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Ezekiel 21 says that the righteous and the unrighteous will be cut down. In the Greek Septuagint, this is changed to say that only the unrighteous will be destroyed, likely to avoid the image of unfair divine judgment.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ezekiel 21:3
Hebrew Bible
2 “Son of man, turn toward Jerusalem and speak out against the sanctuaries. Prophesy against the land of Israel 3 and say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, I am against you. I will draw my sword from its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. 4 Because I will cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked, my sword will go out from its sheath against everyone from the south to the north.
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Ezekiel 21:8
Septuagint
6 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 7 Therefore prophesy, son of man, set your face steadfastly toward Jerusalem, and look toward their holy places, and you shall prophesy against the land of Israel, 8 and you shall say to the land of Israel, Thus says the Lord; Look, I am against you, and I will draw forth my sword out of its sheath, and I will destroy out of you the transgressor and unrighteous. 9 Because I will destroy out of you the unrighteous and the transgressor, therefore so shall my sword come forth out of its sheath against all flesh from the south to the north:
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The concept of God’s goodness, a central issue of Plato’s philosophy, became also important for Jewish theology. Due to this doctrine, transmitters and translators sometimes modified the text. In order to avoid any suspicion of despotism, the translator of Amos transmuted the ironic imperatives in Amos 4:4 to indicatives, and he rendered אולי (“perhaps”) in Amos 5:15 by ὅπως: God’s reaction on human repentance is not to be categorized by “perhaps”! In LXX Isaiah 6:9–10, the theory of divine hardening is avoided. The translator of Ezekiel altered Ezekiel 21:3-4 [LXX 8-9] ... According to the Masoretic text, God will destroy the righteous and the wicked whereas the Septuagint alters: God will destroy the unrighteous and the wicked ..."
Martin Meiser, The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 104.
* 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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