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.
42,22) and pronomeu/ein (8,3; 11,14; 24,3; 42,22.24) 59, thus making retroversion from ei)j diarpagh/n to zbl dubious.
Moreover, while V, T and S use words equivalent to ei)j diarpagh/n, V’s in direptionem likely derives from G 60, while T’s zbyl Nwhyw is attributable to its own exegetical tack in the passage 61, and S seems driven to )tzBL by a similar logic 62. Accordingly, it is likely these versions reflect a common exegetical tack or even a common tradition of understanding r(bl 63.
On the other hand, it is difficult to perceive why the scribe of G’s Vorlage (or its ancestor) would have deliberately altered r(bl to zbl, given the image of burning a vineyard in 3,14. Moreover, corruption of r(bl to zbl does not follow attested patterns of graphic confusion 64. While it is possible that an anomalous change occurred, we must consider other options, as well.