Isaiah 28:16 quote in Romans 9:33 — The ‘stone of stumbling’ double quote
Here’s a head-scratcher.
In Romans 9:33, Paul writes a quote:
As it is written: ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.’
This quote has caused much confusion!
Why?
Well, at first glance, it may appear that Paul is both inserting one verse inside another (Isaiah 8:14, then Isaiah 28:16, and then back to Isaiah 8:14 again), but also quoting from two different versions of Isaiah: the Septuagint for Isaiah 8:14 and the Masoretic Text for Isaiah 28:16.
So people have wondered:
- Is Paul quoting faithfully?
- Surely it’s dishonest to merge two verses together?
- Did the apostle accept multiple different versions of Isaiah as inspired?
However, the explanation is probably quite simple.
Firstly, regarding putting two verses together, Paul was likely just adding a parenthetical phrase (as we all do sometimes) from Isaiah 8 to the middle of the verse he’s quoting from Isaiah 28 to add some brief extra detail.
The original readers were likely familar with all of the verses he was quoting, and doing this wasn’t dishonest, he was just adding an aside. His readers likely got it immediately.
But why different versions?
But what about the fact he’s quoting from more than one ‘version’ of Isaiah?
Indeed, at first glance he appears to do just that:
- Paul’s quote of Isaiah 28:16 matches the Septuagint but not the Masoretic Text (‘…shamed’ vs ‘…act hastily’).
- Paul’s quote of Isaiah 8:14 matches the Masoretic Text but not the Septuagint! (‘rock of offense’ vs ‘upon no stones will they stumble’)
So yes, it’s more than it just having different wording — the Septuagint version of Isaiah 8:14 says the opposite of what Paul quoted! It says that Jews will not stumble upon stones!
What’s the explanation?
The most popular view among scholars is that Paul was quoting from two different ‘traditions’ of Isaiah and saw no problem with it. This could be true, however, there’s a simpler explanation.
While it’s common for people to say, ‘Paul quoted the Septuagint,’ we don’t really know that. He and the other Apostles may have been quoting a now-lost Hebrew or Aramaic Bible that happens to agree with the Septuagint’s wording about 90% of the time.
Alternatively, it could be that they were indeed quoting the Septuagint, but since our oldest copy only dates to the 4th century AD, back in the 1st century AD they were using an earlier and more accurate edition.
So it could simply be that Paul was quoting from one single (now-lost) version of Isaiah which said exactly what he reported it as saying in both places. And that’s that.
Or our 4th century copy of the Septuagint acquired some errors. Which ain’t impossible!
Therefore, Paul may not have accepted multiple versions of Isaiah as inspired at all. It’s just that we don’t have all the facts.
Multiple versions of Isaiah?
However, we are still left with a question: Why do we have multiple versions of Isaiah today?
Well, actually, there were multiple different versions in Paul’s day too; we found them in the Dead Sea Scrolls!
Unfortunately, the scrolls were so damaged that only one of these versions survived intact (the Great Isaiah Scroll), with the other versions only surviving in fragments.
Perhaps different versions had different copying errors. Or maybe different people created ‘updated’ versions to reflect changing language over time. Isaiah is written as poetry, and poetry is very easy to ‘break’ when updating the language.
Alternatively, one version may be slightly paraphrased to make it quicker to transcribe, easier to understand, or easier to read aloud in public, with other more literal versions being kept for scholarly purposes. We even do that today with some ‘free’ translations, paraphrased versions, versions for signed languages, and ‘children’s Bibles’ that are easier to read.
Or perhaps some Rabbis took offence at the original text and started publishing their own ‘revised edition’ to make it more palatable.
We simply don’t know.
If Paul really was quoting from a single version, then that version has not survived to today. It’s likely that none of the three versions that have survived (the Septuagint, the Masoretic Text, and the Great Isaiah Scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls) are the exact version Paul used.
We await a new manuscript discovery!
Start looking in caves.