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LXX Psalms

Septuagint

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Psalm 68

1 For the end, a Psalm of David, for those who shall be changed. 2 Save me, God; for the waters have come in to my soul. 3 I am stuck fast in deep mire, and there is no standing: I have come into the depths of the sea, and a storm has overwhelmed me. 4 I am weary of crying, my throat has become hoarse; my eyes have failed by my waiting on my God. 5 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head: my enemies that persecute me unrighteously are strengthened: then I restored that which I did not take away. 6 God, you know my foolishness; and my transgressions are not hidden from you. 7 Let not those who wait on you, Lord, Lord of hosts, be ashamed on my account: let not those who seek you, be ashamed on my account, God of Israel. 8 For I have suffered reproach for your sake; shame has covered my face. 9 I became strange to my brothers, and a stranger to my mother's children. 10 For the zeal of your house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of those who reproached you are fallen upon me. 11 And I bowed down my soul with fasting, and that was made my reproach. 12 And I put on sackcloth for my covering; and I became a proverb to them. 13 They that sit in the gate talked against me, and they that drank wine sang against me. 14 But I will cry to you, Lord, in my prayer; God, it is a favorable time: in the multitude of your mercy hear me, in the truth of your salvation. 15 Save me from the mire, that I do not stick in it: let me be delivered from those who hate me, and from the deep waters. 16 Let not the waterflood drown me, nor let the deep swallow me up; neither let the well shut its mouth upon me. 17 Hear me, Lord; for your mercy is good: according to the multitude of your compassions look upon me. 18 And do not turn away your face from your servant; for I am afflicted: hear me speedily. 19 Draw near to my soul and redeem it: deliver me because of my enemies. 20 For you know my reproach, and my shame, and my confusion; all that afflict me are before you. 21 My soul has waited for reproach and misery; and I waited for one to grieve with me, but there was none; and for one to comfort me, but I found none. 22 They gave me also gall for my food, and made me drink vinegar for my thirst. 23 Let their table before them be for a snare, and for a punishment, and for a stumbling block. 24 Let their eyes be darkened that they should not see; and bow down their back continually.⁠ 25 Pour out your fierce anger upon them, and let the fury of your anger take hold on them. 26 Let their habitation be made desolate; and let there be no inhabitant in their tents: 27 Because they persecuted him whom you have struck; and they have added to the grief of my wounds. 28 Add iniquity to their iniquity; and let them not come into your righteousness. 29 Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and let them not be written with the righteous. 30 I am poor and sorrowful; but the salvation of your face, God, has helped me. 31 I will praise the name of my God with a song, I will magnify him with praise; 32 and this shall please God more than a young calf having horns and hoofs.⁠ 33 Let the poor see and rejoice; seek God diligently, and your soul shall live. 34 For the Lord hears the poor, and does not set at nothing his fettered ones. 35 Let the heavens and the earth praise him, the sea, and all things moving in them. 36 For God will save Zion, and the cities of Judea shall be built; and men shall dwell there, and inherit it. 37 And the seed of his servants shall possess it, and they that love his name shall dwell in it.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Psalms 68:24 and Romans 11:10

Septuagint · New Testament

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Summary

Romans 11 uses the Greek Septuagint translation of Psalm 68, which describes God’s enemies with darkened eyes and bent backs. Paul combines this with Isaiah and Deuteronomy to depict the rejection of his message as part of a recurring pattern.

Passages

LXX Psalms 68:24

Septuagint
21 My soul has waited for reproach and misery; and I waited for one to grieve with me, but there was none; and for one to comfort me, but I found none. 22 They gave me also gall for my food, and made me drink vinegar for my thirst. 23 Let their table before them be for a snare, and for a punishment, and for a stumbling block. 24 Let their eyes be darkened that they should not see; and bow down their back continually. 25 Pour out your fierce anger upon them, and let the fury of your anger take hold on them.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Psalms

Romans 11:10

New Testament
8 as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, to this very day.” 9 And David says, “Let their table become a snare and trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; 10 let their eyes be darkened so that they may not see, and make their backs bend continually.” 11 I ask then, they did not stumble into an irrevocable fall, did they? Absolutely not! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their transgression means riches for the world and their defeat means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full restoration bring?
55–58 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Romans

References

"... As was the case in Romans 10:19-21, so also here each passage plays an important role in shaping Paul’s reading of the other. By means of Isaiah’s (“spirit of stupor”), Paul transmutes Moses’ lament that God has not yet granted Israel an understanding heart into the much stronger claim that God has, in fact, directly caused Israel’s spiritual insensibility. (The wording “eyes such as do not see ... ears such as do not hear” may reflect Paul’s desire to connect this citation with the words of “David” that follow in Romans 11:9-10 (compare Romans 11:10 / Psalm 68:24 LXX) And it is Deuteronomy’s insistence that their blindness persists “to the present day” that gives Paul interpretive leverage to read the description of Isaiah’s opponents in Isaiah 29:10 as a diagnosis of his contemporaries’ failure to believe the gospel ..."
J. Ross Wagner, “Moses and Isaiah in Concert: Paul's Reading of Isaiah and Deuteronomy in the Letter to the Romans,” in "As Those Who Are Taught": The Interpretation of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL, ed. Claire Mathews McGinnis and Patricia K. Tull, SymS 27 (Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 87–105.

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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LXX Psalms 68:24 and Romans 11:10

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