Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 24 describes the darkening of the moon and sun during God’s reign on Mount Zion with the divine council. The Greek Septuagint changes this and omits the heavenly imagery, suggesting the translator may have struggled with the source.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 24:23
Hebrew Bible
21 At that time the Lord will punish the heavenly forces in the heavens and the earthly kings on the earth. 22 They will be imprisoned in a pit, locked up in a prison, and after staying there for a long time, they will be punished. 23 The full moon will be covered up, the bright sun will be darkened; for the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will rule on Mount Zion in Jerusalem in the presence of his assembly, in majestic splendor.
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Isaiah 24:23
Septuagint
21 And God shall bring his hand upon the host of heaven, and upon the kings of the earth. 22 And they shall gather them, and shall shut them into a strong hold and into a prison: after many generations they shall be visited. 23 And the brick shall decay, and the wall shall fall; for the Lord shall reign in Zion, and in Jerusalem, and shall be glorified before his elders.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... When the content of the reconstructed vocalization differs significantly from that of the Masoretic text, and when the reconstruction is supported by identical equivalents elsewhere in the LXX, as a rule, the reconstruction is reliable ... (Isaiah 24:23; Jeremiah 2:34; Jeremiah 6:15; Jeremiah 13:19) ... Reconstructed vocalizations that are preferable to the Masoretic text. If the internal criteria in favor of the vocalization underlying the LXX are convincing, that vocalization must have been original. Naturally, all arguments based on internal evidence are subjective ..."
Emanuel Tov, The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research, 3rd ed. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2015), 125–126.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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