Isaiah 65, 20: Centenarians or Millenarians? 95 similarity, there is a linguistic one: yk appears in both verses as Steck (29) highlights. It is appropriate to look again at the difficult text of Isa 65,20 and see whether a new translation can be made. The LXX reads, “For the youth will be a (mere) hundred years, but the sinner dies being a hundred and is cursed to boot” The LXX applies “death” to the sinner not to the youth, a reading which is adopted, without comment, by a number of scholars (30). Such a reading makes the life-span of the righteous individual closer to that of a tree — at a hundred years old one is but a youth — and, from that point of view, is more satisfactory. The MT precludes understanding the text in this way: the w before afwjh would need to be moved and prefixed to twmy to make it possible. There is, however, no textual support for the LXX reading. Instead, both 1Q Isaa and 1Q Isab agree with the MT (31). This suggests that the LXX is attempting to overcome a difficult reading and that the MT is to be preferred. How then should it be understood? The yk should be taken as the dividing point in the sentence: what is said of the infant of days and old person refers to the fulfillment of life and what is said of the youth and sinner refers to lives which are cut short. A possible translation is From then on there will never again be an infant of days or an old person who does not fill his days while the youth, a hundred years old, dies and the sinner, a hundred years old, is cursed. The youth and the sinner then contrast with the infant of days and the old person. Driver attempted to harmonise what is said about each of them when he suggested that llq (cursed) should be read as the Aramaic qallêl which means “speedily vanish” (32). However this has no support in the versions. It is more likely that llqy is an allusion to Job 24,18,where the only other occurrence of the incomplete pual of llq appears. It belongs to a passage that asserts that there is no future for the wicked even if they appear to prosper for a time. Indeed “Their portion is cursed (llqt) in the earth” (Job 24,18) and the ultimate end for “those who have sinned (wafj) is Sheol” (Job 24,19). It is noticeable that the verbal form of the Isaianic word for “sinners” (afwjh) appears also in the Job passage. Recognition of this allusion then provides a parallel between the fate of the hundred year old youth and the hundred year old sinner of Isa 65,20, without the need for textual emendation. It also allows the conclusion that one who is a hundred years old is but a youth. Thus the normal life-span would be similar to that of the patriarchs of the pre-deluvian period and to the life-span of a tree. * ** (29 ) STECK, Studien, 225. (30) E.g. BRUEGGEMANN, Isaiah 40–66, 247; KISSANE, The Book of Isaiah, II, 312; MOTYER, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 530. (31) Except for minor variations: 1Q Isa (a) has lyw[ instead of lw[; hlmy instead of almy. (32) DRIVER, “Linguistic and Textual Problems”, 405-406.