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LXX Deuteronomy

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 17

1 You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God a calf or a sheep, in which there is a blemish, or any evil thing; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. 2 And if there should be found in any one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives you, a man or a woman who shall do that which is evil before the Lord your God, so as to transgress his covenant, 3 and they should go and serve other gods, and worship them, the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven,⁠ which he did not command, 4 and it be told you, and you shall have inquired diligently, and, look, the thing really took place, this abomination has been done in Israel; 5 then you will bring out that man, or that woman, and you shall stone them with stones, and they shall die. 6 He shall die on the testimony of two or three witnesses; a man who is put to death shall not be put to death for one witness. 7 And the hand of the witnesses shall be upon him among the first to put him to death, and the hand of all the people at the last; so you will remove the evil one from among yourselves. 8 And if a matter shall be too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, and between cause and cause, and between stroke and stroke, and between contradiction and contradiction, matters of judgment in your cities; then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God shall choose to have his name called there, 9 and you shall come to the priests the Levites, and to the judge who shall be in those days, and they shall search out the matter and report the judgment to you. 10 And you shall act according to the thing which they shall report to you out of the place which the Lord your God shall choose to have his name called there, and you shall observe diligently to do all whatever shall have been by law appointed to you. 11 You shall do according to the law and to the judgment which they shall declare to you: you shall not swerve to the right hand or to the left from any sentence which they shall report to you. 12 And the man whoever shall act in haughtiness, so as not to listen to the priest who stands to minister in the name of the Lord your God, or the judge who shall preside in those days, that man shall die, and you shall remove the evil one out of Israel. 13 And all the people shall hear and fear, and shall no more commit impiety. 14 And when you shall enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you, and shall inherit it and dwell in it, and shall say, I will set a ruler over me, as also the other nations all around me; 15 you shall surely set over you the ruler whom the Lord your God shall choose: of your brothers you shall set over you a ruler; you shall not have power to set over you a stranger, because he is not your brother. 16 For he shall not multiply to himself horses, and he shall by no means turn the people back to Egypt, for fear that he should multiply to himself horses; for the Lord said, You shall not any more turn back by that way. 17 And he shall not multiply to himself wives, for fear that his heart might turn away; and he shall not greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. 18 And when he shall be established in his government, then he shall write for himself this repetition of the law into a book by the hands of the priests the Levites; 19 and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and to keep all these commandments, and to observe these ordinances: 20 that his heart is not lifted up above his brothers, that he does not depart from the commandments on the right hand or on the left; that he and his sons may reign long in his dominion among the children of Israel.

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 17:3 and LXX Deuteronomy 17:3

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Deuteronomy 17 forbids Israel to worship the sun, moon, and stars. The Greek Septuagint translation adds that these beings were “not assigned” to Israel, implying they are real but belonged to other nations, showing how they functioned as patron deities.

Passages

Deuteronomy 17:3

Hebrew Bible
2 Suppose a man or woman is discovered among you in one of your villages that the Lord your God is giving you who sins before the Lord your God and breaks his covenant 3 by serving other gods and worshiping them—the sun, moon, or any other heavenly bodies that I have not permitted you to worship. 4 When it is reported to you and you hear about it, you must investigate carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done in Israel,
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

LXX Deuteronomy 17:3

Septuagint
2 And if there should be found in any one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives you, a man or a woman who shall do that which is evil before the Lord your God, so as to transgress his covenant, 3 and they should go and serve other gods, and worship them, the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which he did not command, 4 and it be told you, and you shall have inquired diligently, and, look, the thing really took place, this abomination has been done in Israel;
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Deuteronomy

References

"... the problem here is that every element he highlights is just as easily accounted for in royal terms. The combined ἔρχοµαι + προσκυνέω (2:2, 8, 11) which is said to “denote a cultic action in the Septuagint” is also used to describe the approach and reverence of royal figures (LXX Genesis 37:10; 42:6; compare Judith 10:23) ... a common way of describing a cultic action by the combined use of ἔρχοµαι + προσκυνέω. While my own investigation did confirm some use of these paired terms in the context of cultic activity such as LXX Deuteronomy 17:3; Jeremiah 33:2 ... Similarly, the combined προσϕέρω + δῶρον (2:11) may often be used in the LXX for cultic offerings to God (particularly throughout Leviticus and Numbers), but it is also often used for tribute paid to royalty (LXX Genesis 43:26; Judges 3:17–18; 3 Kingdoms 2:46), most notably in LXX Psalm 71:10 which, as already noted, is widely accepted as a key background text for Matthew 2 ..."
Ray M. Lozano, The Proskynesis of Jesus in the New Testament: A Study on the Significance of Jesus as an Object of προσκυνέω in the New Testament Writings, LNTS 609 (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 77.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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