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Zechariah 5 describes a flying scroll that brings a curse to the land, targeting thieves and the dishonest. The Greek Septuagint translation changes the scroll to a sickle, harmonize the image with earlier sections of the book.
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Zechariah 5:1
Hebrew Bible
1 Then I turned to look, and there was a flying scroll! 2 Someone asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, “I see a flying scroll 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.” 3 The speaker went on to say, “This is a curse traveling across the whole earth. For example, according to the curse whoever steals will be removed from the community; or on the other hand (according to the curse) whoever swears falsely will suffer the same fate.”
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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LXX Zechariah 5:1
Septuagint
1 And I turned and lifted up my eyes and saw and behold, a flying sickle. 2 And he said to me, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a flying sickle, twenty cubits long and ten cubits wide.” 3 And he said to me, “This is the curse, the one going out upon the face of all the land, because every thief will be punished until death from this, and everyone who swears falsely will be punished from this.
Date: 1st Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Harmonization within the same book ... Examples of such harmonization, well-known already from the Septuagint to the Pentateuch (compare LXX Genesis 2:2, that avoids an antagonism to the Sabbath commandments), are also to be found in the translations of the prophetical books. Zechariah 5:1 mentions a scroll which contains vows on the whole earth. The translator knows that in the last days many nations shall flee to the Lord for refuge and shall become a people to him (Zechariah 2:15). Therefore he substitutes the scroll by the sickle. There is also an intertextuality between Nahum 1:12 (Lord on great waters) and Zechariah 9:10. In LXX Isaiah 1:4, the “wicked seed” is a harmonization to Isaiah 14:20: Due to its wickedness, Israel is put on a par with the royal house of Babylon! Such harmonization is debated also concerning Jeremiah 52 (within the theoretical frame of Masoretic text priority) and with regard to Daniel 10:1: The reading “In the first year of Cyrus” (Daniel 10:1 LXX diff. Masoretic text + Theodotion) is possibly an accommodation to Daniel 1:21 (Daniel rested until to the first year of Cyrus). An inner-Greek misreading (from τωτριτωι to τωπρωτωι), however, is also discussed ..."
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