Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 66 uses a midwife metaphor to describe God bringing the nation to birth. The Greek translation in the Septuagint removes the metaphor entirely, replacing it with language about expectation and memory.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 66:9
Hebrew Bible
8 Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen this? Can a country be brought forth in one day? Can a nation be born in a single moment? Yet as soon as Zion goes into labor she gives birth to sons! 9 Do I bring a baby to the birth opening and then not deliver it?” asks the Lord. “Or do I bring a baby to the point of delivery and then hold it back?” asks your God. 10 “Be happy for Jerusalem and rejoice with her, all you who love her! Share in her great joy, all you who have mourned over her!
Date: 740–450 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
LXX Isaiah 66:9
Septuagint
8 Who has heard such a thing? and who has seen after this manner? Has the earth been in labor in one day? or has even a nation been born at once, that Zion has been in labor, and brought forth her children? 9 But I have raised this expectation, yet you have not remembered me, says the Lord: look, have not I made the bearing and barren woman? says God. 10 Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all you that love her hold in her a general assembly: rejoice greatly with her, all that now mourn over her:
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The imagery of Isaiah 66.9 brings the Lord into the messy urgencies of childbirth. Indeed, the verse’s vocabulary allows — even if it does not mean to suggest — his personal involvement in procreation and delivery itself. In commenting upon mother Zion’s sudden labour (66.8), the Masoretic Text 66.9 reads: “Shall I who break (maternal waters) not bring to birth?,” the Lord has said. “Shall I — the one who causes birth — shut up (the womb)?,” your God has said. At the least, this verse casts the Lord in a midwife’s role. The translator might also have considered that the two hiphil forms of ילד came perilously close to suggesting procreation, a meaning that the hiphil of ילד always bears outside of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible and in its Greek translation. The Septuagint deviates remarkably and evacuates the verse of metaphor: “But I gave this expectation, and you did not remember me,” the Lord has said. “Behold, am I not the one who made (both) the bearing woman and the barren woman?” God has said. ..."
David A. Baer, When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56–66, JSOTSup 318 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 156–158.
* 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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