Texts in Conversation
Psalm 69 uses curse language to call for the enemies’ eyes to go blind and their bodies to shake. This language was reused rhetorically in later traditions, such as the Greek Septuagint, to explain differences in belief.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Psalm 69:23
Hebrew Bible
21 They put bitter poison into my food, and to quench my thirst they give me vinegar to drink. 22 May their dining table become a trap before them. May it be a snare for that group of friends. 23 May their eyes be blinded. Make them shake violently. 24 Pour out your judgment on them. May your raging anger overtake them. 25 May their camp become desolate, their tents uninhabited.
Date: 600–201 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Psalms 68:24
Septuagint
21 My soul has waited for reproach and misery; and I waited for one to grieve with me, but there was none; and for one to comfort me, but I found none. 22 They gave me also gall for my food, and made me drink vinegar for my thirst. 23 Let their table before them be for a snare, and for a punishment, and for a stumbling block. 24 Let their eyes be darkened that they should not see; and bow down their back continually. 25 Pour out your fierce anger upon them, and let the fury of your anger take hold on them.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... As was the case in Romans 10:19-21, so also here each passage plays an important role in shaping Paul’s reading of the other. By means of Isaiah’s (“spirit of stupor”), Paul transmutes Moses’ lament that God has not yet granted Israel an understanding heart into the much stronger claim that God has, in fact, directly caused Israel’s spiritual insensibility. (The wording “eyes such as do not see ... ears such as do not hear” may reflect Paul’s desire to connect this citation with the words of “David” that follow in Romans 11:9-10 (compare Romans 11:10 / Psalm 68:24 LXX) And it is Deuteronomy’s insistence that their blindness persists “to the present day” that gives Paul interpretive leverage to read the description of Isaiah’s opponents in Isaiah 29:10 as a diagnosis of his contemporaries’ failure to believe the gospel ..."
J. Ross Wagner, “Moses and Isaiah in Concert: Paul's Reading of Isaiah and Deuteronomy in the Letter to the Romans,” in "As Those Who Are Taught": The Interpretation of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL, ed. Claire Mathews McGinnis and Patricia K. Tull, SymS 27 (Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 87–105.
* 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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