Ronald L. Troxel, «Economic Plunder as a Leitmotif in LXX-Isaiah», Vol. 83 (2002) 375-391
The translator of LXX-Isaiah is known to have perceived in the prophet’s words presages of events in his day and to have expressed those in his translation. Some such themes recur often enough to merit designating them leitmotifs. Such is the case with the description of the people’s plunder through taxation as portrayed in 3,12-15; 5,5.17; 6,13; 9,3-4. Each of these descriptions arises through a unique construal of Hebrew syntax or an assumption of novel semantic ranges for Hebrew lexemes. The appearance of this theme in each of these otherwise unrelated passages merits designating it a leitmotif.
Given his selection of a)dikei=n for the unfamiliar )kd, the translator settled on kataisxu/nein as a comparable action 31.
The cumulative effect of the translator’s maneuvers in 3,12-15 is to describe Israel’s rulers as "fleecing" the people through heavy taxation, metaphorically depicted as "burning my vineyard", but also described concretely as a(rpagh/. Such oppressors will be judged, via a theophany, for doing violence to God’s people.
II. Isaiah 9,3-4
9,3-4 contains a striking reprise of the theme of the people wrongly deprived of goods by tax collectors who will, in turn, reap punishment:
3
dio/ti a)fh/|rhtai o( zugo_j o( e)p' au)tw=n kei/menoj
kai_ h( r(a/bdoj h( e)pi_ tou= traxh/lou au)tw=n
th_n ga_r r(a/bdon tw=n a)paitou/ntwn
dieske/dasen ku/rioj w(j th=| h(me/ra| th=| e)pi_ Madiam
4o!ti pa=san stolh_n e)pisunhgme/nhn do/lw|=
kai_ i(ma/tion meta_ katallagh=j a)potei/sousin
kai_ qelh/sousin ei) e)genh/qhsan puri/kaustoi3
Because the yoke which lay upon them has been removed,
and the rod which was upon their neck;
for the rod of the creditors
the Lord broke as on the day which was against Midian.
4For every robe mixed with guile,
and a garment (attained) with extortion 32 they will repay,
and they will wish they (themselves) had been consumed by fire.
The translator’s path from his Vorlage to his rendering can be reconstructed with reasonable certainty. On the one hand, his translation of wmk# [h+m t)w] by [kai_ h( r(a/bdoj] h( e)pi_ tou= traxh/lou au)tw=n 33 suggests that [o( zugo_j] o( e)p' au)tw=n kei/menoj is his guess for