Agency in the Septuagint of Isaiah

A little bit of philosophy?

Isaiah provides an interesting window into how different text traditions handle difficult material and offers several examples of how translators sometimes redirect the emphasis of what they’re translating. Isaiah 6 is a specific example of this pattern, presenting a commission that connects the people’s stubbornness to the long period of exile and devastation that follows¹. The language in the Hebrew version has for millennia spurred discussion about whether this condition is something that unfolds naturally or is something forced on them through the prophet’s message. When later traditions returned to this passage, they show signs of working within that conversation, and the Greek translation offers one illustration of how those concerns could be handled without completely changing the flow of the chapter. It presents the people as already acting in the manner described, which shifts the burden of responsibility onto them rather than treating their condition as the outcome of a command.

I heard the voice of the Lord say, “Whom will I send? Who will go on our behalf?” I answered, “Here I am, send me!” He said, “Go and tell these people: “‘Listen continually, but don’t understand. Look continually, but don’t perceive.’ Make the hearts of these people calloused; make their ears deaf and their eyes blind. Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.” I replied, “How long, Lord?” He said, “Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated, and houses are uninhabited, and the land is ruined and devastated, and the Lord has sent the people off to a distant place, and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned. (Isaiah 6:8-12)

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom should I send, and who will go to this people?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” And he said, “Go, and say to this people: ‘You will listen by listening, but you will not understand, and looking you will look, but you will not perceive.’ For this people’s heart has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and they have shut their eyes so that they might not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn—and I would heal them.” Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities become desolate, because they are not inhabited, and houses, because there are no people, and the land will be left desolate. And after these things, God will send people far away, and those who have been left will be multiplied on the land. (LXX Isaiah 6:8-12)²

The Hebrew text of Isaiah here presents the people’s future lack of understanding as something tied to the commission Isaiah receives, creating a picture in which their dullness and refusal to respond are already settled and unavoidably a part of the judgment that follows³. The language naturally raises questions about whether this condition is imposed on them or whether it grows out of their ongoing behavior. That tension has been part of the interpretive tradition for a long time, since it affects how the chapter describes the people’s ethical and covenant responsibility in the larger prophetic narrative.

The Septuagint approaches the same moment by removing the sense of an imposed condition and describing the people as already acting in the way the prophet announces. In the original, the heart of the people is portrayed as “fat” in the sense of being closed off, a concept that elsewhere carries the connotation of arrogance rather than simple ignorance. The Greek translation no longer describes the people made disobedient, but now already disobedient. By shifting the description to something already present, the Greek translator keeps the passage connected to judgment but places the burden of responsibility on the people themselves. This approach remains consistent with how other prophetic texts speak about settled judgment while still leaving the people’s agency intact⁴.

As with many others, the Septuagint’s handling of this passage, and its open willingness to significantly reshape its source text, also hints at a subtle philosophical interest, even though it never states that directly. By now emphasizing that the people’s condition is self–produced instead of imposed by an external source, the translator moves the discussion beyond covenant obligations and opens space for reflecting on what it means to act as a responsible human being in relation to others. The shift suggests an effort to account for human behavior in a way that does not reduce people to passive recipients of divine choice and subsequent judgment but treats their choice as meaningful in itself, even if it is a devastating choice. It is a quiet indication that the translator was thinking not only about preserving the story but also about how human conduct, perception, and responsibility fit together.

1. Izre’el, Shlomo Adapa and the South Wind: Language Has the Power of Life and Death (p. 30) Eisenbrauns, 2001

2. https://intertextual.bible/text/isaiah-6.10-lxx-isaiah-6.10

3. Wright, Jacob L. Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins (pp. 517-518) Cambridge University Press, 2023

4. Dines, Jennifer M. The Septuagint (p. 22) T&T Clark, 2004