Isaiah 3:12, Women Ruling – FAQ – Messianic Apologetics

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Isaiah 3:12 serves as direct condemnation of a society or religious community, which allows females to rule or lead.

The following material has been adapted from “Men and Women: Answering Messianic Questions,” appearing in Men and Women in the Body of Messiah: Answering Crucial Questions.

Frequently heard among evangelical complementarians, is the thought that when females are seen to take positions of leadership in the Bible, it is because males have not done their job. So, any scene where it is witnessed that females have had to step up and take the lead, did not take place because a female was genuinely endowed by God with a gift of leadership, but instead took place in order to shame the males who should have been leading.

There are various culturally-conditioned statements appearing in the Tanach, which are reflective of how in the patriarchal Ancient Near East, women were not the equals of men, and were inherently weaker and defenseless (i.e., Isaiah 19:16; Jeremiah 50:37; 51:30; Nahum 3:13). Yet, in the discussions and debates over men and women in the Body of Messiah, many of us have doubtlessly witnessed a passage like Isaiah 3:12 invoked, repeated, and then embellished and even exaggerated:

“O My people! Their oppressors are children, and women rule over them. O My people! Those who guide you lead you astray and confuse the direction of your paths” (Isaiah 3:12, NASU).

Almost no one in the contemporary Messianic movement (at least to my knowledge), has really bothered to recognize that there is a textual issue present, regarding the reading of “women,” in Isaiah 3:12. As indicated by the Left of Center New Interpreter’s Study Bible,

“[B]ased on the LXX, it is probably better to read the Hebrew noshim, as ‘creditors,’ instead of nashim, ‘women.’ If women is retained, however, note how Israel’s male-centered worldview lodged legitimate authority only in the hands of men.”[1]

The more conservative NET Bible notes the presence of “an emendation (with support from the LXX) of… (nashim, ‘women’) to… (noshim, ‘creditors’; a participle from… nasa‘).”[2] Isaiah 3:12 is notably rendered in the NET Bible as,

“Oppressors treat my people cruelly; creditors rule over them. My people’s leaders mislead them; they give you confusing directions” (Isaiah 3:12, NET Bible).

The 2021 NRSVue similarly has, “My people—their oppressors extort them, and creditors rule over them.”

This follows a reading of the Hebrew n-sh-y-m as noshim. This was translated into the Greek Septuagint as apaitountes, “extortioners” (LXE) or “creditors” (NETS).

Recognizing the textual issues in the MT, and how it was translated in the LXX, is not something that most of today’s Messianic people are going to do. However, the original reading of Isaiah 3:21 being noshim, indicates that Isaiah 3:12 should not and cannot be used to speak against female leaders in the Body of Messiah.