Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 54 uses the picture of a rejected wife to describe Israel’s condition. The Greek Septuagint removes the image of a hated woman to avoid its harsh tone and to avoid the description of God appearing uncaring.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 54:6
Hebrew Bible
5 For your husband is the one who made you—the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name. He is your Protector, the Holy One of Israel. He is called “God of the entire earth.” 6 “Indeed, the Lord will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God. 7 “For a short time I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you.
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Isaiah 54:6
Septuagint
5 For it is the Lord that made you; the Lord of hosts is his name: and he that delivered you, he is the God of Israel, and shall be called so by the whole earth. 6 The Lord has not called you as a deserted and faint-hearted woman, nor as a woman hated from her youth, says your God. 7 For a little while I left you: but with great mercy I will have compassion upon you.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Ziegler assumes that the translator has made this sentence negative because the idea that God would have called Israel as an abandoned and hated woman was offensive to him ..."
Mirjam van der Vorm-Croughs, The Old Greek of Isaiah: An Analysis of Its Pluses and Minuses, SCS 61 (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 464.
* 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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