Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 51 recalls God defeating the sea monster Rahab to show his power in the Exodus. The Greek Septuagint translation removes this language, possibly to avoid mythological references or because Jerusalem is treated as the subject rather than God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 51:9
Hebrew Bible
8 For a moth will eat away at them like clothes; a clothes moth will devour them like wool. But the vindication I provide will be permanent; the deliverance I give will last.” 9 Wake up! Wake up! Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord! Wake up as in former times, as in antiquity. Did you not smash Rahab?26 Did you not wound the sea monster? 10 Did you not dry up the sea, the waters of the great deep? Did you not make a path through the depths of the sea, so those delivered from bondage could cross over? 11 Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return; they will enter Zion with a happy shout. Unending joy will crown them, happiness and joy will overwhelm them; grief and suffering will disappear.
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Isaiah 51:9
Septuagint
8 For as a garment will be devoured by time, and as wool will be devoured by a moth; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation for all generations. 9 Awake, awake, Jerusalem, and put on the strength of your arm; awake as in the early time, as the ancient generation. Are you not it 10 that dried the sea, the water, even the abundance of the deep; that made the depths of the sea a way of passage for the delivered 11 and redeemed? for by the help of the Lord they shall return, and come to Zion with joy and everlasting exultation, for exultation and praise shall be upon their head, and joy shall take hold of them: pain, and grief, and groaning, have fled away.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Rather than erroneously through homoeoarkton, Baer thinks that the translator has intentionally omitted the words (“Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?”). This could have been an anti-mythological maneuver of his. The omission of these words could however also have another background, because whereas in the Masoretic text the subject of this clause, as well as of the preceding ones, is God, in the LXX it is Jerusalem. It may be that the translator has erased the sentence because he thought that Jerusalem as a subject would not fit with the destroying of Rahab ..."
Mirjam van der Vorm-Croughs, The Old Greek of Isaiah: An Analysis of Its Pluses and Minuses, SCS 61 (Atlanta: SBL, 2014), 469.
* 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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