Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 57 says God lives up in heaven and down with the lowly and discouraged. The Greek Septuagint removes the possible interpretation of God living in two places and gives a literal description of how God cares for the humble and broken-hearted.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isiaah 57:15
Hebrew Bible
14 He says, “Build it! Build it! Clear a way! Remove all the obstacles out of the way of my people!” 15 For this is what the high and exalted one says, the one who rules forever, whose name is holy: “I dwell in an exalted and holy place, but also with the discouraged and humiliated, in order to cheer up the humiliated and to encourage the discouraged. 16 For I will not be hostile forever or perpetually angry, for then man’s spirit would grow faint before me, the life-giving breath I created.
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Isaiah 57:15
Septuagint
14 And they shall say, Clear the ways before him, and take up the stumbling blocks out of the way of my people. 15 Thus says the Lord, the Most High, who dwells on high for ever, Holy in the holies, is his name, the Lord Most High resting in the holies, and giving patience to the faint-hearted, and giving life to the broken-hearted: 16 I will not take vengeance on you for ever, neither will I be always angry with you: for my Spirit shall go forth from me, and I have created all breath.
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In Isaiah 57:15 God is named as ὁ ἐν ὑψηλοῖς κατοικῶν ('the one dwelling on high'). In the following, however, the translator makes some changes in order to avoid a logical contradiction with that statement: God cannot dwell simultaneously on high and with humans on earth ..."
Martin Meiser, The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 150.
* 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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There's a big difference here. The Septuagint definitely thinks it's fixing the original.
There's a big difference here. The Septuagint definitely thinks it's fixing the original.