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LXX Isaiah

Septuagint

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Chapter 51

1 Listen to me, you that follow after righteousness, and seek the Lord: look to the solid rock, which you have hewn, and to the hole of the pit which you have dug. 2 Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bore you: for he was alone when I called him, and blessed him, and loved him, and multiplied him. 3 And now I will comfort you, Zion: and I have comforted all her desert places; and I will make her desert places as the garden of the Lord; they shall find in her gladness and exultation, thanksgiving and the voice of praise.⁠ 4 Hear me, hear me, my people; and you kings, listen to me: for a law shall proceed from me, and my judgment shall be for a light of the nations. 5 My righteousness speedily draws near, and my salvation shall go forth as light, and on my arm shall the Gentiles trust: the isles shall wait for me, and on my arm they will trust. 6 Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath: for the sky was made firm like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment,⁠ and the inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not fail. 7 Hear me, you that know judgment, my people in whose heart is my law: do not fear the reproach of men, and do not be overcome by their contempt. 8 For as a garment will be devoured by time, and as wool will be devoured by a moth; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation for all generations. 9 Awake, awake, Jerusalem, and put on the strength of your arm; awake as in the early time, as the ancient generation. Are you not it⁠ 10 that dried the sea, the water, even the abundance of the deep; that made the depths of the sea a way of passage for the delivered 11 and redeemed? for by the help of the Lord they shall return, and come to Zion with joy and everlasting exultation, for exultation and praise shall be upon their head, and joy shall take hold of them: pain, and grief, and groaning, have fled away. 12 I, even I, am he that comforts you: consider who you are, that you were afraid of mortal man, and of the son of man, who are withered as grass. 13 And you have forgotten God who made you, who made the sky and founded the earth; and you were continually afraid all the days because of the fierce anger of him that afflicted you: for whereas he counseled to take you away, yet now where is the fierce anger of him that afflicted you? 14 For in your deliverance he shall not halt, nor wait; 15 for I am your God, that troubles the sea, and causes its waves to roar: the Lord of hosts is my name. 16 I will put my words into your mouth, and I will shelter you under the shadow of my hand, with which I fixed the sky, and founded the earth: and the Lord shall say to Zion, You are my people. 17 Awake, awake, stand up, Jerusalem, that have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury: for you have drunk out and drained the cup of calamity, the cup of fierce anger: 18 and there was none to comfort you of all the children whom you bore; and there was none to take hold of your hand, not even of all the children whom you have reared. 19 These two things are against you; who shall sympathize with you in your grief? downfall, and destruction, famine, and sword: who shall comfort you? 20 Your sons are the perplexed ones, that sleep at the top of every street as a half-boiled beet; they that are full of the anger of the Lord, caused to faint by the Lord God. 21 Therefore hear, you afflicted one, and drunk, but not with wine; 22 thus says the Lord God that judges his people, Look, I have taken out of your hand the cup of calamity, the cup of my fierce anger; and you shall not drink it any more. 23 And I will give it into the hands of those who injured you, and those who afflicted you; who said to your soul, Bow down, that we may pass over: and you leveled your body with the ground to them passing by outside.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 51:6 and LXX Isaiah 51:6

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Isaiah 51 says the heavens will vanish like smoke. The Greek Septuagint reverses this, saying heaven was established like smoke, preserving creation rather than predicting its destruction.

Passages

Isaiah 51:6

Hebrew Bible
5 I am ready to vindicate, I am ready to deliver, I will establish justice among the nations. The coastlands wait patiently for me; they wait in anticipation for the revelation of my power. 6 Look up at the sky. Look at the earth below. For the sky will dissipate like smoke, and the earth will wear out like clothes; its residents will die like gnats. But the deliverance I give is permanent; the vindication I provide will not disappear. 7 Listen to me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in their heart.22 Don’t be afraid of the insults of men; don’t be discouraged because of their abuse.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

LXX Isaiah 51:6

Septuagint
5 My righteousness speedily draws near, and my salvation shall go forth as light, and on my arm shall the Gentiles trust: the isles shall wait for me, and on my arm they will trust. 6 Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath: for the sky was made firm like smoke, and the earth shall grow old like a garment, and the inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not fail. 7 Hear me, you that know judgment, my people in whose heart is my law: do not fear the reproach of men, and do not be overcome by their contempt.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Isaiah

References

"... The Septuagint, by contrast, may not be equally pessimistic about the fate of the heavens. The explanation that I have been developing, which seeks to explain the considerable Septuagint deviations in terms of conscious manipulation of the text, may be supported by a similar move at Isaiah 51.6. In the Masoretic Text passage that groups the heavens and the earth together with human beings as perishable goods, over against the Lord’s salvation and righteousness, which will be eternal... The translator appears to have substituted a creative word for the difficult verb מלח, which may refer to the tearing apart or dissipation of the heavens. Thus, he has converted the destruction and disappearance of the heavens into their confirmation, strengthening, or solidification. This is apparent in his use — unique in the Septuagint — of στερεοῦν for God’s creative spreading out of the heavens in 45.12 and 48.13. It is possible that the translator, faced with a rare verb that was unknown to him, has simply reverted to vocabulary familiar to him with reference to the heavens. However, such an inadvertence seems unlikely in view of the complete reversal of the Masoretic Text meaning that his translation effects. ..."
David A. Baer, When We All Go Home: Translation and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56–66, JSOTSup 318 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001), 186–187.

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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