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LXX Zechariah

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 5

1 And I turned, and lifted up my eyes, and looked and look,⁠ a flying sickle. 2 And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see a flying sickle, of the length of twenty cubits, and of the breadth of ten cubits. 3 And he said to me, This is the curse that goes forth over the face of the whole earth: for every thief shall be punished with death on this side, and every false swearer shall be punished with death on that side. 4 And I will bring it forth, says the Lord Almighty, and it shall enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him that swears falsely by my name: and it shall rest in the midst of his house, and shall consume it, and the timber of it, and the stones of it. 5 And the angel that talked with me went forth, and said to me, Lift up your eyes, and see this that goes forth. 6 And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the measure that goes forth. And he said, This is their iniquity in all the earth. 7 And look, a talent of lead lifted up: and look, a woman sat in the midst of the measure. 8 And he said, This is iniquity. And he cast it into the midst of the measure, and cast the weight of lead on the mouth of it. 9 And I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and, look, two women coming forth, and the wind was in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a hoopoe: and they lifted up the measure between the earth and the sky. 10 And I said to the angel that spoke with me, Where do these carry away the measure? 11 And he said to me, To build it a house in the land of Babylon, and to prepare a place for it; and they shall set it there on its own base.

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Compare Zechariah 5:1 and LXX Zechariah 5:1

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Zechariah 5 describes a flying scroll that brings a curse to the land, targeting thieves and the dishonest. The Greek Septuagint translation changes the scroll to a sickle, harmonizing the image with earlier sections of the book.

Passages

Zechariah 5:1

Hebrew Bible
1 Then I turned to look, and there was a flying scroll! 2 Someone asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, “I see a flying scroll 30 feet long and 15 feet wide.” 3 The speaker went on to say, “This is a curse traveling across the whole earth. For example, according to the curse whoever steals will be removed from the community; or on the other hand (according to the curse) whoever swears falsely will suffer the same fate.”
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Zechariah

LXX Zechariah 5:1

Septuagint
1 And I turned, and lifted up my eyes, and looked and look, a flying sickle. 2 And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see a flying sickle, of the length of twenty cubits, and of the breadth of ten cubits. 3 And he said to me, This is the curse that goes forth over the face of the whole earth: for every thief shall be punished with death on this side, and every false swearer shall be punished with death on that side.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Zechariah

References

"... Harmonization within the same book ... Examples of such harmonization, well-known already from the Septuagint to the Pentateuch (compare LXX Genesis 2:2, that avoids an antagonism to the Sabbath commandments), are also to be found in the translations of the prophetical books. Zechariah 5:1 mentions a scroll which contains vows on the whole earth. The translator knows that in the last days many nations shall flee to the Lord for refuge and shall become a people to him (Zechariah 2:15). Therefore he substitutes the scroll by the sickle. There is also an intertextuality between Nahum 1:12 (Lord on great waters) and Zechariah 9:10. In LXX Isaiah 1:4, the “wicked seed” is a harmonization to Isaiah 14:20: Due to its wickedness, Israel is put on a par with the royal house of Babylon! Such harmonization is debated also concerning Jeremiah 52 (within the theoretical frame of Masoretic text priority) and with regard to Daniel 10:1: The reading “In the first year of Cyrus” (Daniel 10:1 LXX diff. Masoretic text + Theodotion) is possibly an accommodation to Daniel 1:21 (Daniel rested until to the first year of Cyrus). An inner-Greek misreading (from τωτριτωι to τωπρωτωι), however, is also discussed ..."
Martin Meiser, The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 99–100.

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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