What is the Septuagint?

This name is given to that ancient Greek translation of the Bible which was executed in Egypt sometime before the advent of Christ, and which was called the Septuagint (that is, the seventy), because of the tradition that it was performed by that number of translators.

When our Lord was here on earth, He quoted as authoritative the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. This translation was made about 270 B.C., at Alexandria, Egypt, and is commonly called the Septuagint, because the number of translators employed was about seventy. If there had been any weakening of any fundamental truth our Lord would surely not have quoted from it.

The King thereupon took up the idea warmly, and wrote a letter to Eleazar, the High Priest at Jerusalem, saying, “I am desirous to do what will be grateful to the Jews in my country, and to all other Jews in the habitable earth. I have determined to procure an interpretation of your law, and to have it translated out of Hebrew into Greek, and to be deposited in my library. Thou wilt therefore do well to choose out and send men of a good character, who are now elders in age, and six in number of every tribe. These, by their age must be skilful in the laws, and of abilities to make an accurate interpretation of them; and when this shall be finished I shall think that I have done a work glorious to myself.” (Antiquities, B. XII., C. II.)

This translation was made in B.C. 284-247 by these seventy-two elders from the twelve tribes of Israel, hence its name Septuagint, usually expressed by “LXX.” Greek being the great language of commerce at that time, it can be manifestly seen that, though a heathen king sought to take the glory to himself, it was indeed God’s overruling hand that prepared this wonderful vehicle for the spread of the Gospel in the days to come. It was this translation of the Scripture our Lord quoted from again and again.

Let us first see the Greek equivalent in the Septuagint for the Hebrew word sheol. The Septuagint is the name of the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, executed by the Jews of Alexandria, and so called because it is said to be the work of seventy translators employed by Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt about 280 B.C.

Let us first see the Greek equivalent in the Septuagint for the Hebrew word sheol. The Septuagint is the name of the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek completed by the Jews of Alexandria and so called because it is said to be the work of seventy translators employed by Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt about 280 B.C.

But to return. It is the year 277 B.C. Alexander the Great has met and overthrown the might of Persia more than fifty years before, only to be himself overthrown soon after by his own passions. But in the great city of Alexandria, which he built to keep his memory green, and colonised with many races, there is now a population of 100,000 Jews. We pause here to take a glimpse at some seventy learned Rabbis engaged upon the first complete translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into another tongue. This translation into Greek is known as the Septuagint Version, and was the Bible read in the time of our Lord and the Apostles. Many of the quotations from the Old Testament found in the New are from this version; hence the slight textual differences which sometimes appear. There are 275 Old Testament passages quoted in the New Testament, and about forty are from the Septuagint. The Apostle Paul quotes from the earlier Scriptures about one hundred and twenty times.

The Ptolemies — especially Ptolemy Philadelphus — not only patronised Greek learning, and strove to make their metropolis Alexandria the literary, as well as the commercial, centre of the world; but they were also very anxious to cultivate the friendship of the Jews, whose country, consisting of a succession of natural fastnesses, has ever formed an important outpost of Egypt. Both literary curiosity, therefore, and political prudence, conspired in making those kings desirous to possess, in the vulgar tongue, the venerable law of the Jews. Hence Ptolemy Philadelphus (or his father — it is uncertain which) requested of the high priest at Jerusalem, to procure competent scribes for him, who might translate the laws of Moses from the Hebrew into the Greek. The translation, thus effected, became one of the valuable treasures he had collected in his library at Alexandria. Its composition must have been somewhere about the year 280 B.C. It seems to have been gradually followed at different times by translations of other parts of the Jewish Scriptures; and the whole, executed indeed by various hands, was completed sometime before the advent of Christ.

It is believed to have been made at Alexandria, and to have been begun about B.C. 280. The translation was by Alexandrian Jews, and by different persons. Some parts are found to be a better translation than others, the Pentateuch being considered the best, and the historical parts better than the poetical, except the Psalms and the Proverbs. It has been judged that the Hebrew MSS used in the translation had not the vowel points found in modern Hebrew Bibles, nor any divisions between the words. This may account for some of the differences between the Hebrew and the Greek, but there are variations, the origin of which cannot now be ascertained. The many quotations from the LXX adopted by the Lord Jesus and by the writers of the N.T., make it evident that it was then in common use, and its language in a great measure influenced that employed in the N.T. The principal uncial manuscripts are the Codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Ephraemi; with a number of cursive copies. The Vaticanus is the MS usually printed, with more or less of the various readings.*

With regard to the ancient and important Greek version of the Old Testament, commonly called that of the Seventy, it is stated (Prolegomenon, p. xii.), that "The translation was begun about B.C. 280, and was probably not finished for several centuries. The dialect is Macedonic, mingled with a number of Hebraisms, being similar in style to the Greek of the New Testament." The following remarks are worthy of attention. "The Septuagint translation is the connecting link between the original texts. While it often explains and illustrates, sometimes even corrects and supplies the Hebrew of the Old Testament, it not infrequently enables us to understand the peculiar sense in which words or phrases are employed in the Greek of the New Testament. Like all works which are merely human, the Greek translation has its defects as well as its merits, and some or both of these will be pointed out by us in due course, in the main it agrees with the Hebrew text as we have it this day; and the fact that it has always been received in the Jewish as well as in the christian church, adds no little weight to its authority."

The learned Editor shows, by a variety of instances too extensive to be more than referred to here, that the Septuagint Version "was made from an unpointed text, or from a text pointed differently from the present."

The history of the Translation conventionally called the Septuagint (Ἑβδομήκοντα hebdomekonta, Septuaginta), which is so important because of the use made of it in the New Testament, is not quite clear from doubts, and must be sought elsewhere, as in the Prolegomena to Tischendorf's edition. The way in which Plumptre supposes it was put together seems highly probable. It is generally regarded as having been made for the use of the Hellenistic Jews settled in Egypt: an intimate knowledge is displayed of that country. There seems little doubt from the latest researches, that whatever be the origin of the title by which it is known, the whole or the greater part of the translation was already in existence in the second century B.C.: some have placed it still earlier. There was thus time for the use of it to have become common amongst Greek-speaking Jews of Palestine. Plumptre (referring to Walton's 'Prolegomena') writes: 'The authority of the version was never acknowledged by the Jews of Palestine. To them this translation of the sacred book into the language of the heathen seemed an act of sacrilege, a sin as great as the worship of the golden calf. They appointed a day of fasting and humiliation to be held annually for this profanation, as they did for the destruction and desecration of the Temple.' Though the authority of the Septuagint might be impugned by Palestinian Jews, nevertheless it seems to have been largely used even by such as Josephus*: Noldeke says that in course of time it was by some Jews regarded as inspired.

It seems reasonable to suppose, with Westcott, that as used by Palestinian Jews, it would undergo revision from the Hebrew.