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LXX Isaiah

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 58

1 Cry aloud, and do not spare; lift up your voice as with a trumpet, and declare to my people their sins, and to the house of Jacob their iniquities. 2 They seek me day by day, and desire to know my ways, as a people that had done righteousness, and had not forsaken the judgment of their God: they now ask of me righteous judgment, and desire to draw near to God, 3 saying, Why have we fasted, and you did not see? why have we afflicted our souls, and you did not know it? For in the days of your fasts you find your pleasures, and all those who are under your power you wound. 4 If you fast for quarrels and strifes, and strike the lowly with your fists, why do you fast to me as you do this day, so that your voice may be heard in crying? 5 I have not chosen this fast, nor such a day for a man to afflict his soul; neither though you should bend down your neck as a ring, and spread under you sackcloth and ashes, neither thus shall you call a fast acceptable.⁠ 6 I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord; but loose every burden of iniquity, untie the knots of hard bargains, set the bruised free, and cancel every unjust account. 7 Break your bread to the hungry, and lead the unsheltered poor to your house: if you see one naked, clothe him, and you shall not disregard the relations of your own seed. 8 Then shall your light break forth as the morning, and your health shall speedily spring forth: and your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall surround you. 9 Then you will cry, and God shall listen to you; while you are yet speaking he will say, Look, I am here. If you remove from you the band, and the stretching forth of the hands, and murmuring speech; 10 and if you give bread to the hungry from your heart, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall your light spring up in darkness, and your darkness shall be as noon-day: 11 and your God shall be with you continually, and you shall be satisfied according as your soul desires; and your bones shall be made fat, and you shall be as a well-watered garden, and as a fountain from which the water has not failed; and your bones shall spring up as grass, and shall be made fat, and they shall inherit generations of generations. 12 And your old waste desert places shall be built up, and your foundations shall last through all generations; and you shall be called a repairer of breaches, and you shall cause your paths between to be in peace. 13 If you turn away your foot from the sabbath, so as not to do your pleasure on the holy days, and shall call the sabbaths delightful,⁠ holy to your God; if you shall not lift up your foot to work, nor speak a word in anger out of your mouth, 14 then you will trust on the Lord; and he shall bring you up to the good places of the land, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken this.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Genesis 3:24 and LXX Isaiah 58:13

Septuagint

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Summary

The Greek Septuagint calls Eden the “orchard of delight,” and Isaiah 58 uses the same Greek word to describe the Sabbath as a day of “delight.” The Isaiah translator likely drew on the earlier Greek translation of Genesis.

Passages

LXX Genesis 3:24

Septuagint
22 And God said, Look, Adam has become as one of us, to know good and evil, and now for fear that at any time he stretch forth his hand, and take of the tree of life and eat, and so he shall live forever... 23 So the Lord God sent him forth out of the garden of Delight to cultivate the ground out of which he was taken. 24 And he cast out Adam and caused him to dwell over against the garden of Delight, and stationed the cherubs and the fiery sword that turns about to keep the way of the tree of life.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Genesis

LXX Isaiah 58:13

Septuagint
12 And your old waste desert places shall be built up, and your foundations shall last through all generations; and you shall be called a repairer of breaches, and you shall cause your paths between to be in peace. 13 If you turn away your foot from the sabbath, so as not to do your pleasure on the holy days, and shall call the sabbaths delightful, holy to your God; if you shall not lift up your foot to work, nor speak a word in anger out of your mouth, 14 then you will trust on the Lord; and he shall bring you up to the good places of the land, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken this.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Isaiah

References

"... The idea that the Sabbath was a festive day comes from Isaiah 58:13, which calls it a day of “delight” (LXX: tryphera), a word that evokes the garden of Eden since Genesis 3:23–24 LXX calls Eden a garden of delight (tryphē). Similarly, while the Hebrew of Ezekiel refers to the garden of Eden (Ezekiel 28:13; 31:9), the LXX translator renders the Hebrew as “the garden of delight” (ho paradeisos tēs tryphēs). Philo calls the feast a symbol of the joy of the soul, using a term that includes and perhaps refers specifically to the Sabbath, a day on which it is fitting to be thankful to God. Elsewhere he says that Jews spend the Sabbath cheerfully and in tranquility. This understanding of the Sabbath is also implicit in the widespread prohibition of fasting on the Sabbath that can be found at Qumran, in Jubilees, and in later rabbinic literature. While not an explicit prohibition of fasting, the book of Judith portrays its protagonist fasting all the days of her widowhood except on the day before the Sabbath, on the Sabbath itself, and on festival days, because these were joyful days (Judith 8:6) ..."
Matthew Thiessen, Jesus and the Forces of Death: The Gospels’ Portrayal of Ritual Impurity within First-Century Judaism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2020), 215–216.

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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