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.
wlbs [l( t)], a noun apparently unfamiliar to him34. On the other hand, he probably supplied a)fh/|rhtai in light of the like phrases in 10,27 and 14,25 (see n. 34).
On the other hand, his supply of ga/r indicates he saw the second half of the verse explaining the first: the yoke and the rod lying on the people has been removed, in as much as th_n...r(a/bdon tw=n a)paitou/ntwn has been shattered 35.
The translator’s rendering of wb #gnh by tw=n a)paitou/ntwn is striking, given what we witnessed in 3,12-15. While his Vorlage may have read M#gnh (ligated wb), his choice of a)paitei=n recalls his rendering of My#nw by kai_ oi( a)paitou=ntej in 3,12, parallel to his translation of wy#gn with oi( pra/ktorej. Given the talk of these a)paitou/ntwn repaying (a)potei/sousin) garments gained deceitfully (do/lw|) 36 and of exacting an exorbitant fee (meta_ katallagh=j) 37, tw=n a)paitou/ntwn doubtless denotes the same tax collectors described as the people’s oppressors in chapter 3.
The "rod" of these tax collectors is said to have already been broken by the Lord. While one can perceive the translator’s path from dieske/dasen to ttxh, his interpolation of ku/rioj as its subject is noteworthy, not simply because it requires a different grammatical person for ttxh (unless his Vorlage had suffered haplography of the final taw) but also because the assertion that the ku/rioj has acted against this group echoes the insistence of chapter 3 that the ku/rioj himself would judge the rulers who "gleaned" the people.
Accordingly, 9,3-4 provides further evidence that the motif of the people’s economic plunder by their rulers guided the translator’s interpretation of some passages.
III. Isaiah 5,16-17
Another measure of the influence of this idea on the translator is 5,16-17: