meaning of “person” which it is in the remaining Hebrew Bible. The context of 2 above mentioned passages is the scene of 2 war engagements: respectly, against the Philistines and against Nineveh. In both passages σῶμα clearly designates the bodies of fallen in battle. This meaning (“corpse”) constitutes an obvious exception to sense that the Greek substantive usually has in the LXX, e.g. “live body,” or “person”. In facts, here it is a matter of a regress into the semantic evolution of this word: in these 2 passages, σῶμα took again the primitive meaning of “corpse,” documented in Homer, probably owing to influences and interferences which are difficult to explain, if not inside of the line of a semantic development, that is never a fluid and regular process.