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.
or the like [cf. n. 17]) connotes the Lord’s arrival to execute judgment. Consequently, au)to_j ku/rioj ei)j kri/sin h#cei signals a judgment theophany: "the Lord himself shall come for judgment" 20.
While au)to/j might reflect )wh in G’s Vorlage, more likely it was supplied by the translator. Just as he marked the reversal of affairs with a)lla_ nu=n at the beginning of v. 13, his interpolation of au)to/j spotlights the Lord’s arrival to effect a reversal by judging the rulers.
The representation of the suffix of wyr#w with au)tou= indicates the translator perceived its antecedent as wm( rather than hwhy (for which e(autou= would be expected). Thus, tw=n presbute/rwn tou= laou= and tw=n a)rxo/ntwn au)tou= are those the Lord judges rather than those accompanying him21; they are the rulers who "fleece" the people.
While to_n a)mpelw=na/ mou might reflect ymrk for Mrkh in G’s Vorlage, the translator’s accent on the indictment of the wicked rulers could just as easily have prompted him to insert the possessive pronoun 22, opposite ÔUmei=j at the start of the accusation 23.
Moreover, while a(rpagh/ at first blush seems a suitable match for tlzg, it is at least noteworthy that everywhere else hlzg appears in the Bible, the LXX renders it with a#rpagma (Lev 5,23; Ezek 18,7, 12, 16; 33,15), a word LXX-Isa uses to render lzg in 61,8 24. At the same time, the Isaiah translator uses a(rpagh/ in the sense of "plunder" in 10,2, the only other occurrence of a(rpagh/ in LXX-Isaiah, where ei)j a(rpagh/n translates Mll# and stands parallel to ei)j pronomh/n (for wzby). These data suggest that the translator chose a(rpagh/ in 3,14 with a view to the act of plundering rather than the goods plundered.
These observations suggest the translator understood the metaphor of the burned vineyard in light of the description of the people as economically plundered by oi( pra/ktorej / oi( a)paitou=ntej.