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.
16
kai_ u(ywqh/setai ku/rioj sabawq e)n kri/mati
kai_ o( qeo_j o( a(gioj doxasqh/setai e)n dikaiosu/nh|
17kai_ boskhqh/sontai oi( dihrpasme/noi w(j tau=roi
kai_ ta_j e)rh/mouj tw=n a)phleimme/nwn 38 a!rnej fa/gontai16
And the Lord Sabaoth will be exalted in justice,
and the holy God will be glorified in righteousness.
17And those plundered shall feed like bulls,
and lambs shall feed on the desolate places of those eliminated.
While the translation of v. 16 accords with the MT’s assertion that the Lord will be exalted "in judgment" and "in righteousness", v. 17 portrays a different effect of this exaltation. Whereas the MT asserts that, following the judgment forecast in v. 16, the lands of the rich will be grazed by lambs and "foreigners", G contraposes two classes: those who have been expelled and those who have suffered plunder 39.
While the majority of the translator’s method in v. 17 is apparent 40, oi( dihrpasme/noi, although it aligns with My#bk, lacks a semantic equivalent, and no other version concurs with G. The translator shows his familiarity with #bk by rendering #bk M( with meta_ a)rno/j in 11,6 41, while none of the words he typically translates with "plunder" is graphically similar to My#bk.
Ottley proposed that the translator construed My#bk as the Qal passive participle of #$bk 42. While we cannot assay the translator’s knowledge of #$bk, since that verb appears nowhere in Isaiah, all fourteen occurrences of #$bk in the Bible are translated with equivalents much closer to the sense of #$bk, none of them connoting "plunder" 43.