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.
10
e)paxu/nqh ga_r h( kardi/a tou= laou= tou/tou,
kai_ toi=j w)si_n au)tw=n bare/wj h!kousan10
For the heart of this people became fat,
and with their ears they heard heavily.
In G, the people will not respond to Isaiah’s proclamation because they are already obdurate (N.B. ga/r) 48. Consequently, while the question of v. 11 is accurately translated (jEwj po/te ku/rie), it means not "how long must I execute this mission?" (as in the MT), but "how long will the people remain obdurate?" The answer (as in the MT), is that this state of affairs will persist until the land lies desolate.
Even more significant differences follow in vv. 12-13:
12
kai_ meta_ tau=ta makrunei= o( qeo_j tou_j a)nqrw/pouj,
kai_ oi( kataleifqe/ntej plhqunqh/sontai e)pi_ th=j gh=j
13kai_ e!ti e)p' au)th=j e)sti to_ e)pide/katon,
kai_ pa/lin e!stai ei)j pronomh_n w(j tere/binqoj
kai_ w(j ba/lanoj o#tan e)kpe/sh| a)po_ th=j qh/khj au)th=j12
And after these things, God will move the men afar,
and those who are left will multiply upon the land.
13And yet upon it is a tenth,
and again it shall be for plunder like a Terebinth
and like an oak, when it is deprived of its husk 49.
As Seeligman observed, kai_ oi( kataleifqe/ntej plhqunqh/sontai shows the translator understood hbwz( not "in its abstract but in its concrete meaning (i.e. the community which was left behind and spared)", perhaps under the influence of passages such as 4,2-6 50. The translator then construed hbrw as waw + verb, rendering it as grammatically plural (plhqunqh/sontai), coordinate to the meaning he found in hbwz(h 51.
Given the translator’s penchant for expounding the meaning of conjunctions (cf. a)lla_ nu=n in 3,13), kai_ meta_ tau=ta for the waw in qxrw reflects the translator’s perception that the land’s depopulation (presaged in v. 11) would yield to a new state of affairs: after "the