I stumbled across your blog (happily) because I was researching a biblical quote I found in a book about Pascal’s Pensees. The quote was “unless you believe, you will not understand,” and it was attributed to Isaiah 7: 9. But, of course, as you point out in your piece, there’s not a Bible in existence that uses the word “understand” at the end of that verse. I find the quote profoundly true, and wanted to use it in an essay of my own that I’m working on, but wanted to get the attribution right. Your blog hit the nail on the head! Thanks for the scholarship, man!

The theme of my little ditty is that faith precedes reason; that there’s a “guy behind the guy” who employs reason, and this “guy behind the guy” is the one who’s essential. Everything this pre-rational guy does involves faith, not reason, even if his faith is IN reason. I got on the subject because several friends of mine are struggling with their faith for intellectual reasons. One guy, a close friend of mine, starts to believe, but then his reason takes over and he starts to intensely question his faith from the point of view of someone who might disagree. As the back-and-forth proceeds he gets all bollixed up and ends up in a state of agnosticism. I was trying to get across to him that he needs to assume mastery over his reasoning — not reject reason, but master it — and could start by “putting on the clothing” of faith, by acting as if he had faith and earnestly wishing for it. Anyway, that’s where I got the idea for a paper discussing the often oblique way that Christ comes at us — an approach that is all over the New Testament, as I’m sure you know way better than me. As I began cataloging examples of this “glimpsed from the corner of the eye” approach of Jesus, I became interested in WHY this is so — why does God seem to hide in the twilight rather than reveal Himself with crystal clarity? Hmmmm . . . .

Anyway, your blog is very illuminating and I appreciate it very much. Please keep it up! By the way, I’m Roman Catholic. I’ve never talked to many Anabaptists, but you guys seem pretty cool. Peace. Bob

How in the world do these people know this stuff?

In regards to the passage, the LXX translates Is 7:9 as “καὶ ἐὰν μὴ πιστεύσητε οὐδὲ μὴ **συνῆτε**” (DRB: “If you will not believe, you shall not **continue**.”)

But also compare it to Is. 6:9: “καὶ εἶπεν πορεύθητι καὶ εἰπὸν τῷ λαῷ τούτῳ ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ **συνῆτε** καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε” (DRB: “And he said: Go, and you shall say to this people: Hearing, hear, and **understand** not: and see the vision, and know it not.”)

And Christ’s reference to Isaiah in Mt 13:14: “καὶ ἀναπληροῦται αὐτοῖς ἡ προφητεία Ἠσαΐου ἡ λέγουσα· ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ **συνῆτε**, καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε.” (DRB: “And the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled in them, who says: By hearing you shall hear, and shall not **understand**: and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive”).

So according to the Seventy, the Hebrew should be translated “συνῆτε” — “to understand” — but modern scholarship goes with the Masoretic text over the Septuagint. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, even the Jerome used the texts that were probably very close to what became the Masoretic texts 600 years later.

The choice to use the LXX or the Masoretic is a divisive debate but it’s more than just Augustine’s personal translation.

Melani R. Young

(Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton’s 1851 English Septuagint) And the head of Ephraim is Somoron, and the head of Somoron the son of Romelias: but if ye believe not, neither will ye at all understand.

(Complete Apostles’ Bible, a revised version of the above) And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria the son of Romaliah; but if you believe not, neither will you at all understand.

copied from e-Sword