Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 66 speaks to people who honor God’s word but are excluded and mocked. The Greek Septuagint translation turns this into a direct appeal to a present group seen as despised, giving the message a personal tone.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 66:5
Hebrew Bible
4 So I will choose severe punishment for them; I will bring on them what they dread because I called, and no one responded. I spoke and they did not listen. They did evil before me; they chose to do what displeases me.” 5 Listen to the Lord’s message, you who respect his word! “Your countrymen, who hate you and exclude you, supposedly for the sake of my name, say, ‘May the Lord be glorified, then we will witness your joy.’ But they will be put to shame. 6 The sound of battle comes from the city; the sound comes from the temple! It is the sound of the Lord paying back his enemies. 7 Before she goes into labor, she gives birth! Before her contractions begin, she delivers a boy!
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Isaiah 66:5
Septuagint
4 I also will choose their mockeries, and will repay them for their sins; because I called them, and they did not listen to me; I spoke, and they did not hear: and they did evil before me, and chose the things in which I did not delight. 5 Hear the words of the Lord, you that tremble at his word; speak, our brothers, to those who hate us and abominate us, that the name of the Lord may be glorified, and may appear in their joy; but they shall be ashamed. 6 A voice of a cry from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the Lord rendering payment to his adversaries. 7 Before she that was in labor brought forth, before the labor-pain came on, she escaped it and brought forth a male.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The substantial personalization which this verse has undergone raises the question of contemporization once again. It appears that the translator has understood this sentence as a command to speak to some outside group that holds his community in low esteem. If there has been a thoroughgoing contemporisation of chapter 66, then one is drawn to think in the first instance of the translator's own Diaspora community as those despised ones who are here urged to speak out in some way ..."
David A. Baer, When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56–66, JSOTSup 318 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 41.
* 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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