Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SEP'TU-A-GINT, n. [L. septuaginta, seventy; septem, seven, and some word signifying ten.]

A Greek version of the Old Testament, so called because it was the work of seventy, or rather of seventy-two interpreters. This translation from the Hebrew is supposed to have been made in the reign and by the order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, about two hundred and seventy or eighty years before the birth of Christ. Encyc. [Dr. Campbell supposes this version was so called because it was approved by the Sanhedrim.].