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.
Ziegler suggests that the translator chose ei)j diarpagh/n in 5,5 based on the context, "entsprechend der Vorstellung, daß infolge des Niederreißens der Mauer die Möglichkeit einer Plünderung leicht gegeben ist" 65. And yet, in 3,14 the translator rendered Mrkh Mtr(b with e)nepuri/sate to_n a)mpelw=na/ mou, in keeping with a common Hellenistic agricultural practice, as Ziegler notes 66. Why, then, would the translator have adopted such a different equivalent in 5,5?
In light of the evidence we have seen that the translator was predisposed to the theme of officials plundering the people, and given that:
(a) in 5:17 he renders My#bk
anomalously to introduce the theme of "plundered people" (using diarpa/zw,
the verbal correlative of diarpagh/), and
(b) in 3,14 he perceives the metaphor of burning "my
vineyard" (= "my people") as "plunder" (a(rpagh/,
cognate to diarpagh/) carried out by oi(
pra/ktorej and oi( a)paitou=ntej
it is reasonable to conclude that he chose ei)j diarpagh/n to render r(bl for the demolition of the vineyard in 5,5 under the influence of the theme of economic plunder and under the impress of 3,14 in particular.
The translator’s rendering of v. 7 buttresses this conclusion:
7
e!meina tou= poih=sai kri/sin, e)poi/hse de_ a)nomi/an
kai_ ou) dikaisou/nhn a)lla_ kraugh/n7
I waited (for it) to produce justice, but it produced lawlessness,
and not righteousness, but outcry.
The divergence from the MT most significant for this study is a)nomi/an || xp#m, which is more likely due to the translator’s unfamiliarity with xp#m than to a variant reading in his Vorlage (e.g. (#pm)67, especially since LXX-Isa frequently uses a)nomi/a and a!nomoj for Hebrew words not translated by the a)nom- group elsewhere in the Bible68. The translator may have selected a)nomi/an as an