Texts in Conversation
In Psalm 82, God accuses the other gods of the divine council of showing favoritism, using the Hebrew idiom “lifting up a face.” In the Greek Septuagint translation, the idiom becomes “taking the faces of sinners,” which made no sense in ordinary Greek.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Psalm 82:2
Hebrew Bible
1 A psalm of Asaph. God stands in the assembly of El; in the midst of the gods he renders judgment. 2 He says, “How long will you make unjust legal decisions and show favoritism to the wicked? (Selah) 3 Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless. Vindicate the oppressed and suffering.
LXX Psalm 81:2
Septuagint
1 A Psalm for Asaph. God stands in the assembly of gods; and in the midst of them will judge gods. 2 How long will you judge unrighteously, and take the faces of sinners? Pause. 3 Judge the orphan and poor: do justice to the low and needy.
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Notes and References
... you show no favor to anyone. Literally, “you do not lift up the face,” a Septuagintism, meaning that he shows no favoritism or partiality. This too prepares for the two-pronged pronouncement to come. The Greek phrase prosōpon lambanein would have been unintelligible in classical or Hellenistic Greek writing, where the verb lambanein means either (actively) “take, take hold of” or (receptively) “accept,” and never has the sense of “raise, lift up.” This meaning is found in the Septuagint as a translation of nāśāʼ pānîm. See page 115. It gave rise to the noun prosōpolēmptēs (Acts 10:34), God is no “respecter of persons,” that is, one who, when greeted by a person bowed in prostration, lifts up the face of the person as a sign of recognition, favor, or esteem. ...
* 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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