Mark Keown

As I listened to a most excellent pre-Christmas sermon last Sunday on Isa 9:6, I opened my logos software and looked at the Greek OT version of Isa 9:6 to see how the Greek translators had dealt with the Hebrew text. The versions we have in our English bibles are based on the Hebrew, and read something like this: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (ESV). This text seems to claim that the Davidic Messiah will have these four names. The two on the middle stand out as very much in tension with Jewish monotheism and anticipate a Messiah who is much more than just a man, but will be called by others Mighty God and Everlasting Father, names reserved only for God. I wondered how the LXX dealt with this. I was very interested to find that the Jewish LXX translators a couple of centuries or so before Christ seem to have had a real