Isaiah 51:9

Hebrew Bible

8 For a moth will eat away at them like clothes; a clothes moth will devour them like wool. But the vindication I provide will be permanent; the deliverance I give will last.” 9 Wake up! Wake up! Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord! Wake up as in former times, as in antiquity. Did you not smash Rahab?26 Did you not wound the sea monster? 10 Did you not dry up the sea, the waters of the great deep? Did you not make a path through the depths of the sea, so those delivered from bondage could cross over? 11 Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return; they will enter Zion with a happy shout. Unending joy will crown them, happiness and joy will overwhelm them; grief and suffering will disappear.

LXX Isaiah 51:9

Septuagint

8 For just as a garment it will be devoured by time, and like wool it will be devoured by a moth, but my righteousness will be forever and my salvation for generations of generations. 9 Awake, awake, O Ierousalem; put on the strength of your arm! Awake, as at the beginning of a day, like a generation of long ago! Are you not 10 she who made desolate the sea, the water, the abundance of the deep, who made the depths of the sea a way of passage for those being delivered 11 and those who have been ransomed? For by the Lord they shall be returned and come to Sion with joy and everlasting gladness; for gladness and praise shall be upon their heads and joy shall take hold of them; pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away.

 Notes and References

"... Rather than erroneously through homoeoarkton, Baer thinks that the translator has intentionally omitted the words (“Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?”). This could have been an anti-mythological maneuver of his. The omission of these words could however also have another background, because whereas in the MT the subject of this clause, as well as of the preceding ones, is God, in the LXX it is Jerusalem. It may be that the translator has erased the sentence because he thought that Jerusalem as a subject would not fit with the destroying of Rahab ..."

Vorm-Croughs, Mirjam van der The Old Greek of Isaiah: An Analysis of its Pluses and Minuses (p. 469) Society of Biblical Literature, 2014

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.