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LXX Isaiah

Septuagint

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Chapter 13

1 THE VISION WHICH ESAIAS SON OF AMOS SAW AGAINST BABYLON. 2 Lift up a standard on the mountain of the plain, exalt the voice to them, do not fear, beckon with the hand, open the gates, you rulers. 3 I give command, and I bring them; they are sanctified, and I bring them: giants are coming to fulfill my fierce anger, rejoicing at the same time and insulting. 4 A voice of many nations on the mountains, even like to that of many nations; a voice of kings and nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts has given command to a warlike nation, 5 to come from a land afar off, from the utmost foundation of heaven; the Lord and his warriors are coming to destroy all the world. 6 Howl, for the day of the Lord is near, and destruction from God shall arrive. 7 Therefore every hand shall become powerless, and every soul of man shall be dismayed. 8 The elders shall be troubled, and pangs shall seize them, as of a woman in labor: and they shall mourn one to another, and shall be amazed, and shall change their face as a flame. 9 For look! the day of the Lord is coming which cannot be escaped, a day of fierce anger and anger, to make the world desolate, and to destroy sinners out of it. 10 For the stars of heaven, and Orion, and all the host of heaven, shall not give their light; and it shall be dark at sunrise, and the moon shall not give her light. 11 And I will command evils for the whole world, and will visit their sins on the ungodly: and I will destroy the pride of transgressors, and will bring low the pride of the haughty. 12 And they that are left shall be more precious than gold tried in the fire; and a man shall be more precious than the stone that is in Ophir. 13 For the heaven shall be enraged, and the earth shall be shaken from her foundation, because of the fierce anger of the Lord of hosts, in the day in which his fierce anger shall come on. 14 And they that are left shall be as a fleeing fawn, and as a stray sheep, and there shall be none to gather them: so that a man shall turn back to his people, and a man shall flee to his own land. 15 For whoever shall be taken shall be overcome; and they that are gathered together shall fall by the sword. 16 And they shall dash their children before their eyes; and they shall plunder their houses, and shall take their wives. 17 Look, I will stir up against you the Medes, who do not regard silver, neither have they need of gold. 18 They shall break the bows of the young men; and they shall have no mercy on your children; nor shall their eyes spare your children. 19 And Babylon, which is called glorious by the king of the Chaldeans, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom, and Gomorrah. 20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall any enter into it for many generations: neither shall the Arabians pass through it; nor shall shepherds at all rest in it. 21 But wild beasts shall rest there; and the houses shall be filled with howling; and sirens shall rest there,⁠ and devils shall dance there,⁠ 22 and donkey-centaurs shall dwell there; and hedgehogs shall make their nests in their houses. It will come soon, and will not wait.

Texts in conversation

Sirens and Mermaids in 1 Enoch 19 and LXX Isaiah 13

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Septuagint

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Summary

The Greek Septuagint translation of Isaiah 13 changes the ostriches in the Hebrew version into sirens, mythological creatures haunting the ruins of Babylon. 1 Enoch 19 uses the same name for the wives of the fallen angels.
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Passages

Isaiah 13:21

Hebrew Bible
19 Babylon, the most admired of kingdoms, the Chaldeans’ source of honor and pride, will be destroyed by God just as Sodom and Gomorrah were. 20 No one will live there again; no one will ever reside there again. No bedouin will camp there, no shepherds will rest their flocks there. 21 Wild animals will rest there, the ruined houses will be full of hyenas. Ostriches will live there, wild goats will skip among the ruins. 22 Wild dogs will yip in her ruined fortresses, jackals will yelp in the once-splendid palaces. Her time is almost up, her days will not be prolonged.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

1 Enoch 19:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And Uriel said to me: 'Here shall stand the angels who have united with women, and their spirits, taking many different forms, are corrupting mankind and will lead them astray into sacrificing to demons as gods. Here they shall remain until the day of the great judgment when they will be judged and brought to an end. 2 And the women of the angels who went astray will become sirens.' 3 And I, Enoch, alone saw the vision, the ends of all things: and no man shall see as I have seen.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

LXX Isaiah 13:21

Septuagint
19 And Babylon, which is called glorious by the king of the Chaldeans, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom, and Gomorrah. 20 It shall never be inhabited, neither shall any enter into it for many generations: neither shall the Arabians pass through it; nor shall shepherds at all rest in it. 21 But wild beasts shall rest there; and the houses shall be filled with howling; and sirens shall rest there, and devils shall dance there, 22 and donkey-centaurs shall dwell there; and hedgehogs shall make their nests in their houses. It will come soon, and will not wait.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Isaiah

References

"... Is it possible to trace pure Na'amah in 1 Enoch? At 1 Enoch 19:2, Uriel says of the daughters of men that the angels had seduced (compare 1 Enoch 6: ‘And the wives of these angels who transgressed shall become sirens’). Black was bewildered by the occurrence of ‘Sirens’ here: 'I have retained the Greek term ... Could the original have been (Targum Isaiah 13:21), literally ‘daughters of loveliness’, a term apparently applied to these ‘desert owls’ on account of their attractive looks?' I would like to suggest that, given what we know about Na'amah the Siren, Gnostic Norea, and Esterah / Na'amah, it is more likely that the Aramaic original read (‘daughters of Na'amah’). Accordingly, 1 Enoch 19:2 appears to imply that ‘the daughters of men’, whom the angels forced, would be ultimately redeemed. In that case, we have in 1 Enoch the earliest trace of that minority reaction, which Stroumsa and Pearson have discussed, against the negative descriptions of Na'amah as a seductress. If this suggestion can be sustained, Pearson’s interpretation of Gnostic Norea as the result of a ‘typically gnostic hermeneutical inversion’ is not binding: Gnostic thinkers could have simply developed the pattern they had found in 1 Enoch. Finally, if Na'amah is indeed present in 1 Enoch, the identification of ‘the sons of God’ with the Sethites and ‘the daughters of men’ with the Cainites definitely has its roots in Judaism and can be dated earlier than the time of Josephus ..."
Manolis Papoutsakis, “Ostriches into Sirens: Towards an Understanding of a Septuagint Crux,” JJS 40.1 (2004): 25–36.

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Isaiah 13:21 and 1 Enoch 19:2 and LXX Isaiah 13:21

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