The Book of Isaiah may well be the greatest challenge that modern readers will find in the biblical corpus to their notions of what constitutes a book. Isaiah son of Amoz, a Jerusalemite, began his career as prophet in the 730s B.C.E. He was still active and clearly regarded as an authoritative figure, as we learn from the account in 2 Kings 19, borrowed by the editor of our text, when the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem in 701 B.C.E. Like the other biblical prophets, he claimed, and very likely believed, that his pronouncements came to him on the direct authority of God. These included vehement castigations of social and economic injustices in Judahite society and of a corrupt and drunken ruling class, as well as the excoriation of paganizing practices. Isaiah also took political stances, objecting in particular to policies that favored an alliance with Egypt against Assyria.
The bewildering fact is that the prophecies of Isaiah son of Amoz have been editorially mingled with a welter of prophecies by other hands and from later periods. In an era millennia before printing and the concept of authorial claim to texts, all the books of the Bible are open-ended affairs, scrolls in which could be inserted, whether for ideological purposes or simply through editorial predilection, writings that came from other sources—as, for example, the Book of Job includes the Hymn to Wisdom (chapter 28) and the Elihu speeches (chapters 32–37), each exhibiting a different viewpoint and a different kind of poetry from the original book. But Isaiah is an extreme case of this phenomenon. One may surmise that texts of individual prophecies, or small clusters of his prophecies, circulated in scrolls during Isaiah’s lifetime and afterward, whether in the hands of his followers or of private collectors of prophetic revelation. Chapters 1–39 in the book that has come down to us incorporate the prophecies of Isaiah but also include much disparate material that is clearly later, some of it reflecting the imminent or actual fall of the Babylonian empire to the Persians in 539 B.C.E. Nothing from chapter 40 to the end of the book is the work of Isaiah son of Amoz. The strong scholarly consensus is that chapters 40–55 were composed by a prophet of the Babylonian exile, whose name is beyond recovery, prophesying a triumphant return of the exiles to Zion through the agency of the Persian emperor Cyrus (mentioned by name), who was poised to overwhelm the Babylonians. Even in this unit, however, it is far from clear that all the prophecies are from the same person. The so-called Second Isaiah is followed by a Third Isaiah in what is now the last eleven chapters of the book. The situation presupposed in these chapters is the predicament of the community in the Persian province of Yehud, or Judah, after the rebuilding of the Temple, so the historical setting would have to be the fifth century B.C.E., although probably before the decisive mission of Ezra and Nehemiah in the middle of that century. Especially in the texts grouped together as Trito-Isaiah, or Third Isaiah, scholars have detected the presence of several different writers rather than a single prophet. The claim that Third Isaiah is a disciple of Second Isaiah may be questioned because they are too far removed from each other in time—perhaps by as much as three generations. What can be safely said is that the later prophet was familiar with the poetry of his predecessor and consciously alluded to it, sometimes pointedly elaborating its imagery, just as both these prophets were familiar with and sometimes built on the prophecies of Isaiah son of Amoz.
It is above all the vehicle of poetry in all these prophets that demands close attention. While there are occasional brief prose passages, the bulk of the prophecies are cast in poetry. There are two reasons for the use of poetry, one theological and the other pragmatic. In most of these texts, the prophet represents himself as the mouthpiece for God’s words—“thus said the LORD” is the frequently invoked “messenger-formula” of introduction—and it is perfectly fitting that God should address Israel not in prose, which is closer to the language of everyday human intercourse, but in the elevated and impressive diction of poetry. The more pragmatic reason for the use of verse is that, as in all poetic systems, poetry is memorable in the technical sense: its formal devices facilitate committing the words to memory. In the case of biblical poetry, this mnemonic function is realized chiefly through the structuring of the line in semantically paired halves, or versets, usually reinforced by an equal number of stressed syllables in each half of the line: “Woe, offending nation, / people weighed down with crime” (1:4). Once the first half of this line has been registered in memory, the second half readily follows, with the more compact Hebrew exhibiting three strong stresses in each of the two halves. And as usually is the case in lines of biblical poetry, the idea articulated in the first verset is driven home through a concretization of it in the second verset: the “offending nation” is realized physically as a “people weighed down with crime” (in the Hebrew, just three words, five syllables, ʿam keved ʾawon).
The poets assembled in this book are a good deal more than didactic versifiers of religious or ethical principles. To be sure, one encounters some stretches of boilerplate verse: Prophetic poetry, like other poetic genres, has its recurrent formulas and clichés. Nevertheless, this collection exhibits the work of at least three poets of the first order of originality, perhaps even more, depending on how one attributes authorship to certain individual poems.
Thus, the pounding rhythms and the powerful images of the book’s opening poem (1:2–9) convey a riveting vision of Judah devastated by Assyrian incursion as divine punishment for its collective crimes. The trope of Israel as a second Sodom comes to seem through the poetry as a palpably realized historical fact. The relatively long poem in chapter 2 that runs from verse 6 to the end of the chapter evokes a scary picture of the day when God comes to exact retribution, playing on a complex series of images of verticality in which all that is high will be brought low and God alone will loom on high. In counterpoint to such dire visions stand the luminous imaginings of an ideal age to come when the land will be governed in peace and justice and the nations will come to Zion to be instructed in the ways of God (2:2–5, 4:2–6, 9:1–6, 11:11–16, to cite the most famous of such passages). Second Isaiah preserves the memory of these glowing prophecies, but his poetry recasts the vision of a grand future in more national and historical terms, conjuring up a landscape in which a highway is cleared in the wilderness for the triumphant passage of the exiles back to their land. He is the most tender of biblical poets, tracing images of nursing mothers and dandled babes (upon which Third Isaiah will elaborate) and appropriately beginning his prophecies with the words “Comfort, O comfort My people.”
All three of the principal poets in the Isaian corpus exhibit a good deal of technical virtuosity, and, of course, this will often not be visible in translation. Isaiah son of Amoz is particularly adept in thematically pointed wordplay. Thus, the scathing conclusion of the Parable of the Vineyard (5:7), has “justice,” mishpat, flipped into mispaḥ, “blight,” and “righteousness,” tsedaqah, into tseʿaqah, “scream,” to express the perversion of values by the Judahites. The approximation of this effect in the present translation reads as follows: “He hoped for justice, and, look, jaundice, / for righteousness, and, look, wretchedness.” Other plays on words resist even approximation in English. More pervasively, in all of the Isaian poets, the expressive power of the line of biblical poetry, in which the second verset concretizes, intensifies, or focuses what is expressed in the first, is exploited with great resourcefulness.
Here is a line that evokes the day of divine retribution (13:9): “Look, the LORD’s day comes, ruthlessly, / anger and smoldering wrath [emphasis added],” in which the second verset makes vividly clear what is meant by the general notion of “the LORD’s day” introduced in the first verset. One sees a related but different deployment of poetic parallelism in 26:17: “As a woman with child draws near to give birth, / she shudders, she shakes in her pangs [emphasis added].” Here, as often happens in biblical poetry, there is narrative development as well as intensification in the move from the first verset to the second: first the woman has come to the end of pregnancy, perhaps experiencing the early signs of labor; then she writhes in the throes of the birth pangs.
Surely these prophecies continue to speak to us because of the ethical imperatives they embody, their cries for social justice, their hopeful visions of a future of harmony after all the anguish inflicted through historical violence. But they also engage us through the power and splendor of the poetry. Perhaps the Israelites who clung to the parchment records of these sundry prophecies in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. cherished them not only because they saw in them the urgent word of God but also because they somehow sensed that these were great poems.
1The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz that he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
2Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,
for the LORD has spoken.
Sons I have nurtured and raised
but they rebelled against Me.
3The ox knows its owner
and the donkey its master’s stall.
Israel did not know,
my people did not pay heed.
4Woe, offending nation,
people weighed down with crime,
seed of evildoers,
sons acting ruinously.
They have forsaken the LORD,
scorned Israel’s Holy One,
they have fallen behind.
5Why would you be beaten more,
still swerving from the way?
Every head is sick
and every heart in pain.
6From footsole to head
no place in him intact,
wound, bruise,
and open sore—
not drained, not bandaged,
nor soothed with oil.
7Your land is desolate,
your towns are burned in fire.
Your soil, before your eyes
strangers devour it,
and desolation like an upheaval by strangers.
8And the daughter of Zion remains
like a hut in a vineyard,
like a shed in a patch of greens,
9Had not the LORD of Armies
left us a scant remnant,
we would be like Sodom.
We would resemble Gomorrah.
10Listen to the word of the LORD,
give ear to our God’s teaching,
O people of Gomorrah.
11“Why need I all your sacrifices?”
says the LORD.
“I am sated with the burnt offerings of rams
and the suet of fatted beasts,
and the blood of bulls and sheep and he-goats
I do not desire.
12When you come to see My face,
who asked this of you,
to trample My courts?
13You shall no longer bring false grain offering,
it is incense of abomination to me.
New moon and sabbath call an assembly—
I cannot bear crime and convocation.
14Your new moons and your appointed times
They have become a burden to me,
I cannot bear them.
15And when you spread your palms,
I avert My eyes from you.
Though you abundantly pray,
I do not listen.
16Wash, become pure,
Remove your evil acts from My eyes.
Cease doing evil.
17Learn to do good,
seek justice.
Make the oppressed happy,
defend the orphan,
argue the widow’s case.”
18“Come, pray, let us come to terms,”
the Lord said.
“If your offenses be like scarlet,
like snow shall they turn white.
If they be red as dyed cloth,
they shall become like pure wool.
19If you assent and listen,
the land’s bounty you shall eat.
20But if you refuse and rebel,
by the sword you shall be eaten,
for the Lord’s mouth has spoken.”
21How has the faithful town
become a whore?
Filled with justice,
where righteousness did lodge,
22Your silver has turned to dross,
your drink is mixed with water.
and companions to thieves.
23All of them lust for bribes
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow’s case does not touch them.
24Therefore, says the Master, LORD of Armies, Israel’s Mighty One:
Oh, I will settle scores with my foes
and take vengeance of my enemies,
25and bring My hand back upon you
and take away all your dross
26and bring back your judges as before
and your councillors as long ago.
Then shall you be called town of righteousness,
faithful city.
27Zion shall be redeemed through justice,
and those who turn back in her, through righteousness.
28But the rebels and offenders together are shattered,
and those who forsake the LORD shall perish.
29For they shall be shamed of the cult-trees
after which you lusted,
and be disgraced by the gardens that you have chosen.
30For you shall be like an oak
whose leaf withers
and like a garden where there is no water.
31And the strong shall turn into tow
and both shall burn together,
with none to put it out.
CHAPTER 1 NOTES
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1. The vision of Isaiah. The true beginning of Isaiah’s prophecies is chapter 6, the visionary scene in the Temple where he is first commissioned as a prophet. The prophecy that immediately follows here may have been set at the beginning of the book by its editors because of the invocation of heaven and earth as the formal beginning of a long poem—compare Deuteronomy 32, the Song of Moses, which begins with similar language.
3. the donkey its master’s stall. This line is a neat illustration of the pattern of focusing or concretization in the movement from the first verset to the second in biblical poetry. The first verset puts forth the general relation of beast to owner; the second verset (with metrical room for an additional word in the parallelism because the verb “knows” does double duty for both halves of the line and need not be repeated) then focuses on the place of nurture connecting beast and master.
4. Woe, offending nation. The Hebrew for this verset has a pounding rhythmic insistence, three words, four syllables, three stresses, reinforced by an internal rhyme at the beginning: hoy goy ḥoteiʾ.
5. beaten. The people has been suffering blows from its enemies as punishment for its evil ways (see verses 7–9), in which, however, it stubbornly persists.
7. upheaval. This word, strongly associated in Genesis with the destruction of Sodom, is the first hint of the equation between Israel and Sodom.
8. like a town besieged. This last verset of the two-line parallelism switches from the agricultural metaphors to the referent of the metaphors—a town encircled by enemies. This verse and the two preceding ones probably refer to the devastation wreaked by the Assyrian invading forces in 701 B.C.E.
10. O leaders of Sodom. This appears to be the beginning of a new prophecy, with the reference to Sodom at the end of the previous passage and at the beginning of this one providing an associative link between the two.
11. Why need I all your sacrifices? This is not a pitch for the abolition of sacrifice but rather an argument against a mechanistic notion of sacrifice, against the idea that sacrifice can put man in good standing with God regardless of human behavior. The point becomes entirely clear at the end of verse 15, when the prophet says that it is hands stained with blood stretched out in payer that are utterly abhorrent to God. Thus, the grain offering is “false” (or “futile”) because it is brought by people who have oppressed the poor and failed to defend widows and orphans.
12. to see My face. As throughout the Masoretic Text, the verb for seeing the face of God—the original conception of the pilgrimage to the Jerusalem temple—has been piously revocalized as a passive form, “to be seen.”
13. crime and convocation. The translation emulates the approximate alliteration in the Hebrew of ʾawen weʿatsarah.
14. I utterly despise. The Hebrew uses nafshi in what amounts to an intensive form of the first-person pronoun. This translation tries to suggest this intensity by adding the adverb “utterly.”
15. Your hands are full of blood. This shocking detail is held back until the end of these two lines of poetry: the palms lifted up in prayer are covered with blood, and that is why God averts His eyes, because He can’t bear looking at them. It should be noted that Isaiah’s outrage, as it is spelled out in verse 17, is not chiefly with cultic disloyalty, as it would be for the writers in the school of Deuteronomy, but with social injustice—indifference to the plight of the poor and the helpless, exploitation of the vulnerable, acts represented here as the moral equivalent of murder.
18. scarlet … white. Although this appears to be part of a new prophecy, the scarlet picks up the image of bloodstained hands from verse 15, and that could be the reason for the editorial placement of this prophecy here.
pure wool. “Pure” is merely implied in the Hebrew and has been added in the translation to exclude the possibility of dyed wool.
20. by the sword you shall be eaten. Though “devoured” might be more appropriate for the context, the translation preserves the pointed reversal in the Hebrew of eating the bounty of the land and being eaten by the sword. In biblical usage, the cutting edge of the sword is often referred to as a mouth, and thus the sword is said to devour or eat its victims.
21. How has the faithful town / become a whore? This prophecy begins with ʾeikhah, the word that conventionally starts lamentations or dirges. The prophet sees it as a reason to lament that the once just town has become a place where justice is perverted.
and now—murderers. As with the hands full of blood in verse 15, the shocking detail is reserved for the end.
23. Your nobles are knaves. The alliteration in the translation seeks to be an approximate equivalent of the fuller sound-play of the Hebrew, sarayikh sorerim. The point of the sound-play is that something turns into its opposite in a move from one word to an antithetical one that sounds like the first.
illicit payments. The unusual word shalmonim clearly means “illegitimate payments.” “Payoff” in English might be an equivalent, but it is too colloquial for this poem, so the translation adds “illicit.”
24. Therefore, says the Master, LORD of Armies. As is often the case in the poetry of the prophets, the clause for introducing divine speech is extrametrical and not strictly part of the poem.
settle scores. The verb hinahem usually means “to change one’s mind” or “to regret” and can also mean “to be consoled.” It is quite close phonetically to hinaqem, “to be avenged,” which appears in the second verset, and the poet seems to have pushed the term here to mean something close to “vengeance.”
my foes … my enemies. These terms commonly refer to the enemies of the people of Israel, but in a sharp polemic reversal, here they are addressed to the Israelites themselves, who through their perversion of justice have made themselves God’s enemies.
26. Then shall you be called town of righteousness, / faithful city. This line obviously loops back to the opening line of this prophecy, verse 21, where the faithful city once filled with righteousness has become a den of murderers.
29. the cult-trees. The botanical genus stipulated by the Hebrew term is “terebinths.” Pagan nature worship centering around sacred trees was widespread in Canaan. This is the first time that Isaiah inveighs against cultic rather than moral trespasses.
the gardens. This word, though it usually refers to gardens in an innocuously horticultural sense, in the present context palpably invokes the sacred gardens that were the site of pagan cults.
30. oak … garden. The poem picks up the tree and garden from the preceding line and turns them into metaphors of the dire end to which the miscreants will come.
31. the strong. Even though some interpreters understand this as “the treasure,” the antithesis between strength and flimsy combustible tow makes good poetic sense, and there is philological warrant for construing ḥason as “strong.”
his deeds into a spark. The image is a shrewd one: the reprehensible act of the paganizer is self-destructive, providing the spark that will destroy him.
1The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw in a vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2And it shall happen in future days
that the mount of the LORD’s house shall be firm-founded
at the top of the mountains and lifted over the hills.
And all the nations shall flow to it
3and many peoples shall go, and say:
Come, let us go up to the mount of the LORD,
to the house of Jacob’s God,
that He may teach us of His ways
and that we may walk in His paths.
For from Zion shall teaching come forth
and the LORD’s word from Jerusalem.
4And He shall judge among the nations
and be arbiter for many peoples.
And they shall grind their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not raise sword against nation
nor shall they learn war anymore.
5O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk in the LORD’s light.
6For you have abandoned your people,
O house of Jacob.
For they are full of eastern things
and soothsayers like the Philistines,
and they abound in children of strangers.
7And his land is filled with silver and gold
and no end to his treasures,
and his land is filled with houses
and no end to his chariots.
8And his land is filled with idols
to his handiwork he bows down,
to what his fingers made.
9And the human shall bow low,
and man shall be brought down.
And do not spare them!
10Come into the crag
and hide in the dust
for the fear of the LORD
and from His pride’s glory.
11The eyes of human haughtiness are brought down,
and men’s righteousness is bowed low,
and the LORD alone shall be raised high
on that day.
12For it is a day of the LORD of Armies,
and over all on high and lifted up.
13And over all the Lebanon cedars
that are lofty and raised high
and over all the Bashan oaks,
14and over all the lofty mountains
and over all the raised-up mountains,
15and over every looming tower
16and over all the Tarshish ships
17And human haughtiness shall bow low
and men’s loftiness be brought down,
and the LORD alone shall be exalted
on that day.
18And the ungods shall utterly vanish.
19And they shall come into caves in the crags
and into hollows in the dust
from the fear of the LORD
and from His pride’s glory
when He rises to wreak havoc on earth.
20On that day man shall fling away
his silver idols and his golden idols
that he made to bow before
to the hedgehogs and the bats.
21And they shall come into the crevices in the crags
and into the clefts in the rocks
from the fear of the LORD
and from His pride’s glory
when He rises to wreak havoc on earth.
22Leave off from man,
who has breath in his nostrils.
For of what account is he?
CHAPTER 2 NOTES
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2. in future days. Older translations represent this Hebrew phrase as “in the end of days,” giving it an emphatically eschatological meaning it does not have. The Hebrew ʾaḥarit, derived from the word that means “after,” refers to an indefinite time after the present.
the mount of the LORD’s house. Mount Zion in Jerusalem is here imagined as a kind of second Sinai, from which God’s teaching will go out.
all the nations. The universalist note struck here is new. It will be elaborated and expanded in the visions of the anonymous prophet of the Babylonian exile whose writing is appended to the Book of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40. Some interpreters detect sixth-century B.C.E. themes throughout this prophecy.
4. Nation shall not raise sword against nation. God’s teaching from Zion, then, is to have the effect of inaugurating a reign of universal peace. There is an imaginative boldness, or perhaps rather the courage of desperation, in this vision because Isaiah articulated it at a historical moment of continual warfare among imperial powers when the land of Israel itself, as 1:7–9 shows, was threatened with destruction by invading armies.
learn war. Fighting was a skill that required training, as noted in Psalms and elsewhere.
6. For you have abandoned your people. These words clearly signal the beginning of a new prophecy, one of castigation, after the utopian vision of verses 2–5. Abandoning the people means something like abandoning its own vital interests or precious values.
For they are full of eastern things. More literally, “they are full of the east.” There is no reason to emend this, as some have proposed, to “full of sorcerers [qosmim] from the east” because poetry can surely deploy ellipsis.
and they abound in children of strangers. This clause is unclear, and the meaning of the verb is especially uncertain. Some notion of adopting foreign ways (the eastern things, the Philistines) would appear to be implied.
7. silver and gold. From divining and magic, the poet moves on to the accumulation of wealth and luxury items, which he sees as the royal road to idolatry (verse 8).
9. shall bow low. Although the sense is to be humbled, the Hebrew makes a point of using the same verb that expressed idolatry in the previous verse. This relatively long poem, running to the end of the chapter, is elaborately structured through a series of images of high things brought low and God’s commanding height over all the earth. The poem makes use not only of repeated images but also of refrainlike devices.
10. Come into the crag / and hide in the dust. The landscape envisaged is harsh and pitiless: no forests or gardens or towns but dust and rocks, which offer terrified man inhospitable and inadequate shelter against God’s wrath.
12. lifted up. This emends the Masoretic “lowly,” which doesn’t seem plausible. This whole clause is repeated as a refrain in verse 17, underscoring the high-low theme of the entire poem.
13. the Lebanon cedars. Throughout biblical poetry, the great cedars of Lebanon are iconic images of loftiness.
over all. The anaphora of “over all,” ‘al kol, becomes a terrific drum-beat, making a crescendo that begins in verse 12 and runs on through verse 16, all a single sentence.
15. fortress wall. More literally, “fortified wall.”
16. Tarshish ships. Tarshish is an undetermined port on the Mediterranean far to the west. But the mention in the Book of Kings of Tarshish ships plying the Red Sea suggests that it may also be a term for a kind of craft constructed for long voyages.
lovely crafts. The translation follows a scholarly proposal for the noun sekhiyot, but its meaning is obscure, and the conclusion about what it might be is dictated chiefly by the poetic parallelism.
18. And the ungods shall utterly vanish. This brief sentence looks like an orphan—a verset without a paired second verset, which might have somehow been dropped in scribal transmission. Nevertheless, it contains a nice poetic effect in the internal rhyme of ʾelilim, “ungods,” immediately followed by kalil, “utterly.”
19. caves in the crags … hollows in the dust. The crag/dust parallelism as places of hiding in verse 10 is further concretized here by the addition of caves and hollows, helping us imagine the pitiful plight of the people who attempt to flee, crawling into crevices in rocks and in the ground. This miserable effort at hiding somewhere down below is the culmination of the bringing-low of man that defines the entire prophecy.
to wreak havoc. The Hebrew verb used here, and again in the refrain at the end of verse 21, is strong and violent. It suggests terrorizing and it is related phonetically to a verbal stem that means “to smash.”
20. to the hedgehogs and the bats. The idolators themselves have fled to the bleak wilderness. Now they throw away their precious idols to creatures of the wilderness, though the precise identity of the first of these is uncertain.
22. Leave off from man, / who has breath in his nostrils. One might have expected, given the previous emphasis of this prophecy something like: leave off from your idols, / for they are insensate things. The point, however, is that idolatry, worshipping what man makes with his own hands, is itself an expression of human arrogance, man’s assuming he can lift himself high, like his towers and battlements, through his own acts and artifacts. (One wonders whether the Tower of Babel may stand in the background of this poem.) The mention of the breath in the nostrils invokes the intrinsic fragility of human life: man is a vulnerable, ephemeral creature, his life-breath easily stopped in a moment, so how could one put trust in him?
1For, look, the Master, LORD of Armies,
is about to take away from Jerusalem and from Judah
staff and stay,
every staff of bread
and every staff of water,
2warrior and fighting man,
judge and prophet and wizard and elder,
3commander of fifty and notable
and councillor and craftsman and caster of spells.
4And I shall make lads their commanders
and babes shall rule them.
5And the people shall oversee each other,
one man and his fellow.
The lad shall lord it over the elder,
and the worthless over the honored.
6Should a man take hold of his brother
in his father’s house:
“You have a cloak. You shall be our captain
and this stumbling block under your hand.”
7He shall speak out on that day, saying,
“I will be no dresser of wounds
when there is no bread nor cloak in my house.
You shall not make me the people’s captain.”
8For Jerusalem has stumbled
and Judah has fallen.
For their tongue and their acts are against the LORD
to defy His glorious gaze.
9The look of their face bears witness against them,
and their offense is like Sodom.
They have told it, they did not hide it.
Alas for them,
for they have paid themselves back with evil.
10One says: it is good for the righteous,
for the fruit of his deeds he enjoys.
11Alas, for the wicked, there is evil,
for as his hands have done, it will be done to him.
12My people’s overseers are babes,
and women rule over them.
My people, those who guide you mislead you
and the course of your paths they confound.
13The LORD is stationed to plead in court,
and stands to judge peoples.
14The LORD shall come in judgment
with His people’s elders and commanders.
As for you, you have ravaged the vineyard,
what is robbed from the poor—in your homes.
15Why should you crush my people
and grind down the face of the poor?
Word of the Master LORD of Armies.
16And the LORD said:
Since Zion’s daughters are haughty,
and they walk with necks thrust forth
and with wanton eyes,
walking with mincing steps
17the Master shall blight the pates of Zion’s daughters
and expose their private parts.
18On that day the Master shall take away
the splendid ankle bells and the headgear
19and the crescents and the pendants
and the bracelets and the veils
20and the necklaces and the armlets
and the sashes and the amulets and the charms,
21the finger-rings and the nose-rings,
22the robes and the wraps and the shawls and the purses,
23and the gowns and the draped cloths
and the turbans and the capes.
24For instead of perfume, rot shall be,
and instead of beaten-work, baldness,
and instead of rich nobles, girding of sackcloth,
25Your men shall fall by the sword,
your valor, in battle.
26And her gates shall mourn and lament,
and stripped, she shall sit on the ground.
4:1And seven women shall take hold of
one man on that day,
saying, “We shall eat our own bread,
we shall wear our own cloak.
Only let your name be called upon us.
Gather in our shame.”
CHAPTER 3 NOTES
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4. I shall make lads their commanders. In the political chaos that God will trigger, with all the leaders taken away (verses 1–3), mere lads and babes will be left to lead the people.
6. this stumbling block under your hand. There might be a distant play on words between makhshelah, “stumbling block,” and memshalah, “government.” In the general state of political disarray, government has turned into a stumbling block.
8. For Jerusalem has stumbled. This line pointedly picks up “stumbling block” from verse 6.
12. My people’s overseers are babes, / and women rule over them. This line reverts to the evocation of a comprehensive absence of leadership that was announced at the beginning of the prophecy. In the patriarchal view—despite the exceptional instance of Deborah in Judges 4–5—women are no fitter than babes to govern.
14. As for you. The emphatic use of the second-person plural pronoun, usually not stated before the conjugated form of the verb, is probably directed to the elders and commanders mentioned at the end of the preceding line of verse. This makes thematic sense of the removal of the leaders of the people that has been stressed from the beginning of the poem: these so-called leaders enrich themselves with goods robbed from the poor, grind down their faces, and so it is a leadership that must be revoked.
16. with necks thrust forth. The idea is that these elegant Jerusalemite women go about with their noses stuck up in the air.
jingling with their feet. They are wearing some sort of ankle bracelets, which jingle as they walk in their mincing, seductive gait.
17. expose their private parts. Though some modern translations understand the rare Hebrew word pot as “head,” a word close to it occurs elsewhere in the sense of “aperture” or “socket,” and here indicates an orifice, as the King James Version understood (“secret parts”), in keeping with traditional Hebrew commentators. The verb used is a term for the exposing of nakedness. Pot is the word for “vagina” in modern Hebrew.
18–23. the splendid ankle bells and the headgear / and the crescents and the pendants… . This long catalogue of items of apparel and jewelry includes quite a few terms occurring nowhere else that are of uncertain meaning as well as some others that occur elsewhere which can be confidently identified (for example, “armlets,” “veils,” “shawls”). To understand the prophet’s rage at these aristocratic women flirtatiously parading about in their expensive finery, one might imagine a contemporary social critic, dismayed and indignant over the plight of the homeless of New York, who sees the rich matrons of Manhattan walking along Madison Avenue in their designer dresses and coats, with shopping bags filled with more of the same.
24. instead of perfume, rot. There is a verbal violence in the strong antithesis between perfume and stinking “rot,” which in the Hebrew, as in the English, is a monosyllable: maq.
rope. The Hebrew niqpah occurs only here. Since Late Antiquity, it has been linked with a verbal root that means “to go around”—hence the translation “rope.” But some translators see it in a different root and understand it to mean “blow.”
instead of beaten-work, baldness. This is what the Hebrew says, but it is a little odd because one would expect “baldness” to replace something like “fine tresses,” not an ornament made of metal. Perhaps this is a metal ornament worn in the hair.
for instead of beauty, shame. The Masoretic Text reads only “for instead of beauty.” The Qumran Isaiah, however, as well as two ancient translations, shows a reading with the word “shame,” which seems far more likely.
25. Your men. The Hebrew possessive suffix is a feminine plural, as the prophet is now angrily addressing the daughters of Zion directly, whereas until this point they have been referred to in the third person. He has announced that they will be stripped of their finery; now he tells them they will also be deprived of their men, who will perish in battle.
26. stripped. The Hebrew word is problematic. This form would ordinarily mean “she shall be clean.”
4:1. The prophecy that began in 3:16 ends in this first verse of chapter 4.
seven women shall take hold of / one man. With much of the eligible male population wiped out on the battlefield, there are no longer enough men to go around. The women forcibly grab the man they find, afraid to let him get away.
We shall eat our own bread, / we shall wear our own cloak. We do not even ask, they say to the man, that you provide material support for us, according to the accepted practice. All we want is that you redeem us from our unmarried state, which is a “disgrace” for nubile women, and that you let us take your name.
2On that day the LORD’s shoot shall become
beauty and glory,
and the fruit of the land
pride and splendor
for the remnant of Israel.
3And who remains in Zion
and who is left in Jerusalem,
“holy” shall be said of him
each who is written for life in Jerusalem.
4The Master shall surely wash the filth of the daughters of Zion,
and Jerusalem’s bloodguilt He shall cleanse from its midst
with a wind of justice and a wind of rooting-out.
5And the LORD shall create over all the sanctuary of Mount Zion
and over its solemn assemblies
and an effulgence of flaming fire by night,
for over all the glory there shall be a canopy.
6And a shelter it shall be
as a shade by day from heat
and a covert and refuge from pelting rain.
CHAPTER 4 NOTES
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2. On that day the LORD’s shoot shall become / beauty and glory. Most translators and textual critics read this whole short chapter as prose, but the diction is manifestly poetic (nogah, “effulgence,” for example, occurs elsewhere only in poetry), and it is possible to scan it as poetry, even though it is somewhat looser metrically than other Prophetic poems. “The LORD’s shoot” would be the people of Israel to be redeemed after a period of devastation and tribulation that will leave a saving remnant (“who remains in Zion”).
4. the filth of the daughters of Zion. The filth indicated by the Hebrew term is excremental. If this line does not directly refer to the prophecy about the daughters of Jerusalem that immediately precedes, it is at least an editorial warrant for placing this prophecy here.
bloodguilt. The plural form of the word for “blood,” which is used here, refers to bloodguilt, though it retains the concrete image of blood staining the hands of the killer (compare 1:15).
justice … rooting-out. God will bring justice to the city, but the second term suggests that the implementation of justice involves purging the miscreants. The violence, as Joseph Blenkinsopp argues, suggests that the term ruaḥ here is to be understood as a sweeping wind rather than as “spirit.”
5. a cloud by day / and … fire by night. This is an obvious invocation of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that went before the Israelites in the wilderness: that miraculous divine protection is now to be re-created in the restored Jerusalem. The pillar of fire from Exodus here undergoes poetic elaboration as the writer adds both nogah, “effulgence,” and lehavah, “flame.”
for over all the glory. This phrase is somewhat obscure. The least strained construction is that “glory” refers to the Temple and its solemn assemblies. The canopy that is over all the glory, providing shade and shelter, as the next verse spells out, is clearly an image of divine protection.
6. from pelting rain. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “from stream and from rain,” but since there is no river in Jerusalem that could threaten it with a flood, this is probably a hendiadys meaning: rain that pounds down like a stream of water.
1Let me sing to My beloved
the song of my lover for his vineyard.
A vineyard my beloved had
2And he hoed it and took off its stones,
and planted it with choice vines.
And he built a tower in its midst,
and a winepress, too, he hewed in it.
And he hoped to get grapes
but it put forth rotten fruit.
3And, now, O dweller of Jerusalem
and man of Judah,
judge, pray, between Me
and My vineyard.
4What more could be done for My vineyard
that I did not do?
Why did I hope to get grapes
and it put forth rotten fruit?
5And now, let Me inform you, pray,
what I am about to do to My vineyard:
take away its hedge, and it shall turn to waste,
break down its fence, and it shall be trampled.
6And I will make it a wild field,
and it shall not be pruned nor raked,
and thorn and thistle shall spring up.
not to rain on it.
7For the house of Israel is the vineyard of the LORD of Armies
and the men of Judah are His delightful planting.
He hoped for justice, and, look, jaundice,
for righteousness, and, look, wretchedness.
8Woe, who add house to house,
who put field together with field
till there is no space left
and you alone are settled, in the heart of the land.
9In the hearing of the LORD of Armies:
I swear, many houses shall turn to ruin,
great and good ones with none living in them.
10For ten acres of vineyard shall yield a single bat,
and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.
11Woe, who rise in the morning early
who linger late in twilight,
enflamed by wine.
12Whose banquets are lyre and lute, timbrel and flute, and wine,
and who do not regard the LORD’s deeds,
and the work of His hands do not see.
13Therefore is My people exiled
for lack of knowledge,
its honored men victims of famine
and its masses parched with thirst.
14Therefore Sheol has widened its gullet
and gaped open its mouth beyond measure,
and her splendor and her hubbub have gone down,
her noise and her revelers.
15And humans are bowed low and man brought down,
and the eyes of the haughty are brought down.
16And the LORD of Armies shall be raised up in justice
and the Holy One hallowed in righteousness.
17And sheep shall graze as in their meadows
and goats shall feed in the ruins of the fatted.
18Woe, who haul crime with the cords of falseness
and like the ropes of a cart, offense.
19Who say: “Let Him hurry, let Him hasten His deed,
that we may see,
and let the counsel of the Israel’s Holy One
draw near and come that we may see.”
20Woe, who say “good” to evil
and “evil” to good,
who turn darkness to light
and light into darkness,
turn bitter into sweet
and sweet into bitter.
21Woe, wise in their own eyes
and in their own opinion discerning
22Woe, mighty to drink wine
and men of valor to mix strong drink,
23who declare the wicked innocent because of bribes
and righteous men’s just cause deny.
24Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw
and hay falls apart in flame,
their root shall be like rot
and their flower go up like dust.
For they have spurned the teaching of the LORD of Armies,
and the utterance of Israel’s Holy One they despised.
25Therefore is the LORD incensed with His people,
and has stretched out His hand and struck it.
And mountains have quaked,
and their corpses are become like offal in the streets.
Yet His wrath has not abated
and His arm is still stretched out.
26And He shall raise a banner for nations from afar
and whistle to one at the end of the earth,
and, look, swiftly, quick, he shall come.
27None tires, none stumbles among them,
he does not slumber, does not sleep.
The belt round his loins does not slip open,
and his sandals’ thong does not snap.
28His arrows are sharpened,
all his bows are drawn.
The hooves of his horses are hard as flint
and his wheels like the whirlwind.
29He has a roar like the lion
he roars like the king of beasts.
He howls and seizes his prey,
whisks it off and none can save.
30And he shall howl against him on that day
like the howling of the sea,
and he shall peer toward the earth
and, look, constricting darkness,
and the light shall go dark in its clouds.
CHAPTER 5 NOTES
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1. Let me sing to My beloved. This Parable of the Vineyard would become an early warrant for reading the Song of Songs as an allegory of the love between God and Israel. The lover here is clearly God, and the vineyard over which the lover labors is the people of Israel. In the Song of Songs, the body of the beloved is represented metaphorically as a vineyard.
on a hillside rich in soil. The translation of this phrase, following the proposal of Bleckinsopp, is conjectural. The literal sense of the Hebrew word is: “in a corner [or beam of light] son of oil.” The conjectured translation builds on the association of oil with fruitfulness and assumes that the word for “corner” might extend to a plot of land.
2. a tower. This would probably be a watchtower from which one could survey the vineyard and protect it from predators.
5. take away its hedge, and it shall turn to waste. The transparent referent of the unprotected vineyard that is trampled by wild beasts is the kingdom of Judah, shorn of defenses, which is overrun by invading armies.
6. And I will charge the clouds / not to rain on it. The weather conspires with wild beasts to destroy the vineyard.
7. justice … jaundice … righteousness … wretchedness. This translation proposes English equivalents for the Hebrew wordplay, where the meaning of the two second terms is somewhat different. The Hebrew is mishpat, “justice,” mispaḥ, “blight,” and tsedaqah, “righteousness,” tseʿaqah, “scream.”
8. Woe, who add house to house, / who put field together with field. The social injustice against which the prophet inveighs is the consolidation of real estate—houses and fields—in the hands of the exploitative rich, who thus drive the peasantry from their possessions.
9. In the hearing of the LORD of Armies. The literal sense is: in the ears of the LORD of Armies. One must assume that the prophet himself, not God, speaks the lines that follow, beginning with this formula because he is pronouncing, with God as his witness, a solemn vow about the destruction to come.
10. a single bat … an ephah. These are two small units of solid measure, against “ten acres” (literally, “ten yokes”) and a large measure, the ḥomer.
11. strong drink. Since the Samson story appears to indicate that this drink, sheikhar, is derived from grapes but is different from wine, it probably means grappa. Archaeologists have discovered the apparatus for making grappa.
12. who do not regard the LORD’s deeds. Since they spend their days drinking and carousing, from early morning until evening, they would be in a perpetual drunken stupor, scarcely in a condition to take note of the great things God has done.
13. Therefore is My people exiled. Verb tenses in ancient Hebrew poetry are fluid and at times ambiguous, and one suspects that the prophets purposefully exploited the ambiguity. The exile is so certain that it is as if it had already happened, or it is about to happen, or it will happen before too long.
14. Sheol has widened its gullet. Sheol, the underworld, often imagined as a great pit, is represented here as a kind of hungry monster swallowing those marked for destruction.
her splendor. The feminine possessive refers to the people.
15. and humans are bowed low. This line picks up the refrain from the prophecy in chapter 2.
17. and goats shall feed. The Masoretic Text here reads garim, “sojourners,” but this translation follows the Septuagint, which appears to have used a Hebrew text that read gedayim, “goats.” (The Hebrew letters for r and d look quite similar.)
in the ruins of the fatted. The Hebrew here is rather compressed, with meiḥim, “fatted,” a word that generally refers to fatted animals, but the evident reference is to the overstuffed rich, who have gorged themselves on the resources of the poor.
19. Let Him hurry. This whole speech is an expression of the arrogant complacency of the evildoers: let God hurry and carry out His plans—we are not worried.
21. in their own opinion. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “before their own faces.” The phrase is clearly parallel in meaning to “in their own eyes” in the first verset.
22. mighty to drink wine / and men of valor to mix strong drink. The heavy sarcasm is palpable: in this vehement denunciation, the prophet scarcely aims for subtlety.
24. as a tongue of fire consumes straw / and hay falls apart in flame. The structure of this line is chiastic: in the first verset, fire is the grammatical subject, consuming the straw; in the second verset, the grammatical subject is the hay, disintegrating in the flame. The verb in the second verset usually means to go slack or become weak, but something like falling apart is required by the context.
26. He shall raise a banner for nations from afar. God is represented as a kind of general, giving the order for the invading armies to attack. The identity of the armies is left unstated, heightening the ominous effect, although Isaiah and his audience would surely have had the imperial forces of Assyria in mind.
27. among them. The Hebrew says “among him,” but the sliding between singular and plural, especially for collective nouns, that is natural in Hebrew needs to be sorted out for English legibility.
28. The hooves of his horses are hard as flint / and his wheels like the whirlwind. This is one of many instances in which the poetic power of Prophetic verse pushes, perhaps not intentionally, in the direction of apocalypse. What the prophet means to do is to make frighteningly vivid through his poetry the terrible onslaught of foreign invaders that is about to overwhelm the kingdom of Judah. The hyperbolic force, however, of the language he uses is so strong that the attacking army begins to look apocalyptic—its troops unslumbering, the hooves of its horses like flint, the wheels of its chariots like the whirlwind.
29. He has a roar like the lion. The representation of martial fierceness in the image of the lion is conventional in ancient Near Eastern poetry, but the prophet makes the familiar trope vivid in the way he highlights the roaring and then links it to the roaring of the sea.
30. And he shall howl against him on that day. Hebrew usage has a certain propensity to multiply pronominal references: the initial “he” (merely indicated through the conjugated form of the verb “shall howl”) is of course the cruel enemy, whereas “against him” refers to the people of Israel.
and he shall peer toward the earth. Since what is seen is a dismaying landscape of disaster, “he” would again have the unstated antecedent of the people of Israel.
constricting darkness. The Hebrew is very compressed, but this is the most likely meaning.
and the light shall go dark in its clouds. Again, the poetic imagery is incipiently apocalyptic: it is dark on the earth and dark in the heavens as well. This is a reversal of the first moment of creation, when “let there be light” drives back the primordial darkness that is over the face of the abyss. The suffix indicating “its” in the Hebrew is feminine and so must refer to “the earth,” the only feminine noun in this verse. The word for clouds, ʿarifim, appearing only here, is high poetic diction, a designation linked with a verbal stem that means to drip down, as the clouds yield rain.
1In the year of the death of King Uzziah, I saw the Master seated on a high and lofty throne, and the skirts of his robe filled the Temple. 2Seraphim were stationed over him, six wings for each one. With two it would cover its face, and with two it would cover its feet, and with two it would hover. 3And each called out to each and said:
“Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of Armies.
The fullness of all the earth is His glory.”
4And the pillars of the thresholds swayed from the voice calling out and the house was filled with smoke. 5And I said,
for I am a man of impure lips,
and in a people of impure lips do I dwell.
My eyes have seen the King LORD of Armies.”
6And one of the seraphim flew down to me, in his hand a glowing coal in tongs that he had taken from the altar. 7And he touched my mouth and said,
“Look, this has touched your lips,
and your crime is gone, your offense shall be atoned.”
8And I heard the voice of the Master saying,
“Whom shall I send,
and who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here I am, send me.”
9And he said, “Go and say to this people:
‘Indeed you must hear but you will not understand,
indeed you must see but you will not know.’
10Make the heart of this people obtuse
and block its ears and seal its eyes.
Lest it see with its eyes
and with its ears hear
and its heart understand
and it turn back and be healed.”
11And I said, “Till when, O Master?”
And he said,
“Till towns are laid waste with no dwellers
and homes with no man
and the land is laid waste, a desolation.
12And the LORD shall drive man far away
and abandonment grow in the midst of the land.
13And yet a tenth part shall be in it and turn back.
which though felled have a stump within them,
CHAPTER 6 NOTES
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1. In the year of the death of King Uzziah. This might be 734 B.C.E., although the reignal chronology is disputed. In any case, the vision in the Temple in which Isaiah is commissioned as prophet is clearly the beginning of his prophetic mission, and this chapter would be the first thing he wrote.
I saw the Master seated on a high and lofty throne. Since it was believed that there was a correspondence between the Temple in Jerusalem and God’s celestial palace, it is understandable that Isaiah should have a vision of God enthroned in the Temple. God apparently is imagined as having gigantic proportions, with the skirts of his robe filling the entire interior of the Temple. The word translated here as “Temple,” heikhal, generally means “palace,” and there appears to be a conflation between the two: the scene features both a throne and an altar. One should note that this episode begins in prose, probably because it is a narrative report rather than the prophetic message proper. When dialogue is introduced, the language switches to verse.
2. Seraphim. It is not entirely clear what these angelic attendants of God look like. Their name shows the verb that means “to burn,” and they might be angels of fire, but then why would they need tongs to hold the burning coal? The root saraf is also associated with the burning venom of serpents, and the Book of Kings registers the fact that at one point there were icons of serpents in the Temple, leaving open the disquieting possibility that these seraphim are winged snakes.
cover its feet. Some think “feet” is a euphemism for the genitals, though that is not a necessary inference.
hover. The piʿel conjugation of the verb for flying, ʿaf, is used here, and this translation understands it to indicate hovering or fluttering without forward motion, since the seraphim are, after all, “stationed,” or “standing over” God. In verse 6, when one of the seraphim swoops down to Isaiah, the primary conjugation (qal) of this verb is used, suggesting a different movement.
5. I am undone. The Hebrew verb could also mean “I am struck dumb,” and a pun is probably intended.
for I am a man of impure lips. As with Moses and Jeremiah, the prophet responds to the call to prophecy by stating his unworthiness for the task. But here, pointedly, his unworthiness is implicated in that of his people: “and in a people of impure lips do I dwell.”
7. he touched my mouth. Remarkably, what is entirely elided here is the excruciating pain of having a burning coal pressed to the mouth. The role of pain in the initiation will be vividly evoked in Pushkin’s “The Prophet,” a poem based on this chapter, in which the seraph rips out the prophet’s heart and replaces it with the burning coal.
8. Here I am, send me. The obvious implication is that, the prophet’s lips having been cleansed, he is now ready to take up the mission. There is a linguistic note as well as a spiritual one in all of this: poetry, purportedly representing divine speech, is the prophet’s vehicle; now, with his lips purified, he is in a condition to utter this elevated and powerful form of speech.
10. Make the heart of this people obtuse / and block its ears and seal its eyes. Since the heart is imagined as the seat of understanding, these are the three channels of perception. This particular message of God to the prophet is notoriously perplexing. Evidently, God does not want the people to understand, so that it will not change its ways and will not escape the dire punishment that it deserves. But if we see all this from Isaiah’s point of view, the entire message is colored by his quite realistic fear that his prophetic mission is doomed to failure from the outset, that all his exhortations will not move the people to turn back from its evil ways. God’s command, then, to make the heart of the people obtuse is a kind of preemptive justification by the prophet for the anticipated failure of prophecy.
11. Till when, O Master? The prophet is unwilling to contemplate the idea that the destruction will be total and final, and so he asks how long it will go on before God relents.
Till towns are laid waste with no dwellers. God answers not by indicating any period of time but by stating that first the land has to be devastated.
13. a tenth part shall be in it and turn back. This is an early articulation of the idea of the saving—perhaps rather “saved”—remnant. This small group of survivors will “turn back” to God, turn back from the disastrous acts of the majority.
And it shall be ravaged. The concluding clauses of this final verse are somewhat obscure. The “it” here would have to refer not to the tenth part that will be saved but to the people as a whole, who are destined to be ravaged.
like a terebinth and an oak / which though felled have a stump within them. Though shalekhet, the word represented here as “felled,” comes to mean “leaf-fall” in modern Hebrew (it derives from a verb meaning “to fling away”), it most likely refers here to the cutting down of the tree: while most of it is chopped down, it can regenerate from the stump that remains, which would be the saving tenth part of the people.
the holy seed. In part because “holy seed,” zeraʿ qodesh, is an exilic expression, many scholars conclude that this last clause, or even the entire final verse, is a later addition, referring to the community of exiles who remain faithful to the covenant and are destined to become the nucleus of the nation’s regeneration.
1And it happened in the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah king of Judah that Rezin king of Aram with Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel went up to Jerusalem to do battle against it, but he was not able to battle against it. 2And it was told to the house of David: “Aram has joined with Ephraim and made its heart and the heart of its people sway like the trees of the forest before the wind.” 3And the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out, pray, to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-Jashub your son, to the edge of the conduit of the Upper Pool, by the road of Fuller’s Field. 4And you shall say to him, ‘Watch yourself and be tranquil, do not fear and let your heart not quail because of these two smoking tails of firebrands, over the blazing wrath of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah 5inasmuch as Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil counsel against you: 6Let us go up against Judah and shake it, and we shall break it into pieces for ourselves. And we shall set up within it the son of Tabeel as king.’
7Thus said the Master, the LORD:
It shall not happen and it shall not be,
8that the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin.
[And in another sixty-five years
Ephraim as a people shall be smashed.]
9And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
you shall not hold firm.”
10And the LORD spoke again to Ahaz, saying, 11“Ask for a sign from the people of the LORD your God, make it deep as Sheol or high above.” 12And Ahaz said, “I will not ask and I will not test the LORD.” 13And Isaiah said, “Listen, pray, O House of David! Is it not enough for you to weary men that you should weary my God as well? 14Therefore the Master Himself shall give you a sign: the young woman is about to conceive and bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel. 15Curds and honey he shall eat till he knows how to reject evil and choose good. 16For before the lad knows how to reject evil and choose good, the land, whose two kings you despise, shall be abandoned. 17The LORD shall bring upon you and your people and upon your father’s house days that have not come from the day Ephraim turned away from Judah—the king of Assyria.
18And it shall happen on that day.
The LORD shall whistle to the flies
that are on the edge of Egypt’s rivers
and to the bees that are in the land of Assyria,
19and they shall all come and settle
in the wadis of the unplowed fields,
and in the crevices of the rocks
and among all the thorns and thistles.
20On that day the Master shall shave
with a hired razor along the borders of the River Euphrates
and the beard, too, it shall cut away.
21And it shall happen on that day,
a man shall nurture a calf and two sheep.
22And it shall happen, from all the making of milk,
he shall eat curds,
for all who are left in the midst of the land
shall eat curds and honey.
23And it shall happen on that day,
every place where there will be
a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels
shall turn into thornbush and thistle.
24With bow and arrow one would come there,
for thornbush and thistle the whole land shall be.
25But the mountains that are worked with the hoe,
there the fear of thornbush and thistle shall not come,
and it shall be for oxen let loose and the trampling of sheep.
CHAPTER 7 NOTES
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1. And it happened. As the text moves into narrative, it shifts from poetry to prose.
Rezin king of Aram with Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel went up to Jerusalem to do battle against it. The northern kingdom of Israel entered into an alliance with Aram to oppose Assyria, which was conducting a campaign (734–732 B.C.E.) in trans-Jordan, the eastern Galilee, and along the Mediterranean coast. Their purpose in attacking Ahaz was to force him to join their alliance.
but he was not able to do battle against it. The obvious sense is that the invading forces were unable to secure a decisive victory.
2. made its heart … sway. That is, struck terror in their hearts.
3. Shear-Jashub. Like other prophetic progeny, Isaiah’s son has a symbolic name: it means “a remnant shall come back.”
4. the blazing wrath. The Hebrew ḥori-ʾaf is a term for anger that suggests burning and thus picks up the image of the smoking firebrands.
6. son of Tabeel as king. This would clearly be a puppet king. His patronymic suggests that he was probably an Aramean.
7. Thus said Master, the LORD. As one would expect in a move to formal prophecy, the language now switches from prose to poetry.
8. And in another sixty-five years / Ephraim as a people shall be smashed. This prophecy of the destruction of the northern kingdom, which occurred in 721 B.C.E., looks very much like a later interpellation, invited by the momentum of the prophecy of the interruption of the reign of Rezin and of Pekah. The sixty-five-year span is nevertheless puzzling because this prophecy would have been enunciated perhaps a dozen years before Assyria overwhelmed the northern kingdom.
9. If you trust not, / you shall not hold firm. This cryptic declaration (the Hebrew involves wordplay) is a little enigmatic, though it probably means that if Ahaz does not trust Isaiah and hold out against Rezin and Pekah, he will come to a bad end.
13. Isaiah said. The Hebrew merely says “he said.” The name has been substituted in order to avoid confusion.
to weary. The Hebrew verb sometimes means this, though it also means “to incapacitate,” which is not appropriate in this context. The development of the dialogue appears to be as follows: Isaiah invites Ahaz to ask for a sign, however extravagant (verse 11); Ahaz is afraid to put God to the test (verse 12); Isaiah answers that Ahaz is exasperating God by his unwillingness to ask for a sign (verse 13); Isaiah further says that Ahaz will get a sign whether he likes it or not (verse 14).
14. the young woman. Although this verse generated many centuries of Christological readings emphasizing the virgin birth, the Hebrew ʿalmah does not mean “virgin,” but rather “young woman,” and in Proverbs the ʿalmah is represented engaged in sex. The “sign” here is the name she gives the child, which means “God is with us.” Nevertheless, the identity of the young woman is unclear and has been much debated. She might be the prophet’s wife because there is precedent for prophets begetting symbolic sons, or she might be a woman in the house of David.
15. Curds and honey he shall eat. From infancy, the child will be raised in sumptuous abundance, which, however, will be interrupted by the disaster that will sweep over the land.
17. the king of Assyria. This specification at the end of the sentence is syntactically awkward and may have been added as an explanatory gloss. In any case, the prophecy of an Assyrian onslaught that is an unprecedented disaster for the nation much better suits Sennacherib’s campaign against Judah in 701 B.C.E. than the events of 734–732 B.C.E. with which this segment began.
18. the flies / that are on the edge of Egypt’s rivers / and to the bees that are in the land of Assyria. The swarms of insects—perhaps killer bees in the case of Assyria—are metaphors for the invading armies. There were moments of Egyptian alliance with Assyria, but not in 701 B.C.E.
20. with the king of Assyria. This translation construes the king as the “hired razor” God uses to wreak destruction.
the head and the pubic hair / and the beard. “Pubic hair” is literally “hair of the legs,” but in this case “legs” does appear to be a euphemism for the genitals. Shaving of the head, beard, and pubic area is a way of humiliating prisoners, but here it also serves as a metaphor for destruction that is brutal and shaming but not total.
22. for all who are left in midst of the land / shall eat curds and honey. This sounds as though they are enjoying plenty, like the child Immanuel, but given the dire content of the three verses that follow, it probably means, in what may be an ironic twist, that they will live off the produce of their remaining livestock and what honey they can gather but will be unable to grow crops.
24. With bow and arrow one would come there. Vineyards will turn to brambles, and wild beasts will roam there—hence the need for bow and arrow.
25. there the fear of thornbush and thistle shall not come. Though some understand this to mean “you shall not come because of the fear of thornbush and thistle,” the Hebrew lacks any proposition that could be construed as “because of.” The more likely sense would be: unlike the flatlands, which will be covered with thornbushes and thistles, the mountain slopes, while not amenable to cultivation, will provide pasture for free-roaming cattle.
1And the LORD said to me, “Take for yourself a large parchment sheet and write on it with a man’s stylus: for Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.” 2And I enlisted for myself two trusty witnesses, Uriah the priest and Zachariah son of Jeberechiah. 3And I drew close to the prophet-wife and she conceived and bore a son. And the LORD said to me, “Call his name Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. 4For before the lad knows how to say “father” and “mother,” the wealth of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria shall be borne off to the king of Assyria.” 5And the LORD spoke to me once again, saying: 6“Inasmuch as this people has spurned the quietly flowing waters of Shiloh and rejoiced in Rezin and the son of Remaliah, 7therefore, the Master is about to bring up against them the great and mighty waters of the Euphrates—the king of Assyria and all his glory.
And it shall rise up over its channels
and go over all its banks
8and pass through Judah, flooding and sweeping,
up to the neck it shall reach.
shall fill your land, Immanuel.
9Take note, O people, and be terror-stricken.
Give ear, all far reaches of the earth.
Gird yourselves, and be terror-stricken,
gird yourselves, and be terror-stricken.
10Lay out counsel and it shall be overturned,
speak a word and it shall not come to be,
for God is with us.”
11For thus said the LORD to me with a strong hand, warning me not to go in the way of this people, saying:
12You shall not call a plot
to all that this people calls a plot,
nor fear what it fears nor be terrified.
13The LORD of Armies, Him shall you hallow,
and He is your fear and your terror.
14And He shall be a snare and a stone to strike against
and a rock for stumbling
a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
15And many shall stumble against them
and fall and be broken
and be snared and entrapped.
16Wrap up the testimony, seal the teaching among My disciples. 17And I shall await the LORD, Who hides His face from the house of Judah, and I shall hope for Him. 18Here I am, and the children that the LORD gave me as signs and portents in Israel, from the LORD of Armies Who dwells on Mount Zion. 19And should they say to you, “Inquire of the ghosts and the familiar spirits who chirp and murmur, shall not a people inquire of its gods, from the dead for the living, 20for instruction and guidance?” They indeed shall speak according to this word that has no dawn. 21And he shall pass through it, stricken and hungry. And it shall happen when he hungers that he shall be infuriated and curse his king and his gods, and turn his face upward 22and to earth look down, and oh, distress and darkness, swooping straits and uttermost gloom. 23For there is no swoop for him in straits. Now the former has brought disgrace to the land of Zebulun and to the land of Naphtali, and the latter brought honor to the Way of the Sea, across from Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
CHAPTER 8 NOTES
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1. a large parchment sheet. “Parchment” is merely implied in the Hebrew.
a man’s stylus. This is a literal representation of the Hebrew, which sounds a little odd. Perhaps the phrase is meant to indicate an ordinary stylus used by human beings rather than some magical or supernatural writing implement.
Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. The name means “Hasten Booty Hurry Spoils.” Hosea is another prophet enjoined to give his offspring a symbolic name. The dire portent of this name corresponds antithetically to the hopeful portent of the name Immanuel given to the child prophesied in 7:14.
2. two trusty witnesses. Their purpose is to confirm the validity of the document with the name that Isaiah has written.
3. I drew close. Isaiah, understandably, uses the most decorous of biblical idioms for sexual intimacy since it might be unseemly for him to say he “knew” his wife or “lay with” her.
the prophet-wife. Although the literal meaning of neviʾah, the feminine form of the word for “prophet,” is “prophetess,” she is given this designation only because she is the spouse of a prophet.
4. Damascus … Samaria. These are the two allies, Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel, that had attacked Jerusalem.
6. and rejoiced. The Hebrew syntax at this point is suspect: this single Hebrew word means, literally, “and rejoicing of.” Proposed emendations remain unconvincing.
7. the great and mighty waters of the Euphrates. The antithesis with “the quietly flowing waters of Shiloh” is clear. The inhabitants of Jerusalem have not trusted in their own small kingdom, in the gentle brook Shiloh that flows through Jerusalem, but instead have turned to Samaria and Aram. For this, they will be overwhelmed by the mighty stream of the Assyrian empire.
8. its outstretched wings. The imagery of wings in the midst of flooding water is a little strange, but “wings” in biblical usage has a variety of metaphorical applications, and hence the loose application may not have seemed unnatural.
Immanuel. This designation, apparently for the people of Judah, is ironic because God is scarcely with the people as it is overcome by the Assyrian forces. If the word at the end of verse 10, ʿimmanuel, is a statement (“God is with us”) and not a name, it would reflect a pivot in the prophet’s discourse: Assyria will sweep down over Judah, but the nations of the earth (verse 9–10) will be fear-stricken because, nevertheless, God is with His people. Yet the subsequent verses go on with a prophecy of doom.
9. Take note. This translation reads deʿu instead of the Masoretic roʿu, which would seem to mean “smash” (though some interpreters, by a stretch, understand it as “band together”).
14. the two houses of Israel. That is, both the northern and the southern kingdom.
16. Wrap up the testimony, seal the teaching. The evident reference is to the parchment scroll on which was written the child’s name that is the dire portent. The Hebrew shows a strong alliteration between the two nouns, teʿudah and torah, which this translation tries to emulate.
among My disciples. The reference is a little obscure, and though this is the conventional rendering of the Hebrew noun, it could equally be translated as “My teachings.”
19. the ghosts and the familiar spirits who chirp and murmur. Necromancy was, one may infer, a widespread practice in ancient Israel—so much so that King Saul was impelled to make it a capital crime (which he himself, in his last desperation, violated). It was believed that the spirits of the dead, when called up, emitted indistinct sounds, which the necromancer could then interpret as speech.
20. this word that has no dawn. The words of the purportedly murmurous dead are swathed in the dark of meaninglessness, and they will never have a dawn. This phrase became idiomatic in later Hebrew for anything hopeless or pointless.
21. And he shall pass through it. Given the grim fate of this person, “he” would refer to the inquirer of the spirits of the dead (or, alternately, to the “people” mentioned in verse 19). Although this sort of unmarked switch from plural to singular may be disorienting for the modern reader, it is fairly common in biblical usage. The “it” is feminine in the Hebrew and probably refers to the land, a feminine noun, though the term does not appear in the preceding verses.
22. swooping straits. The Hebrew of the received text, meʿuf tsuqah, sounds equally bizarre. The end of this verse and all of the next one, which concludes the chapter, look as though they have been mangled in scribal transmission, and neither the ancient versions nor scholarly emendations provide much help.
23. For there is no swoop for him in straits. The translation candidly reflects the unintelligibility of the Hebrew.
Now the former. Some interpreters think this is a reference to Pekah son of Ramaliah, but, in the general textual murkiness of this verse, that is no more than a guess.
the latter brought honor to the Way of the Sea. No convincing identification for “the latter” has been established. The verb rendered as “brought honor” might also mean “dealt heavily, oppressed,” though if the previous verb in fact means “disgraced” (and not “was lenient”), one would expect hikhbid here to be its precise antonym—the two verbs derive, respectively, from roots that mean “light” and “heavy.” In any case, no one has satisfactorily resolved the enigma of the geographical references here and the military actions performed in or on these regions.
1The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light.
Those dwelling in the land of death’s shadow—
light has beamed on them.
2You have made great the nation
and heightened its joy.
They rejoiced before You
as the joy in the harvest,
as people exalt
when they share out the spoils.
3For its burdensome yoke
the rod on its shoulders,
the club of its oppressor—
You smashed, as on the day of Midian.
4For every boot pounding loudly
and every cloak soaked in blood
is consigned to burning, consumed by fire.
5For a child has been born to us,
a son has been given to us,
and leadership is on his shoulders.
And his name is called wondrous councillor,
divine warrior, eternal father, prince of peace,
6making leadership abound and peace without end
on the throne of David and over his kingdom
to make it firm-founded and stay it up
in justice and righteousness, forever more.
The zeal of the LORD of Armies shall do this.
7A word has the Master sent out in Jacob
and it has fallen in Israel.
8And all the people knew,
Ephraim and the dwellers of Samaria,
in pride and with a swelling heart, saying:
9Bricks have fallen, and we shall build with hewn stone.
Sycamores are cut down, and we shall replace them with cedars.
10But the LORD shall raise Rezin’s foes against him,
and his enemies He shall stir up.
11Aram from the east and Philistines from the west,
and they shall devour Israel with all their mouth.
Yet His wrath has not turned back.
and His arm is still outstretched.
12And the people has not turned back to Him Who struck it,
and the LORD of Armies it has not sought out.
13And the LORD shall cut off from Israel head and tail,
branch and reed on a single day.
14Elder and honored, they are the head,
prophet and false teacher, they are the tail.
15And the people’s guides have misled,
and its guided are confounded.
16Therefore the Master shall not rejoice over its young men,
and to its orphans and its widows shall show no mercy.
For it is wholly tainted and evil,
and every mouth speaks scurrilous things.
17For wickedness has burned like fire,
thorn and thistle it has consumed.
And it has kindled the forest thickets,
they went up in a surge of smoke.
18In the anger of the LORD of Armies earth grew dark,
and the people became like consuming fire,
no man spared his fellow.
19And they seized on the right and hungered,
ate on the left and were not sated,
the flesh of their fellow man they ate.
20Manasseh does it to Ephraim
and Ephraim to Manasseh,
together to Judah.
Yet His wrath has not turned back,
and His arm is still outstretched.
CHAPTER 9 NOTES
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1. The people walking in darkness / have seen a great light. This is one of the most arresting instances of antithetical parallelism in biblical poetry. The line is starkly simple yet haunting. Second Isaiah would pick up this contrast between light and darkness and develop it in a variety of elaborate ways. The line following here continues the light-darkness antithesis in an interlinear parallelism.
3. as on the day of Midian. The probable reference is to Gideon’s defeat of the Midianite oppressors reported in Judges 6–8.
4. every boot. The Hebrew seʾon appears only here. A possible Akkadian cognate means “boot,” and the parallelism with “cloak” argues for some item of apparel. Pounding boots and bloodied cloaks aptly serve as metonymies for a violently advancing army.
5. a child has been born to us. The child who is born with wondrous qualities and who is to assume leadership is the ideal king who will be a stay against all enemies and establish an enduring reign of peace.
and leadership is on his shoulders. This expression reverses the rod of the oppressor on the shoulders in verse 3.
wondrous councillor / divine warrior, eternal father, prince of peace. This string of epithets has been associated by many generations of Christian commentators and readers with Christ. What the prophet has in mind, however, is not “messianic” except in the strictly political sense: he envisages an ideal king from the line of David who will sit on the throne of Judah and oversee a rule of justice and peace. The most challenging epithet in this sequence is ʾel gibor, which appears to say “warrior-god.” The prophet would be violating all biblical usage if he called the Davidic king “God,” and that term is best construed here as some sort of intensifier. In fact, the two words could conceivably be a scribal reversal of gibor ʾel, in which case the second word would clearly function as a suffix of intensification as it occasionally does elsewhere in the Bible.
6. The zeal of the LORD of Armies shall do this. This sentence is a kind of prose coda to the poetic prophecy. It underscores an important theological point: such an ideal ruler can come into being and sit on the throne of David only through God’s zealous intervention.
8. Ephraim and the dwellers of Samaria. These are, of course, the inhabitants of the northern kingdom, who have allied themselves with Aram, as the mention of the Aramean king Rezin in verse 10 reminds us.
9. Bricks have fallen, and we shall build with hewn stone. There is probably an allusion to the Tower of Babel here. Babel was a byword for overweening human pride, as the story in Genesis 11 shows. These Israelites go beyond the builders of the Tower in their “pride and … swelling heart” by resuming their task of building after the brick structure has been razed and imagining that they can build it bigger and better with hewn stone (the building material of Canaan as against Mesopotamia).
cedars. These are the tallest trees known in the region; they are used elsewhere as a symbol of arrogance (see chapter 15).
12. And the people has not turned back. The verb plays against the use of the same verb in a different sense in the previous verse: divine wrath “has not turned back” means that it has not relented, has not been withdrawn, whereas here “turned back” means “to repent,” “to turn back to God.”
14. Elder and honored. Some scholars view this whole verse as a gloss, though it could be original to the prophecy.
prophet and false teacher. As the second phrase makes clear, the prophet referred to is a false prophet. This provides a bridge to the misleading leaders of the next line.
16. the Master shall not rejoice over its young men. The verb here should not be emended, as some have proposed. In biblical poetry, young men (and virgins) often appear as the apt object of rejoicing, just as orphans and widows are the proverbial object of merciful concern (second verset).
17. went up. The Hebrew verb used appears only here. Abraham ibn Ezra and others construe it as going up in a column or spume. The term translated as “surge,” geʾut, supports this construction because when applied to water it means rising tide.
18. grew dark. This is still another term that occurs nowhere else, and so the meaning, proposed by many scholars, is necessarily conjectural.
the people became like consuming fire. In this time of national catastrophe, social order breaks down and every man turns against his fellow.
19. the flesh of their fellow man they ate. The Masoretic Text reads “each man eats the flesh of his own arm.” This is possible as a hyperbolic expression but looks rather strange. The Septuagint and one Targum read reʿo, “his fellow man,” instead of zeroʿo, “his arm,” which sounds more likely and is also more in keeping with the previous verse. Cannibalism in times of siege is frequently mentioned in other biblical texts.
20. Manasseh does it to Ephraim. The Hebrew has no verb, only the accusative particle ʾet. But what is clearly indicated is that in this landscape of mutual savagery, such cannibalistic assault is what Manasseh does to Ephraim and vice versa. The reference is to civil strife within the northern kingdom and then to the war of the north on the south.
1Woe, who inscribe crime’s inscriptions
and writs of wretchedness write,
2to tilt from their cause the poor
and rob justice from My people’s needy,
making widows their booty
and despoiling orphans.
3And what will you do for the day of reckoning,
for disaster that comes from afar?
To whom will you flee for help,
and where will you leave your glory?
4Only, they shall kneel beneath the captive,
and beneath the slain they shall fall.
5Woe, Assyria, rod of My wrath,
in whose hand is a club—My fury.
6Against a tainted nation I will send him,
against the people of My anger I will charge him
to take the booty and to seize the spoils,
and to turn it to trampling like mire in the streets.
7But he shall not imagine so,
and his heart not so shall plot.
For destruction is in his heart,
to cut off nations, not a few.
8For he shall say:
Are not my commanders all of them kings?
9Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?
10As my hand has seized worthless kingdoms,
and their idols more than Jerusalem’s or Samaria’s,
11why, as I have done to Samaria and its ungods,
so I will do to Jerusalem and its icons.
12And it shall happen, when the Master carries out all His acts
against Zion and against Jerusalem,
I will reckon with the fruit of the swollen heart of Assyria’s king
and with the grandeur of his haughty gaze.
13For he has said:
“Through the power of my hand I have done it,
and through my wisdom, for I was discerning.
I have wiped out the borders of peoples
and their riches I plundered
and brought down to the dust those who dwelled there.
14And my hand, as with a nest, has seized
the wealth of peoples,
as one gathers abandoned eggs,
all the earth I have gathered,
and none fluttered a wing,
opened a mouth and peeped.”
15Should the axe boast over its wielder,
the saw vaunt over him who plies it?
As though the rod had swung him who raised it,
a club had raised the one not-wood!
16Therefore shall the Master, LORD of Armies,
send a wasting into his fatness,
and in his glory’s stead a burning shall rage
like the burning of fire.
17And Israel’s Light shall turn to fire
and its Holy One to flame,
and it shall burn and consume his thorns
and his thistles on a single day.
18And the glory of his woods and his farmland
from life-breath to flesh shall be destroyed,
and shall be like a failing sick man.
19And the remnant of his woods’ trees shall be so few
that a lad can write them down.
20And is shall happen on that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob shall no longer lean on him who strikes them but shall lean on the LORD, Israel’s Holy One, in truth. 21A remnant shall come back, a remnant of Jacob, to mighty God. 22For if your people Israel be like the sand of the sea, but a remnant within it shall come back. Decreed destruction sweeps down, vindication. 23For it is irrevocably decreed: the Master, LORD of Armies, is about to do it in the midst of the land. 24Therefore, this said the Master, LORD of Armies: “Do not be afraid, My people dwelling in Zion, of Assyria, who strikes you with the rod, and raises his club against you in the way he did to Egypt. 25For in just a little while, My wrath and fury shall be utterly ended.” 26And the LORD of Armies shall rouse against him a scourge, like the striking down of Midian at the Rock of Oreb, and like His rod over the sea, and bear him off like the way of Egypt. 27And it shall happen on that day,
his burden shall be removed from your shoulder
and his yoke shall be shattered from your neck.
He shall come up from the desert
28come up to Ajath,
pass through Migron
in Michmash place his gear.
29He shall pass over a ford,
Geva his lodging.
Ramah shall tremble,
Saul’s Gibeah flee.
30With your voice give a piercing call, Bath-Gallim,
Listen, O Laish, speak out, Anathoth.
31Madmenah shall decamp,
Gebim’s dwellers take refuge.
32That very day he shall stand at Nob,
wave his hand against the Mount of Zion’s Daughter,
the hill of Jerusalem.
33Look, the Master, LORD of Armies,
hacks away the treetops with an axe,
and the lofty in stature are cut down
and the tall ones brought low.
34And he slashes the wood’s thickets with iron,
and Lebanon trees thunderously fall.
CHAPTER 10 NOTES
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1. writs. Revocalizing the Masoretic mekhatvim, “indite,” as mikhtavim.
2. to tilt from their cause the poor. The standard biblical idiom for perversion of justice is to tilt judgment or a case, but in this variation, the poor are the object of the verb, tilted away from their own legitimate cause or case.
3. where will you leave your glory? The interpretation sometimes proposed of the noun kavod as “body” is strained. The malefactors in their desperate flight must leave behind their “glory”—their fine houses and fields, all their accumulated substance.
4. kneel beneath the captive. Although emendations have often been proposed for this phrase, there is a coherent image here, if phrased a bit cryptically: these doomed people will be taken in captivity (presumably, by Assyrian invaders); some will fall under the feet of other captives in a forced march of those taken by the conquerors; others will perish among those killed in battles.
7. But he shall not imagine so. The Assyrians collectively, or their king, do not realize that they are merely God’s instrument for punishing His people; as the lines that follow spell out, they arrogantly assume it is all the consequence of their power.
8. Are not my commanders all of them kings? This is a peerless army of warrior-noblemen, in which every field commander is a king.
9. Calno … Carchemish … Hamath … Arpad. These are all cities to the east that have fallen to the Assyrian onslaught. Aram is the westernmost of them, and if it is conquered, that will surely be the fate of its Israelite ally Samaria.
10. worthless kingdoms. This translation follows the scholarly consensus that ʾelil in the singular here means “without value” or “insignificant,” and not “idol.”
11. ungods. Here we have the plural of ʾelilim, which appears often in the Bible and is probably a polemic antipagan derogatory coinage, playing on ʾel, “god,” and ʾal, “not,” or perhaps rather a mocking diminutive, “godlet.”
13. brought down to the dust. The received text reads ka’bir, of doubtful meaning. The translation supposes instead beʿafar, “into the dust.” Bringing down into the dust is a recurrent biblical idiom and makes good sense here.
15. Should the axe boast over its wielder. These words begin God’s rejoinder to the boast of the Assyrian king. The king is no more than a tool in God’s hand, and the analogies of the axe and saw make the boasting transparently absurd.
the one not-wood. This sounds a little awkward (perhaps even in the Hebrew), but the phrasing is to make a point: the club is inert, insensate wood, not conscious flesh and blood like its wielder.
16. a burning shall rage. This is both metaphor and literal referent: the invading army puts fields and towns to the torch.
17. Israel’s Light. In context, this is an epithet for God.
18. from life-breath to flesh. This phrase, literally representing the Hebrew, seems odd in connection with a forest, but it is in all likelihood an idiomatic expression for the whole thing, through and through (a little like the English “body and soul”), and so perhaps may be extended to inanimate objects.
20. him who strikes them. Here the striker is not God but foreign powers.
21. to mighty God. It should be noted that the Hebrew phrase here, ʾel gibor, is the same one attached to the ideal Davidic king in 9:5, but in this case the referent has to be God. It is possible that the occurrence of the epithet here may have triggered a scribal reversal of gibor ʾel in 9:5.
22. if your people Israel be like the sand of the sea. This is the language of God’s repeated covenantal promise to Abraham in Genesis, but now only a small saving remnant is to survive.
26. like the striking down of Midian at the Rock of Oreb. The story is told in Judges 7:25.
His rod over the sea. The reference is to the parting of the Sea of Reeds (Exodus 14), and the rod is raised by Moses.
bear him off like the way of Egypt. In the account in Exodus, the entire Egyptian army is drowned in the Sea of Reeds.
like the way of Egypt. The Hebrew says merely “the way of Egypt.” The reference appears to be the Assyrian defeat of Egypt in more than one battle, and not on Egyptian soil.
27. He shall come up from the desert. The received text is not intelligible at this point. It reads, literally, “a yoke from oil.” The present translation supposes instead of these three Hebrew words, ʿol mipney-shamen, a text that showed ʿalah miyeshimon. This is necessarily conjectural but more likely than the garbled Masoretic version. These words would then mark the beginning of a new prophecy, the scary description of the advance of the Assyrian invaders through the land. Their itinerary is spelled out in the place-names of the next two verses. The Assyrian army swoops down from the north, arriving at the capital city of Judah in verse 32. There is scholarly debate as to which Assyrian expedition is invoked. Blenkinsopp opts for the one of 713–711 B.C.E., a decade after the destruction of the northern kingdom.
33. treetops … the tall ones. The imagery here picks up the theme of bringing down the high and mighty that is prominent in chapter 2. The Lebanon trees of the concluding verse are part of this same pattern.
1And a shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
a branch shall bloom from his roots.
2And the spirit of the LORD shall rest on him,
a spirit of wisdom and insight,
a spirit of counsel and valor,
a spirit of knowledge and fear of the LORD,
his very breath in the fear of the LORD.
3And not by what his eyes sees shall he judge,
and not by what his ears hear shall he render verdict.
4And he shall judge the poor in justice
and render right verdict for the lowly of the land.
5And he shall strike the land with the rod of his mouth,
with the breath from his lips put the wicked to death.
And justice shall be the belt round his waist,
faithfulness the belt round his loins.
6And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard lie down with the kid.
And the calf and the lion shall feed together,
a little lad leading them.
7And the cow and the bear shall graze,
together their young shall lie,
and the lion like cattle eat hay.
8And an infant shall play by a viper’s hole,
and on an adder’s den
9They shall do no evil nor act ruinously
in all My holy mountain.
For the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD
as water covers the sea.
10And on that day
the root of Jesse that is standing
shall become a banner for nations.
Nations shall seek him out,
and his resting place shall be glory.
11And it shall happen on that day,
the Master shall pull in His hand once more
to take back His people’s remnant
that will remain from Assyria and Egypt
and from Patros and from Cush and from Elam
and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the coastlands.
12And He shall raise a banner to the nations,
and gather the banished of Israel
and the dispersed of Judah He shall assemble
from the four corners of the earth.
13And the envy of Ephraim shall vanish,
and the foes of Judah be cut off.
Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
nor Judah be hostile to Ephraim.
14And they shall swoop on the flank of the Philistines by the sea,
together they shall plunder the Easterners.
Edom and Moab shall be subject to them,
and the Ammonites under their sway.
15And the LORD shall dry up the tongue of Egypt’s sea
and wave His hand over the Euphrates with His fierce wind
and strike it into seven wadis,
that one may trod upon it dry-shod.
16And it shall become a highway for His people’s remnant
that will remain from Assyria,
as it was for Israel
on the day it came up from the land of Egypt.
CHAPTER 11 NOTES
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2. the spirit of the LORD shall rest on him. There is a phonetic link between ruaḥ, “spirit,” and naḥah, “rest,” through the alliteration of the consonant ḥet. The choice of the verb is apt: the spirit descends gently on the ideal ruler to come. This noun is then repeated another three times in an emphatic anaphora.
his very breath. The Hebrew here is literally a verbal noun (“his breathing,” “his smelling”?) that has somewhat perplexed interpreters, but the context indicates a sense like the one proposed in this translation. One should note that this verb reflects the same root as the reiterated word for “spirit.”
3. And not by what his eyes see. This is reminiscent of God’s words to Samuel, which have to do with making the right choice, that is, David, for the kingship: “For man sees with the eyes and the LORD sees with the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). The ideal king breathes the spirit of the LORD, and that, rather than appearances, guides him in judgment.
5. he shall strike the land with the rod of his mouth. The formulation is a pointed oxymoron: striking the land and (in the second verset) killing the wicked are violent acts, but this king will somehow realize these ends necessary to justice through speech, in keeping with the spirit of the LORD that has rested on him.
justice … the belt round his waist. This extends the idea of the preceding line because a firmly encircled belt round the waist is what one wears going into battle.
6. And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb. The famous lines that begin with this phrase are a vivid reflection of the fondness for hyperbole manifested in Prophetic poetry. It is unlikely that the prophet literally envisaged a radical transformation of the order of nature in which carnivores would become pacific herbivores, but all this serves as a striking image for an ideal state when all violence will come to an end.
shall feed. The received text reads umeriʾ, “and a fatling,” but two ancient versions provide warrant for yimrʾu, “shall feed,” and the context seems to require a verb.
7. hay. The Hebrew teven generally means “straw” (as in its repeated use for brickmaking in the Exodus story), but since straw is not edible, “hay” would be the plausible English equivalent here.
8. put his hand. The Hebrew verb occurs only here, and so the translation is purely an inference from the context.
10. the root of Jesse that is standing. The apparent sense is “that is still standing,” i.e., that still remains and can be regenerated. But the syntax of the line is a little confusing: in the Hebrew “shall become” immediately follows “And on that day” and thus is distant from its probable predicate, “a banner for nations.”
his resting place. This Hebrew term is often used for a place of settlement that is safe from enemies. Its choice here might be intended to resonate with the spirit of the LORD that “shall rest” on the ideal king.
11. pull in His hand. The Masoretic Text says yosif, “he will again,” but this needs to be followed by an infinitive, and there is none in this line. The translation emends the verb to yeʾesof, for which “hand” would be an idiomatic grammatical object.
from Assyria and Egypt. Although some scholars prefer to see this entire prophecy as a composition of the exilic period, it was Assyria and Egypt’s hostility that were the concern of the Judahites in the later eighth century B.C.E.
12. He shall raise a banner to the nations. Earlier, God was raising a banner to far-off nations to attack Judah, but here the situation is reversed.
the banished of Israel / and the dispersed of Judah. This might be taken as evidence of an exilic setting for this prophecy, but if it were written any time after 721 B.C.E., the prophet could have had in mind the grim fate of the northern kingdom as a signpost for what could happen imminently to the southern kingdom.
13. Ephraim. This is the northern kingdom of Israel.
14. they shall swoop on the flank of the Philistines … / they shall plunder the Easterners. The prophet envisages a united Israel and Judah striking enemies to the west, along the Mediterranean coast, and to the east, in Edom and Moab and perhaps even in Mesopotamia.
15. the tongue of Egypt’s sea. This looks like an image for the Red Sea, which is tongue-shaped.
His fierce wind. The first word baʿyam, occurring nowhere else, has defied etymological explanation, but the context suggests a sense like fierceness or power. The same word, ruaḥ, which means “spirit” above, here means “wind,” and the antithesis between a gentle spirit and a fierce devastating wind is pointed.
that one may trod upon it dry-shod. This clause completes a set of allusions to the miracle of the parting of the Sea of Reeds that runs through this and the next verse: the waving of the hand over the waters, the pushing back of the waters by a wind from God, walking where the sea was as on dry land. Here, of course, the drying up of the sea is a blight to the local inhabitants while the seabed becomes a highway for the saving remnant of Israel.
16. that will remain from Assyria. The Hebrew shows prominent sound-play: ʾasher yishaʾer meʾashur.
1And you shall say on that day:
I acclaim You, O LORD, though You raged against me,
Your wrath has withdrawn and You comforted me.
2Look, God is my deliverance,
I trust and fear not.
For my strength and my power is Yah,
and He became my deliverance.
3And you shall draw water joyously
from the springs of deliverance.
4And you shall say on that day:
“Acclaim the LORD, call upon His name.
Make known His feats to the people,
proclaim that His name is exalted.
5Hymn to the LORD for He has wrought proudly,
be it known through all the earth.
6Shout loud, sing gladly, Zion’s dweller,
for great in your midst is Israel’s Holy One.”
CHAPTER 12 NOTES
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1. I acclaim You, O LORD. The language of this poem from the very beginning recalls the common formulas of the psalms of thanksgiving. The one important difference is that the thanksgiving psalms are usually recited by, or on behalf of, an individual—for example, after recovery from a grave illness—whereas in this poem the thanksgiving is collective or national. The editorial justification for inserting such a psalm at this point is that it comes immediately after the prophecy of national renewal and regeneration in chapter 11.
2. my power. This translation follows the scholarly consensus that zimrah means “power” or “might” and is a homonym for the more common word that means “song” or “hymn.” It must be said, however, that in thanksgiving psalms the root z-m-r, which appears quite frequently, always has the sense of song. This entire line is a verbatim quotation from the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:2), which is appropriate because the earlier text is one of the great poetic celebrations of national triumph through God’s aid.
3. the springs of deliverance. Water sources are always precious in this arid region, as we are reminded in Exodus by the bringing forth of water from the rock for the thirsty people. However, this vivid poetic coinage—“the springs of deliverance”—is original to this text.
5. be it known through all the earth. This is a recurrent theme in biblical literature: God’s powerful intervention in history on behalf of the people of Israel is a manifestation of His supreme dominion over all things, and the peoples of all the earth take note of it.
1The portent about Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw in a vision.
2On a bald mountain raise a banner.
Lift up your voice to them, wave a hand,
that they enter the gates of the princes.
3I have charged the ones I have summoned,
even called forth My warriors for My wrath,
who exult in My pride.
4The sound of a crowd on the mountains,
the likeness of a vast people,
the sound of the din of kingdoms,
nations assembling.
The LORD of Armies is mustering
an army for war.
5They come from a faraway land,
from the end of the heavens—
the LORD with His anger’s weapons,
to destroy all the earth.
6Howl, for the LORD’s day is near,
as shattering from Shaddai it shall come.
7Therefore all hands shall go slack,
every human heart shall quail.
8They shall panic, and birth pangs shall seize them,
like a woman in labor they shall shudder.
They shall gaze aghast at each other,
their faces in flames.
9Look, the LORD’s day comes, ruthlessly,
anger and smoldering wrath,
to turn the earth into desolation
and expunge its offenses from it.
10For the stars in the heavens and their constellations
shall not shine with their light.
The sun shall go dark when it rises,
and the moon shall not send forth its light.
11And I will single out the world for its evil,
against the wicked for their crime,
and put an end to the pride of the arrogant,
bring low the overweening of tyrants.
12I will make man scarcer than gold,
human beings, than the gold of Ophir.
13Therefore will I shake the heavens,
and the earth shall quake from its base
in the anger of the LORD of Armies,
on the day of His smoldering wrath.
14And they shall be like a deer driven off,
like sheep that are not gathered in.
Each man shall turn to his people,
and each man shall flee to his land.
15All who are found shall be stabbed,
and all who are caught shall fall by the sword.
16Their babes shall be smashed as they look,
their homes shall be looted and their wives ravished.
17I am about to rouse the Medes against them,
who take no account of silver
and have no desire of gold.
18And with bows young men shall be pierced,
and they shall not pity infants.
Children they shall not spare.
19And Babylon, splendor of kingdoms,
the glorious pride of Chaldeans,
shall be as God’s overthrowing
of Sodom and Gomorrah.
20She shall remain without settlers forever,
have no dwellers for time without end.
And the Arab shall not pitch his tent there,
nor shepherds bed their flocks there.
21But wildcats shall lie down there,
and their homes shall be filled with owls.
And ostriches shall dwell there,
22And hyenas shall shriek in her palaces
and jackals in her mansions of pleasure.
And it is close to come now.
Her days shall not draw on.
CHAPTER 13 NOTES
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1. The portent about Babylon. The word translated as “portent,” masaʾ, has the literal sense of “burden,” which is to say, a burden of prophetic pronouncement. Some render this as “oracle,” though oracles tend to be murkier and also more strictly predictive. Babylon becomes an imperial power in the region that threatens, then destroys, the kingdom of Judah a century after Isaiah. Prophetic and other biblical books were conceived as open-ended affairs into which later materials could be introduced. Presumably, the editor felt that the portent about the doom of Babylon was in keeping with the outlook of Isaiah’s prophecies concerning Assyria. The psalm placed as chapter 12 editorially marks the end of the first large unit of the book. The present chapter begins a series of prophecies about sundry foreign nations. Most of this material is later, although it is difficult to sort out the chronology of the various units.
2. that they enter the gates of the princes. “They” are the troops of the army invading Babylon.
3. the ones I have summoned, / … My warriors for My wrath. The political reference is unclear, though in verse 17 the Medes are mentioned as the ruthless invading army, and it was in fact the Persians—conflated with Media—who toppled the Babylonian empire in the fifth century B.C.E. These warriors enacting God’s wrath sound rather like an apocalyptic, or at least supernatural, army.
4. The sound. The Hebrew word could also be read as an interjection, “hark,” although “sound” makes at least as good sense in context.
5. They come from a faraway land, / from the end of the heavens. This may be merely a hyperbolic representation of an army coming from beyond the immediate region, but it again gives the invaders an apocalyptic look.
6. shattering from Shaddai. The more literal sense is “havoc” or “despoiling,” but the translation emulates the sound-play of the Hebrew, shod mishaddai.
10. the stars in the heavens … / shall not shine with their light. This is still another striking instance in which poetic hyperbole becomes incipient apocalypse: the catastrophe about to overtake Babylon is cosmic, with the stars and the moon in the sky going dark and the sun rising without light.
12. the gold of Ophir. Ophir, in the Red Sea region, was famous for its fine gold. In the Hebrew, a different word is used in this verset for “gold”; biblical Hebrew has several poetic synonyms for gold, but English has none.
14. like a deer driven off, / like sheep. These gentle and defenseless animals are the antithesis of the warriors that Babylonians once were, and by whom they are now overwhelmed.
15. caught. The meaning of the Hebrew verb is uncertain, and thus the translation is dictated by context. Elsewhere, this word means “swept away.”
16. babes … homes … wives. The sheeplike men of Babylon are impotent to protect their most precious human and material possessions.
as they look. Literally, “before their eyes.”
18. And with bows young men shall be pierced. The Hebrew verb means “to smash,” but that is not an action performed with a bow.
20. pitch his tent. The Masoretic Text has yahel, “shine,” but two manuscripts, followed by most scholars, show instead yeʾehal, “pitch a tent.”
21. wildcats. The beasts in question have not been confidently identified; it is clear only that they are savage desert predators and probably emit a menacing sound.
satyrs. The blurring of lines between the zoological and the mythological is characteristic of biblical poetry. These creatures may be something like goat-gods.
22. in her palaces. The Masoretic Text, patently defective here, reads beʾalmenotav, “in his widows,” but three ancient versions reflect a text that showed beʾarmenoteyha, “in her palaces.”
1For the LORD shall have pity on Jacob and again shall choose Israel and set them down on their land, and the sojourner shall join them and become part of the house of Jacob. 2And peoples shall take them and bring them to their own place, and the house of Israel shall own them on the LORD’s lands as male slaves and slavegirls, and their captors shall become their captives, and they shall hold sway over their taskmasters. 3And it shall happen on the day the LORD relieves you of your pain and of your trouble and of the hard labor that was inflicted upon you, 4that you shall take up this theme concerning the king of Babylon and say:
arrogance is ended!
5The LORD has broken the wickeds’ scepter,
the rod of rulers.
6He who struck down peoples in anger
with unrelenting blows,
who held sway in wrath over nations,
pursued unsparingly.
7All the earth is calm and quiet,
bursts forth in song.
8The very cypresses rejoice over you,
“With you now laid low,
the woodsman won’t come up against us.”
9Sheol below stirs for you
to greet your coming.
It raises from their thrones
all the kings of the nations.
10They all call out and say to you:
“You, too, are stricken like us,
like us you become.
11Your pomp is brought down to Sheol,
the murmur of your lutes.
Your bed is spread with worms,
12How are you fallen from the heavens,
dominator of nations!
13And you once thought in your heart:
‘To the heavens will I ascend.
Above the eternal stars
I will raise my throne
and sit on the mount of divine council,
in the far reaches of Zaphon.
14I will climb to the tops of the clouds,
I will match the Most High.’
15But to Sheol you were brought down,
to the far reaches of the Pit.
16Those who see you stare,
they look at you:
‘Is this the man who shook all the earth,
who made kingdoms shake,
17who turned the world to wilderness,
and its towns destroyed,
his prisoners never released?’
18All the kings of nations,
all lie honorably in their homes,
19but you were flung from your grave
like a loathsome branch
clothed with the sword-slashed slain
who go down to the floor of the Pit
like a trampled corpse.
20You shall not join them in burial,
your people you slayed.
Let there be no lasting name
for the seed of evildoers!
21Ready slaughter for his sons
for their father’s crime.
Let them not rise to take hold of the earth,
and let the world be filled with towns.”
22And I will rise against them,
says the LORD of Armies,
and I will cut off from Babylon name and remnant,
23And I will make it a dwelling for herons,
and pools of water.
And I will sweep it with a broom of destruction.
says the LORD of Armies.
24The LORD of Armies has vowed, saying:
As I have devised it, surely it shall be,
and as I have planned, it shall come about:
25To break Assyria in My land,
and on My mountains I will trample him.
And his yoke will be gone from upon them
and his burden gone from their back.
26This is the plan framed for all the earth
and this the hand outstretched over all nations.
27For the LORD of Armies has devised it and who can thwart it?
His hand is outstretched and who can turn it back?
28In the year of the death of King Ahaz this portent was.
Rejoice not, Philistia, all of you,
29that the rod of him who struck you is broken.
For from the stock of a snake an asp shall come out,
and its fruit a fiery flying serpent.
30And the poor shall graze in My pastures,
and the needy shall lie down in safety.
And I will kill your root with famine,
your remnant it shall slay.
31Howl, O gate, scream, O town,
Philistia, all of you melts away.
For from the north smoke has come,
and none is alone in his ranks.
And what will he answer to a nation’s envoys?—
32that the LORD again has founded Zion,
and His people’s poor shelter there.
CHAPTER 14 NOTES
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1. set them down on their land. This formulation looks distinctly like the perspective of a prophet in the Babylonian exile.
sojourner. That is, the resident alien, someone from a different ethnic stock who lives in the community of Israelites. This notion of non-Israelites joining the community of God’s people is a recurrent theme in the late chapters of Isaiah.
2. own them on the LORD’s lands as male slaves and slavegirls. The idea that in the return to Zion the former captors of the Israelites will become their menial servants is still another emphasis of Second Isaiah.
4. you shall take up this theme concerning the king of Babylon. It is by no means clear that this prose passage concluded here is by the same hand as the poem that now follows. In any event, it is quite possible that the poem exulting over the fall of the king of Babylon was actually composed at the moment when the Persians defeated the Babylonians and put an end to their empire. But some scholars think the introductory attachment of the poem to the king of Babylon is merely editorial and that the monarch could be Sargon, who was not buried in a tomb, or Sennacharib, who was assassinated.
How is. The poem begins with the word eikhah, which usually signals the beginning of an elegy, but here instead it introduces an exultant poem celebrating the death of the tyrant.
5. scepter / … rod. The Hebrew terms can mean scepter, staff, rod, or even club, and this is a king who wielded his scepter like a club.
7. All the earth. The celebration of the tyrant’s death is universal. This is the first of three senses in which the noun ʾerets will be used in the poem.
8. the cedars of Lebanon / … you now laid low. As elsewhere, the cedars of Lebanon are proverbial for their loftiness. These lines begin a thematic swinging between high and low that underlies the structure of the poem. The lofty trees are both literal and figurative. The tyrant cut down forests for his building projects and his siege-works, and, at the same time, the cedars and cypresses are metaphors for the great ones of the earth hacked down by the Babylonian king.
9. It rouses the shades. For the most part, Sheol in the Bible is imagined as a vast and deep pit that swallows those who have died, who thus know nothing but darkness and silence after their deaths. Here, however, the poet imagines an assembly of spirits of the dead, greeting the king, an idea loosely analogous to the representation of Hades in the sixth book of the Odyssey. It is hard to know if this whole picture reflects popular belief or is rather a useful—and vivid—poetic fiction.
all the chiefs of the earth. They may have been chiefs when they were on earth, but ʾerets also means “underworld,” and so what they may be is chiefs of the kingdom of death.
11. your covers are maggots. The Hebrew shows a brilliant pun: toleʿah, “maggots,” also means “crimson cloth.” The monarch who was used to sleeping under sumptuous dyed fabric now has a blanket of worms.
12. How are you fallen from the heavens. This verset encapsulates the up-down spatial thematics of the poem.
Bright One, Son of Dawn. The appellation, of course, is heavily sarcastic; this is a sun that has set forever. The cosmic sweep of the language generated the idea among Christian interpreters that this figure is Lucifer (which means “light-bearer,” in accordance with the Hebrew), that is, Satan.
cut down. In the Hebrew, this is a term used for chopping down trees.
13. To the heavens will I ascend. This arrogant presumption links the tyrant with the Tower of Babel and many other biblical texts.
the mount of divine council, / in the far reaches of Zaphon. In Canaanite mythology, Mount Zaphon was the place of the council of the gods, like Olympus in Greek tradition.
15. brought down, / to the far reaches of the Pit. Instead of up, he goes down; instead of Mount Zaphon, the Pit.
18. in their homes. Many understand “homes” as “tombs” (compare the reference in Qohelet 12:5 to death as man’s “everlasting home”) with an eye to a neat contrast between honorable burial and being flung from the grave. But the Hebrew word does almost always mean “house” or “home,” and the contrast may be between kings sleeping peacefully in their homes and the tyrant not even sleeping in the grave. But one cannot exclude the possibility that “homes” could be a wry epithet for the grave.
19. to the floor of the Pit. The Masoretic Text has ʾavney bor, “the stones of the Pit,” which is a little puzzling. This translation reads with Blenkinsopp, ʾadney bor. The emended noun means “sockets,” and in Job 38:6 it is used for the foundations of earth.
20. for your land you laid waste. This is the third sense of ʾerets displayed in the poem.
21. Ready slaughter for his sons / for their father’s crime. Here sons are punished for the sins of fathers. In political terms, what is envisaged is a massacre of the whole royal line, a not infrequent practice when a king is overthrown.
let the world be filled with towns. Once the destructive tyrant is gone, the world can be rebuilt.
22. And I will rise against them. This clearly begins a new prophecy, connected with the previous one by the theme of the destruction of Babylon.
kith and kin. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “offspring and grandchildren.”
23. herons. The identification of the qipod is uncertain. Elsewhere it appears to mean “hedgehog” (as in modern Hebrew), but hedgehogs do not live in marshlands.
24. The LORD of Armies has vowed. This is the beginning of a third distinct prophecy in this chapter, directed to the destruction of Assyria and so perhaps composed by Isaiah son of Amoz.
25. To break Assyria in My land, / and on My mountains. The Assyrian empire will be broken in the Judahite territory it has attacked and sought to conquer.
26. the plan framed for all the earth. It is noteworthy that the poem imagines the opposition between the people of Israel and the Assyrians in a global perspective, a design affecting all the earth and all nations.
28. In the year of the death of King Ahaz. This brief prose introduction marks the fourth prophecy included in this chapter, this one directed against the Philistines.
29. the rod of him who struck you is broken. Several Assyrian kings carried out campaigns against the Philistines along the Mediterranean coast, and there is scholarly debate about which one is referred to here.
from the stock of a snake an asp shall come out. The probable reference is Assyria: though seemingly defeated, it will produce venomous successors. This understanding may be supported by the mention in verse 31 that destruction will come down from the north, the point of departure for the Assyrian forces.
fiery flying serpent. Here saraf appears to carry its full serpentine mythological weight. See the comment on verse 2 in chapter 6 regarding seraphim.
30. in My pastures. The received text shows bekhorey, “firstborn of” (the poor), which makes little sense. Some Hebrew manuscripts have bekharay, “in My pastures,” which works perfectly with the verb “graze.”
31. smoke. The clear implication is the cloud of smoke (and probably dust) over the heads of the vast invading army. It is best to understand this as an evocative ellipsis: from the distance, as the enemy approaches, only the column of smoke is visible.
and none is alone in his ranks. The Hebrew here is somewhat obscure, and there are some odd textual variants. The word translated as “ranks,” moʿadim, usually means “appointed time.” Perhaps here it might indicate “appointed forces.”
32. the LORD again has founded Zion. The Hebrew merely says “has founded,” but the implication is a new founding of Zion after the exile, just as the verb “build” is sometimes used to mean “rebuild.” These final words clearly place this text among the prophecies of national restoration composed in the Babylonian exile.
1A portent concerning Moab.
Yes, in the night was Ar sacked,
Moab was undone.
Yes, in the night it was sacked,
2They went up to the temple of Dibon,
to the high places, to weep.
For Nebo and for Medbah
Moab wails.
every beard is shorn.
3In its streets they are girt with sackcloth,
on its roofs and in its squares.
All of them are wailing,
coming down in tears.
4Heshbon and Elealeh cry out,
as far as Jahaz their voice is heard.
Therefore Moab’s picked warriors cry,
5My heart for Moab cries out,
those who flee her as far as Zoar
and Eglath Shelishiyah.
For by the Ascent of Luhith,
For on the road to Horanaim
they rouse disaster’s cry.
6For the Nimrim waters
have become a desolation.
For the grass has withered,
the vegetation gone,
the green growth is no more.
7Therefore the gains they have made and their stores
they bear off to the Wadi of Willows.
8For screaming encircles
the region of Moab.
As far as Eglaim her wail,
to Beer Eilim her wail.
9For Dimon’s waters are full of blood,
yes, I will add still more against Dimon:
for the remnant of the land.
CHAPTER 15 NOTES
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1. in the night. The Hebrew beleyl announces a kind of phonetic theme because it both alliterates and virtually rhymes with yeyeilil, “wails,” which appears in verses 2 and 3 and then twice (in noun-form) in verse 8.
Ar … Qir Moab. These are the first of a whole series of names of Moabite towns, invoked to suggest how sweeping is the destruction that overtakes the entire country.
2. They went up to the temple of Dibon. In their panic and despair, the Moabites spread out to their sundry cult-places in order to entreat their gods to help them.
Every head … is shaved. Shaving the hair is a sign of mourning.
4. their life-breath broken up. This verset is quite obscure, and the meaning of the Hebrew verb is especially doubtful.
5. My heart for Moab cries out. This is surely intended as sarcasm because the Israelite speaker is gladdened by the destruction of this traditional enemy of his people.
they go up. The Hebrew has “he goes up.” Vacillation between singular and plural is one of several sources of confusion in this poem.
7. Therefore the gains they have made and their stores. The Hebrew of this verset is crabbed, and hence any translation somewhat conjectural. What seems to be depicted is the Moabites fleeing from their towns before an unnamed enemy, carrying off whatever of their possessions they can manage to bring with them.
the Wadi of Willows. Like many of the place-names in this prophecy, the watercourse in question has resisted identification.
9. yes, I will add still more against Dimon. The Hebrew of this verset as well as its connection with the second verset is obscure. Here is a literal rendering: Yes, I will set against [or upon] Dimon and its things.
for Moab’s survivors, a lion. Numerous emendations have been proposed here, especially for the last word, none very convincing. The language is certainly cryptic but may make sense as it stands in the received text. We know from multiple biblical sources that lions proliferated in this region in the ancient period and were a menace to people and to their flocks. What the writer may have had in mind is that when the desperate Moabites flee from their towns as those towns are sacked by invaders, in the very place where they sought refuge they encounter lions and become their prey. In this understanding, the lions are what God “add[s] still more against Dimon.”
1Send a lamb
to the ruler of the land,
from the wilderness crag
to the Mount of the Daughter of Zion.
2And like a wandering bird
sent out from the nest,
the daughters of Moab shall be
at the fords of the Arnon.
3Take counsel,
weigh judgment.
Make your shade like the night
at high noon.
Shelter those driven out,
do not expose the displaced.
4Those driven from Moab
shall sojourn among you.
Be a shelter for them
against the marauder.
For oppression is over,
marauding has ended,
the tramplers are gone from the land.
5And a throne is set firm in kindness
and on it shall sit in truth
in the tent of David
one who judges and seeks justice
and is swift to do right.
6We have heard of Moab’s pride,
so very proud,
his pride and his proud anger.
7Therefore shall Moab wail for Moab,
all of it shall wail.
For the raisin cakes of Qir-Haresheth
you shall utter naught but moans.
8For the fields of Heshbon languish,
the vines of Sibmah.
pounded her tendrils.
As far as Jazer they reached,
they strayed to the desert.
Her shoots they pulled out,
they passed on to the sea.
9Therefore do I weep in the keening of Jazer,
I drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh.
For over your fig and grain harvest
10Joy and delight are gone from the farmland,
and in the vineyard no glad song or cheers.
No wine is in the presses,
the treader does not tread,
the shout is stifled.
11Therefore my heart moans like a lyre for Moab,
my inward self for Qir-Heres.
12And it shall happen that Moab will be seen unavailing on the high place, and he will come to his sanctuary and achieve nothing. 13This is the word that the LORD spoke concerning Moab in time past. 14And now the LORD has spoken, saying, “In three years, like the years of a hired worker, Moab’s glory shall be debased, despite all the great crowd, and what is left—the smallest bit, of no account.”
CHAPTER 16 NOTES
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1. Send a lamb / to the ruler of the land. The Hebrew is very cryptic. This translation is based on the guess that the ruler of the land is the governing power in Judah and that the fugitive Moabites are obliged to turn to the Judahites for help. The lamb would be some kind of tribute. But whatever historical circumstance may be invoked here is highly uncertain. Verses 3–4 appear to be an injunction to take in Moabite refugees.
3. Make your shade like the night. “Shade” here is used in its frequent metaphoric sense of “protection.”
5. a throne is set firm in kindness / and on it shall sit in truth. This line shows the device of the “break-up pattern” in which the two terms of a hendiadys are separated and placed in the two halves of the line—here, ḥesed, “kindness” (or “loyalty”) near the beginning of the first verset and ʾemet, “truth,” at the end of the second verset. The apparent connection of this verse with the preceding lines is that with a king seeking justice sitting on the throne of Judah, the Moabite refugees can expect to receive succor.
6. We have heard of Moab’s pride. Although this prophecy is linked with the previous one by the subject of Moab, the theme now is exulting over Moab’s fall, with the keening for her disaster in verses 9–11 perhaps sarcastic.
Not so are his lies. The Hebrew noun here is problematic and many different solutions have been proposed.
7. the raisin cakes. Though some see these as an element in the cult, the mention in the next verse of the vineyards signifies where grapes for fine wine were grown and suggests that the raisin cakes, a different use of grapes, were simply part of the good times before disaster overtook Moab.
8. The notables of nations. Some interpreters understand baʿaley goyim as a place-name, which in terms of its form it could conceivably be. But since the lines that follow evoke an army wreaking havoc and sweeping down to the coast, it is more likely that the phrase, as rendered here, refers to invaders, or their commanders.
9. Therefore do I weep. It is ambiguous whether the speaker expresses sympathy for the plight of Moab or whether these lines are ironic.
a shout. This is an exclamation of joy, heydad.
12. unavailing on the high place. The Moabites will go to their site of worship, a hilltop altar and sanctuary, to entreat their gods for help, but it will be unavailing.
13. This is the word that the LORD spoke concerning Moab in time past. The reference seems to be to an earlier prophecy about the destruction of Moab (perhaps the one recorded in chapter 15) that was not fulfilled. In a kind of temporal revision, the prophet now says that the destruction will come in another three years.
14. three years, like the years of a hired worker. One might infer that there were contractual arrangements—in all likelihood, for indentured servants—that fixed the term of service for three years. Just as the hired worker awaits the end of his period of service and the recompense and liberation that come at the end, the Israelites await the promised destruction of Moab.
1A portent concerning Damascus.
Damascus is to be no more a city
but shall become a heap of ruins.
2The towns of Aroer are abandoned,
become a place for flocks
that bed down there with none troubling them.
3There is an end to the forts in Ephraim
and of kingship in Damascus.
And the remnant of Aram
shall be like what Israel’s glory has become,
says the LORD of Armies.
4And it shall happen on that day,
Jacob’s glory shall turn gaunt
and the fat of his flesh become lean.
5And as he was like one who gathers standing grain,
by armfuls gleaning,
he shall be like one gathering ears of grain
6only gleanings left him, as when an olive tree is beaten,
two or three berries at the top of the bough,
four or five on the branches of the fruit-tree—
says the LORD God of Israel.
7On that day man shall turn to his Maker and his eyes shall look to Israel’s Holy One. 8And he shall not turn to the altars, his handiwork that his fingers made, and he shall not look to the cultic poles and the incense altars. 9On that day his stronghold towns shall be like the abandoned sites of Horesh and Amir that were abandoned because of the Israelites, and it shall become a desolation.
10For you have forgotten the God of your deliverance,
and you have not recalled the Rock, your stronghold.
Therefore did you plant your saplings for vegetal gods,
sow the slip of an alien god.
11The day you plant it, it will flourish,
in the morn your sowing will blossom,
but the roots become a heap on the ill-starred day,
and grievous pain.
12Woe, crowd of many peoples,
like the roar of the seas they roar.
and the clamor of nations
like the clamor of mighty waters they clamor.
13Nations like the clamor of many waters they clamor,
but He rebukes them and they flee far away,
driven like chaff in the hills before wind
and like tumbleweed in the whirlwind.
14At eventide, look—terror!
Before morning it is no more.
This is the lot of our despoilers
and the fate of our plunderers.
CHAPTER 17 NOTES
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1. Damascus. This is the capital city of Syria, or Aram, with which the northern kingdom of Israel allied itself. Hence a prophecy of the destruction of both, as their bracketing in verse 3 emphasizes.
4. Jacob’s glory shall turn gaunt. Some interpreters try to make this verset more “logical” by rendering kavod as “body,” a sense it probably does not have, or “weight,” again a dubious sense, even if the related adjective kaved does mean “heavy.” Poetic expression need not have this kind of neat consistency.
5. And as he was like one who gathers standing grain. Although this is the clear sense of this clause, it must be said that the syntax of this entire verse and the next one is quite crabbed.
the Valley of Rephaim. One infers from the context that this was a place that produced meager crops. It may be relevant that the place-name means Ghost Valley.
7. On that day man shall turn to his Maker. What leads him to turn away from the sites of idolatry to God is, as verse 8 makes clear, the destruction that will be wreaked on Israel.
10. the Rock. Though this is a common epithet for God in Psalms, the hardness of rock also forms a nice antithesis to the saplings and slips planted as part of the cult of nature gods.
saplings for vegetal gods. The Hebrew seems to say “saplings of the pleasant ones,” but naʿaman is probably a designation for Tammuz, the god who dies annually and is reborn each spring. Blenkinsopp is a bit too specific, and too Greek, in translating this as “Adonis.”
11. but the roots become a heap on the ill-starred day. Of the four Hebrew words of this verset, the only one whose meaning is certain is beyom, “on the day.”
12. Woe, crowd of many peoples. This marks a new prophecy, concerning not Damascus but the many nations that have despoiled Israel. The identification of a specific historical event has proved elusive. Although some scholars are inclined to attribute this prophecy to Isaiah, one reason to be skeptical about the attribution is that the poetry is in no way on the level of the great poetry of the book’s first chapters: both the simile of the roar of the seas and the wind-driven chaff (verse 13) are biblical clichés, and the verbatim repetition of the second half of verse 12 in the first half of 13 seems inert.
1Woe, land of the whirring wings
that is beyond the rivers of Nubia!
2That sends envoys into the sea,
in vessels of reeds on the face of the water.
to a rangy and smooth-skinned nation,
to a fearsome people from beyond,
a gibberish nation and sowing defeat,
whose land is cut through with rivers.
3All the world’s inhabitants and dwellers upon earth,
when a banner is raised in the mountains, you shall see,
and when the ram’s horn blasts, you shall hear.
4For thus said the LORD to me:
I calmly look down from My dwelling place
when the heat dazzles in the light,
when the dew-cloud is in the harvest heat.
5For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone,
and the berry has ripened, becomes the bloom,
He shall cut away twigs with pruning hooks,
lop off, take away the slack branches.
6They shall be left together for the mountain vultures,
and for the beasts of the land.
The vultures shall summer on them
and all the beasts of the land winter on them.
7All that time tribute shall be brought to the LORD of Armies from a rangy and smooth-skinned people from beyond, a gibberish nation, and sowing defeat, whose land is cut through with rivers, to the place of the name of the LORD of Armies, Mount Zion.
CHAPTER 18 NOTES
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1. land of the whirring wings. Nubia (Cush in the Hebrew), along the upper reaches of the Nile in equatorial Africa, was known for its abundance of insects, a phenomenon attested to by Herodotus. The vessels of reeds mentioned in the next verse are equally part of the poem’s evocation of the realia of a kingdom along the Nile.
2. Go, swift messengers. The messengers (malʾ akhim) are evidently a different group from the envoys (tsirim) of the preceding line. It is not clear where the Nubian envoys are heading, and different attempts have been made to line up this passage with a particular moment in the political history of the late eighth century B.C.E. The swift messengers appear to be sent out from the kingdom of Judah to announce to the Nubians the disaster about to overtake them.
a rangy and smooth-skinned nation. The Hebrew word translated as “rangy” is literally “pulled out” or “elongated,” not the usual word for “tall.” The term represented as “smooth-skinned” derives from a verbal stem that means either “polished” or “plucked.” This would be an exoticizing way to describe the tall Africans with little body hair, even though their blackness is unmentioned.
a gibberish nation. The Hebrew says “a qaw-qaw nation,” this being an onomatopoeia for unintelligible sounds, always a scary aspect of foreigners.
and sowing defeat. The Hebrew says merely “and defeat,” but something like “sowing” or “inflicting” seems to be implied. This is in other words, a powerful nation.
3. All the world’s inhabitants. The connection with the prophecy concerning Nubia may simply be that all the world’s inhabitants are invited to witness the judgment God will wreak on Nubia.
banner … ram’s horn. Both are signals for rallying armies.
4. when the heat dazzles in the light. This and all the seasonal indications that follow express the temporal imminence of God’s judgment.
5. cut away twigs. The entire agricultural metaphor points to the decimation of Nubia that is to be inflicted by God.
7. All that time. It is unusual for a statement just expressed in poetry to be repeated verbatim in prose. This could reflect an editorial addition to the text. In any case, the tribute brought to the LORD is a prophecy that the Nubians will become subject to Judah.
the place of the name of the LORD of Armies. The insertion of the superfluous “the name of” reflects a Late Biblical tendency to qualify direct assertions about YHWH by introducing “the name of” as a kind of mediation. Thus it looks suspiciously like the intervention of a later redactor.
1A portent concerning Egypt.
The LORD is about to ride on a swift cloud
and come down to Egypt.
And the ungods of Egypt shall shake before Him,
and Egypt’s heart inwardly quail.
2And I will incite Egypt against Egypt,
and each man shall battle his brother, each man his fellow,
town against town, kingdom against kingdom.
3And Egypt’s spirit shall be sapped within it,
and its counsel I will confound.
And they shall seek out the ungods and the shades
and the ghosts and the familiar spirits.
4And I will hand Egypt over to a harsh master,
and a fierce king shall rule over them,
says the Master LORD of Armies.
5And water shall be drained from the sea,
the river turn dry and parched.
6And canals shall fall into neglect,
Egypt’s watercourses drained and dried up.
Rush and reed shall wither,
7laid bare at the Nile,
alongside the Nile,
And all that is planted by the Nile
shall wither, blow away, be no more.
8And the fishermen shall lament and keen,
all who cast hooks into the Nile,
and those spreading nets on the water shall be forlorn.
9And the flax workers shall be distraught,
carters and weavers turn pale.
10And her foundations shall be crushed,
all who build dams be downcast.
11The princes of Zoan are but fools,
the wisest councillors of Pharaoh give witless counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh:
I am the son of sages,
the son of ancient kings?
12Where then are your sages?
Let them tell you, pray, and let them know
what the LORD of Armies devised against Egypt.
13The princes of Zoan have been fools,
the princes of Noph are deceived.
The chiefs of her tribes have led Egypt astray.
14The LORD has poured into her a twisted spirit,
and they have led Egypt astray in all it does,
as a drunkard strays into his vomit.
15And there shall be nothing to do for Egypt,
neither head nor tail, palm branch nor reed.
16On that day, Egypt shall be like women, and tremble and fear from the raised hand that the LORD of Armies raises against it. 17And the land of Judah shall become a terror to Egypt. Whoever mentions it to them shall be afraid because of the counsel of the LORD of Armies that He devises against them. 18On that day, five cities in the land of Egypt shall speak the language of Canaan and shall swear to the LORD of Armies. The City of the Sun it shall be said of one of them. 19On that day the altar of the LORD shall be in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar at its border to the LORD. 20And it shall become a sign and a witness for the LORD of Armies in the land of Egypt that when they cry out to the LORD because of oppressors, He sends them a deliverer and one who contests for them, and He shall save them. 21And the LORD shall become known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the LORD on that day, and they shall worship with sacrifice and grain offering and make a vow to the LORD and fulfill it. 22And the LORD shall strike Egypt with plagues, plaguing and healing, and they shall turn back to the LORD, and He shall hear their entreaty and heal them. 23On that day there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria shall come into Egypt and Egypt into Assyria, and Egypt shall worship with Assyria. 24On that day Israel shall be a third partner with Egypt and with Assyria, as a blessing in the midst of the earth. 25Which the LORD of Armies conferred, saying, “Blessed are My people Egypt and My handiwork Assyria and Israel my estate.”
CHAPTER 19 NOTES
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1. ride on a swift cloud. The mythological image of the deity mounted on a cloud derives from Canaanite poetry and appears in several of the biblical psalms.
2. kingdom against kingdom. This is sometimes interpreted as a clash between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Egypt. Others see here a reference to the different districts of Egypt ruled by different princes.
3. the shades / and the ghosts. Egypt was famous for its cult of the dead.
4. the Master LORD of Armies. The first epithet for God here aggressively picks up the “harsh master” at the beginning of the verse.
5. And water shall be drained. Biblical writers often look with envy on Egypt’s abundant sources of irrigation from the Nile and elsewhere, which are a striking contrast to the land of Israel, dependent as it is on rainfall. This gives a special edge to the prophecy in the next verse of an Egypt “drained and dried up.”
7. laid bare at the Nile. The translation reproduces the elliptic syntax of the Hebrew.
11. the wisest councillors … give witless counsel. A verb appears to have dropped out in the Hebrew, or perhaps “give” is meant to be implied. Egypt was renowned for exercising wisdom, but here the wisdom fails.
15. neither head nor tail, palm branch nor reed. These are two different idioms with the sense of through and through, from top to bottom, one expression referring to the human body and the other to a plant.
16. On that day. These words begin a series of five “on that day” prose prophecies, regarded by most scholars as later additions. One should keep in mind that the Prophetic books grew by a process of sedimentation, later writers responding to earlier texts and composing prophecies in their spirit.
17. And the land of Judah shall become a terror to Egypt. This bold statement of Judahite triumphalism reflects no known or ever likely historical reality.
18. the land of Egypt shall speak the language of Canaan and shall swear to the LORD of Armies. The language of Canaan is probably Hebrew. The notion that the Egyptians will become worshippers of the God of Israel might have been encouraged by a time when there was a large and vigorous diaspora community in Egypt, which would have been the case at least as early as the fifth century B.C.E. Proposals to locate any of these prophecies as late as the second century B.C.E. are unconvincing.
The City of the Sun. The Masoretic Text reads “the City of Destruction,” ʿir heres, but some Hebrew manuscripts as well as several ancient translations read instead, more plausibly, ʿir ḥeres, “the City of the Sun,” which is probably the Egyptian Heliopolis. The scribal error would have been caused by the fact that ḥeres is a rather rare synonym for “sun” and by the context of destruction created in the previous prophecy.
21. And the LORD shall become known to Egypt. Here the utopian fantasy of the Egyptians embracing the faith of Israel is made explicit.
22. strike Egypt with plagues. The writer of course has in mind the precedent of the Ten Plagues, though in this case the afflictions impel the Egyptians to turn to YHWH.
23. there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. This idea of a royal road joining the two great warring empires that long threatened Israel and the creation of a God-fearing triple partnership of Egypt, Assyria, and Israel to be a blessing to all the earth is the most extravagant utopian fantasy of all the prophecies in this chapter. It is by no means clear whether it is relatively early or late, although Assyria might not have been much of an issue for a later writer.
1In the year Tartan came to Ashdod when Sargon king of Assyria sent him, and he battled against Ashdod and captured it. 2At that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loosen the sackcloth from your loins and take off your sandals from your feet.” And so he did, going naked and barefoot. 3And the LORD said, “As my servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years, it is a sign and portent for Egypt and for Nubia. 4Just so shall the king of Assyria drive off the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Nubia, lads and elders, naked and barefoot with bare buttocks—the nakedness of Egypt. 5And they shall be dismayed and ashamed of Nubia, in which they trusted, and of Egypt, their glory. 6And the dweller of this coastland shall say on that day: ‘Why, if it is thus with those we looked to, to whom we fled for help to be saved before the king of Assyria, how shall we escape?’”
CHAPTER 20 NOTES
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1. In the year Tartan came to Ashdod when Sargon king of Assyria sent him. This notation refers to an actual historical event. In 714 B.C.E. the coastal city of Ashdod rebelled against Assyria. Sargon dispatched a force against Ashdod under the command of Tartan, and in 711 the rebellion was suppressed, its leader taken prisoner, and the city reduced to subject status. All this leads one to suspect that precisely at this moment, Isaiah undertook the symbolic act spelled out in the following verses, even though it is directed to the fate of Egypt and Nubia, not Ashdod.
2. going naked and barefoot. This kind of symbolic act performed by the prophet at God’s behest occurs a number of times in Hosea and Ezekiel, but this is the sole instance in Isaiah.
4. Just so shall the king of Assyria drive off the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Nubia. It should be kept in mind that this was a period of repeated armed confrontation between Assyria and Egypt, with inner divisions in Judah between pro-Egyptian groups and those who sought to pursue accommodation with Assyria.
captives … exiles. The Hebrew uses abstractions (“captivity,” “exile”) to indicate persons.
with bare buttocks. It was unclear how complete Isaiah’s “nakedness” was. Now, however, this detail is added that strongly emphasizes the shameful exposure of the Egyptians.
the nakedness of Egypt. The term is used both literally and figuratively. The exiles stripped of their garments are literally naked, while “the land’s nakedness,” a phrase Joseph uses to his brothers referring to Egypt, means that which should not be exposed, or in this case, the shame of Egypt.
5. in which they trusted. The received text has mabatam, “their look,” but the Qumran Isaiah reads mivtaham, “their trust.” The scribal error was probably influenced by the appearance of mabat in the next verse.
1A portent concerning the Desert of the Sea.
As storms sweep the Negeb
from the desert he comes, from a fearsome land.
2A harsh vision has been told me:
the traitor betrays, the despoiler despoils.
Go up, Elam, lay siege, Media,
all her groaning I have ended.
3Therefore my loins are filled with shuddering.
Pangs have siezed me, like birth pangs.
I am too contorted to hear,
too dismayed to see.
4My heart has gone astray,
spasms dismay me.
My evening of revels
has turned to terror.
5From “lay the table” to “let the watchman watch,”
from “eat and drink” to “rise, commander, burnish shield with oil.”
6For thus said the Master to me:
who will see and tell.
7And he shall see a rider,
a pair of horsemen,
a rider on a donkey,
a rider on a camel.
And he shall listen intently,
with great intentness.
8And the seer shall call out:
“On the Master’s lookout
I stand perpetually by day
and on my watch I am stationed all through the nights.
9And look, it is coming—
a man riding, a pair of horsemen.”
And He answered and said:
“Babylon surely has fallen
and all its gods’ idols He has dashed to the ground.
10My threshing and what falls on the granary floor!”
What I heard from the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, I have told you.
11A portent concerning Dumah.
To me someone calls from Seir:
“Watchman, what of the night,
12The watchman said: “The morning comes,
and night as well.
If you would ask, do ask,
turn back, come.”
13A portent in Arabia.
you lodge, Dedonite caravans.
14To meet the thirsty
bring water.
The dwellers of the land of Tema
greet the fugitives with bread.
15For they are fugitives before the sword,
before the drawn sword
and before the bent bow
16For thus did the Master say to me: “In another year, like the year of a hired worker, Kedar’s glory shall be gone. 17And the remnant of the number of Kedar’s warrior bowmen shall dwindle, for the LORD God of Israel has spoken.”
CHAPTER 21 NOTES
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1. the Desert of the Sea. This sounds rather like an oxymoron, and attempts to explain it are uncertain. Perhaps the best scholarly guess is that it refers to a Mesopotamian marsh region, which would have been Assyrian territory at the time of Isaiah, or under Babylon later.
from the desert he comes. The one coming would be the invader.
2. go up, Elam, lay siege, Media. The historical reference of this prophecy being unclear, all one can say is that these are two Mesopotamian peoples. Since Media–Persia overwhelmed Babylonia, it could be that the object of attack is Babylonia. Babylon is in fact mocked in the last line of this poem.
all her groaning I have ended. The “her” would logically refer to Elam and Media, though those should have a plural referent (unless they are viewed collectively). Some scholars emend the Hebrew word for “groaning” to “joy,” which would then be attached more neatly to the object of the invasion.
3. Therefore my loins are filled with shuddering. Here and in what follows the speaker of the prophecy appears to identify imaginatively with the kingdom about to be devastated.
5. From “lay the table” to “let the watchmen watch.” The Hebrew lacks both “from” and to.” This translation follows the proposal of the New Jewish Publication Society version.
burnish shield with oil. The shields were leather, sometimes studded with metal. Rubbing the front surface with oil made them slippery and more of an obstacle to the enemy. In any case, the thrust of both lines is a switch from peaceful enjoyment to war.
6. post a watchman. Some interpreters take the watchman as a figure for the prophet, but this could as easily be an actual watchman who sees the mounted attackers approaching.
7. a rider, / a pair of horsemen. These lines pick up the point of view of the lookout, who first sees one rider, then more than one.
8. And the seer shall call out. The received text reads: “And he shall call out: A lion!” This is problematic if the danger is cavalry. The Qumran Isaiah has instead of “lion,” ʾaryeh, “the seer,” haroʾ eh, which is merely a reversal of consonants, and that looks more likely.
10. My threshing and what falls on the granary floor. This line is enigmatic, but because threshing and separating the grain from the chaff are often used in biblical poetry as a metaphor for the destruction of the wicked, that may be the intention here.
What I heard from the LORD. This sentence is not part of the poem and functions as a prose epilogue to it.
11. Dumah … Seir. The kingdom referred to lies just to the east of ancient Israel: “Seir” is a poetic synonym for Edom, and “Dumah” could conceivably be a variation of Edom.
watchman, what of the night? The Hebrew has a haunting musicality, shomer mah milaylah / shomer mah mileyl, and, understandably, the phrase would often reappear in later Hebrew poetry. But one must concede that this entire short prophecy is far too fragmentary to allow us to guess what it is about. The enigma is compounded by the last line of the prophecy, “If you would ask, do ask, / turn back, come.” Linguistically, it should be noted that both the word for “ask” and the word for “come” are Aramaicisms, a usage that probably reflects a relatively late date, certainly well after the eighth-century B.C.E. setting of Isaiah.
13. in Arabia. It is puzzling that the chain of prophecies concerning foreign nations should reach as far to the southeast as Arabia (the vocalization of the name is peculiar), but Dedan and Tema, about to be mentioned, are definitely in the Arabian peninsula.
scrubland. The Hebrew yaʿ ar usually means “forest,” but there are no forests in Arabia, and here it seems likely that what is meant is a region where low bushes grow.
15. fugitives before the sword. Unfortunately, it is not feasible to say precisely who these pathetic war refugees are.
the crush of war. The literal sense of the first of these two nouns is “heaviness,” but surely something like “crush,” or “brutal pressure” is meant.
16. another year, like the year of a hired worker. Earlier, it was three years like the years of a hired worker. Either there was an alternative for an indentured servant of a one-year contract, or there was a particular—perhaps, especially rigorous—way of computing the year in such arrangements with laborers.
Kedar’s glory. Roughly, Kedar is a biblical designation for the Arab people.
17. the number of Kedar’s warrior bowmen. The Masoretic Text reads: “The number of bow, warriors of the Kedarites.” This translation supposes a scribal transposition of the original order of words, so that mispar giborey qeshet beney qedar was turned into the syntactically dubious mispar-qeshet giborey beney qedar, a syntactic string for which the present note has provided a literal translation above.
1A Valley of Vision portent.
What is wrong with you that you go up,
all of you, to the rooftops?
2The bustling town is filled with shouts,
the reveling city.
Your slain are not slain by the sword
and not dead in battle.
3All your captains have gone off,
have fled far away.
All those of you who stayed have been taken captive,
without bows have been taken captive.
4Therefore have I said
turn away from me,
let me weep bitterly.
Do not rush to console me
for the ruin of my People’s Daughter.
5For it is a day of turmoil and trampling and tumult
for the Master, LORD of Armies,
in the Valley of Vision Kir crashes about
and Shoa on the mountain.
6And Elam bore the quiver
in chariots of horsemen,
and Kir bared the shield.
7And your choicest valleys
were filled with chariots,
and the horsemen pressed hard against the gates,
8and the cover of Judah was exposed.
And you looked on that day
to the weapon-store of the Forest House.
9And the breaches of the City of David
you watched as they grew many,
and you collected the waters of the Lower Pool.
10And you counted Jerusalem’s houses
and demolished the houses to fortify the wall.
11And a basin you made between the double walls
for the waters of the Old Pool.
But you did not look to Him Who did it,
and its Fashioner from afar you did not see.
12And the Master LORD of Armies
called on that day
for weeping and keening
and shaved heads and the girding of sackcloth.
13And, look—gladness and joy,
killing of cattle and slaughtering of sheep,
eating of meat and drinking of wine—
“Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
14And in my ears the LORD of Armies was revealed:
“This crime shall not be atoned for you
until you die,” said the Master LORD of Armies.
15Thus said the Master LORD of armies:
Go in to this steward,
Shebna, who is over the house.
16What have you here and whom have you here
that you hewed yourself here a tomb?
Who hews a tomb on high
carves into the cliff an abode for himself?
17The LORD is about to shake you
as one shakes a garment, and wrap you around,
18He shall surely wind you round like a turban
away to a spacious land.
There shall you die,
and there the chariots of your honor
shall be the shame of your master’s house.
19And I will knock you away from your station
and from your stand you shall be torn.
20And on that day I shall call to my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah. 21And I shall clothe him with your robe and bind him with your sash and give your authority in his hand. And he shall become a father for the dwellers of Jerusalem and for the house of Judah. 22And I shall place the key of the house of David on his shoulder, and when he opens, none shall lock, and when he locks, none shall open. 23And I shall affix him as a peg in a solid place, and he shall be a seat of honor for his father’s house. 24And they shall hang upon him all the honor of his father’s house, the offspring and the sprouts, all the smallest vessels, from the basins to every kind of bowl. 25On that day, said the LORD of Armies, the peg affixed in a solid place shall give way and be cut down, and the load that was on it shall be destroyed, for the LORD has spoken.
CHAPTER 22 NOTES
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1. Valley of Vision. Attempts to identify this place have been unavailing, though since this prophecy concerns Jerusalem, it seems likely that this is a valley in the vicinity of Jerusalem.
What is wrong with you that you go up, / … to the rooftops. Going up to the rooftops, perhaps to conduct parties in the fine weather, is part of the reveling of the city, unmindful of the disaster about to overtake it.
2. Your slain are not slain by the sword. The reference is unclear. Perhaps, with the military commanders having run off (verse 3), there has been internecine fighting among the remaining population, resulting in deaths.
3. without bows. The Hebrew seems to say “from bows” or “by bows,” but the prefix mi sometimes has the sense of “without.” This would accord with “your slain are not slain by the sword.”
4. my People’s Daughter. People, city, and land are often figured as a “daughter” or “young woman.”
5. turmoil and trampling and tumult. The translation emulates the strong alliteration (but not the rhyming) of the Hebrew mehumah umevusah umevukhah.
Kir crashes about. This is again sound-play in the Hebrew: qir meqarqer. Kir, Shoa, and Elam are far to the east, and perhaps they are imagined—whether accurately or not—as contingents in the attacking Assyrian army.
8. the cover of Judah was exposed. The term for “cover,” masakh, is used for the cover of the Ark of the Covenant. This has led some scholars to a theological interpretation: God’s protective cover has been taken away. Others see a reference to a fortress protecting the approach to Jerusalem.
the weapon-store of the Forest House. The Forest House was a cedar-paneled armory within the palace (see 1 Kings 7:2–5, where it is called the Lebanon Forest House). The weapons kept there appear to have been ornamental, but in the desperation of the siege, here they are taken up for use in combat.
9. you collected the waters of the Lower Pool. Under siege, maintaining a source of water was vital for survival. A tunnel was built—many still think, by Hezekiah, king at this time—to bring in the water of the Siloam brook into the city.
11. Him Who did it, /… its Fashioner from afar. The people who undertook these emergency measures in time of siege assumed it was their own doing and failed to recognize that God, unseen (“from afar”), was directing them.
12. shaved heads. Whether or not the Israelites made this pagan gesture of mourning part of their own practice, it is an inseparable part of the poetic language of mourning.
13. And, look—gladness and joy. The Jerusalemites, instead of recognizing that they are facing catastrophe, continue their revels (going up to the rooftops), making the famous declaration that would become proverbial, “Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
14. This crime shall not be atoned for you / until you die. Many scholars conclude that this entire prophecy refers to Sennacherib’s assault on Jerusalem in 701 B.C.E. After ravaging the countryside and destroying many of the towns (see chapter 1), his army laid siege against Jerusalem but then suddenly departed (see 2 Kings 19). If this is in fact the event in view here, Isaiah is taking the position that the city will yet feel the weight of a terrible divine justice.
15. Thus said the Master LORD of Armies. These words signal the beginning of a new prophecy, directed to Shebna, a high palace official (“who is over the house,” that is, the house of the king or the palace). Shebna appears in the narrative of the siege in 2 Kings 19; however, there he is assigned a different title.
16. hewed yourself here a tomb. Tombs for the aristocracy were typically in niches or caves.
18. wind you round like a turban. Others understand this as “fling like a ball,” but the Hebrew verb ts-n-f clearly means to wind round, not to fling, and the end of the previous line with the verb “to wrap” supports the sense of a garment. In light of this context, the translation of verse 17 adopts a proposed emendation of the Masoretic gever, “man,” which appears after “shakes,” to begged, “garment.”
19. your station / … your stand. These terms are a direct reference to Shebna’s position in the palace bureaucracy.
21. I shall clothe him. The reference here to the robe and sash of royal office is surely meant to pick up the negative garment metaphors of verses 17–18.
a father. This is a term of political authority.
22. the key … on his shoulder. These ancient keys were very large, and usually wooden, so placing a key on a shoulder, perhaps held by a strap, would make sense.
the house of David. This is the royal palace.
23. a seat of honor for his father’s house. These words are a pointed antithesis to the depiction of the exiled Shebna in verse 18, “the chariots of your honor / shall be the shame of your mother’s house.”
24. the offspring and the sprouts. There is some doubt about the meaning of both Hebrew nouns, especially the second one.
25. the peg affixed in a solid place shall give way. This entire verse is a blatant contradiction of the glowing prophecy concerning Eliakim’s displacement of Shebna, and one must conclude that a later editor, aware of a disaster that had befallen Eliakim, added these dire words.
1A portent concerning Tyre.
Wail, O Tarshish ships,
When they came from the land of Kittim,
it was revealed to them.
2Be still, you coastland dwellers,
traders of Sidon.
3over the many waters.
Grain of Shihor, harvest of the Nile, her yield,
and she became the trade of nations.
4Be ashamed, Sidon,
for the sea has said,
the stronghold of the sea:
“I did not labor, did not give birth,
and I did not nurture young men,
nor raise up virgin girls.”
5When Egypt heard of it,
they shook as when hearing of Tyre.
6Pass on to Tarshish,
wail, you coastland dwellers.
7Is this your reveling one,
from days of yore, her ancient past,
whose feet led her
to sojourn far away?
8Who has counseled this
whose traders are nobles,
her merchants notables of the land?
9The LORD of Armies counseled it
to profane the pride of all splendor,
to debase all notables of the land.
10Pass through your land like the Nile,
O Daughter of Tarshish—
11His hand He stretched over the sea,
He made kingdoms quake.
The LORD has charged concerning Canaan
to destroy her strongholds.
12And He said: You shall no longer revel,
oppressed Virgin Daughter of Sidon.
Rise, cross over to Kittim.
There, too, you shall have no respite.
13Look, the land of the Chaldeans,
this is the people that is no more.
Assyria founded it for ships,
they put up their siege-towers,
laid waste its citadels,
turned it into ruins.
14Wail, O Tarshish ships,
for your stronghold has been sacked.
15And it shall happen on that day that Tyre shall be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of a single king. At the end of the seventy years it shall be with Tyre as the song about the whore:
16Take up a lyre, go round the town,
so that you remember.
17And it shall happen at the end of the seventy years that God shall single out Tyre, and she shall go back to her whore’s pay and go whoring with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. 18But her trade and her whore’s pay shall be consecrated to the LORD. It shall not be stocked and shall not be stored, but her trade shall be for those dwelling before the LORD, eating their fill, and for rich attire.
CHAPTER 23 NOTES
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1. for their house is sacked. The Masoretic Text reads mibayit, “from within” (or “from a house”). This translation assumes that a scribe inadvertently transposed a mem at the end of the word, which would be a possessive plural suffix, to the beginning, and that the original text had beytam.
When they came from the land of Kittim, / it was revealed to them. Some scholars identify the land of Kittim with Cyprus, although that is not entirely certain. In any case, the Phoenicians were great seafaring merchants, as this poem repeatedly reminds us; what is envisioned here is that one such party of merchants, on their return from a Mediterranean voyage, discover that their city has been devastated.
2. Be still. Many interpreters argue that the meaning of this verb is “moan” or “howl,” in consonance with “wail” at the beginning of the first line of the poem. A supposed Akkadian cognate is cited as evidence. But the word domu everywhere else means “to be still,” or “silent,” and there is no reason that the poet could not have imagined two antithetical responses to disaster—wailing and then dumbfounded silence.
Your agents. The translation emends milʾ ukh, “they filled you,” to malʾ akhayikh, “your agents.”
3. Shihor … Nile. Both names refer to the same river. The second might be an editorial gloss on the first or a simple poetic apposition.
4. I did not labor, did not give birth. The point of this speech is not entirely clear, but since in prophecies of destruction, young men (baḥurim) and virgins (betulot) are often said to be killed, they being the icons of a people’s pride and joy, what the sea may be saying is: I had no part in bringing these young men and women into the world and rearing them, so if they have perished, it is not my affair.
5. as when hearing of Tyre. This probably means that “it” refers to the destruction of Sidon, the other chief Phoenician city, and that the report of the destruction of Tyre reached Egypt first.
7. Is this your reveling one, / … whose feet led her / to sojourn far away? Tarshish (verse 6) would have been one of the distant Mediterranean ports to the west plied by Phoenician ships. The Phoenicians in fact were great colonizers, establishing major centers in North Africa and as far away as Spain.
8. crowned Tyre. The Hebrew maʿ atirah is, more literally, “crown-wearing.”
10. Pass through your land like the Nile. This might mean: just as the Nile runs through all of Egypt, Tyre is enjoined to pass through all her land.
there is no more a harbor. The meaning of the word rendered as “harbor” is not entirely certain, but this sense seems likely. For Tyre, a coastal city dependent on seafaring trade, to be without a harbor is the ultimate sign of devastation.
11. Canaan. This reference may seem anomalous, but there is no textual warrant for changing it to the name of one of the Phoenician cities. It may simply be the case that the poet viewed the coastal stretch from Canaan north into Phoenicia as a single continuum, a notion echoed in the modern scholarly usage that speaks of a “Syro-Canaanite” culture.
12. There, too, you shall have no respite. The distant regions that were either trading partners or sites of colonization for the Phoenicians now can offer them neither refuge nor comfort.
13. the land of the Chaldeans. The switch of viewpoint to Mesopotamia is intended to offer an object lesson to Sidon and Tyre: just as the Chaldeans became a “people that is no more,” so now will be the fate of the Phoenicians. It must be said that scholarly attempts to tie in this prophecy of the destruction of Tyre and Sidon with a particular historical event have not been convincing, and it could be that this is all a kind of prophetic fantasy rather than the report of an event.
15. the song about the whore. This is a rare moment when the prophet incorporates a piece of the popular culture of his times into his text, though from the two lines quoted, it is difficult to recover the narrative content of the song.
16. forgotten whore. The implication seems to be that she is a whore who has long been neglected by her clients, perhaps because she is past her prime.
Play sweetly many songs, / so that you remember. This image is clearly plaintive: the forgotten whore is enjoined to play the lyre and sing songs—perhaps love songs—that will help her recall the days gone by when she was much sought after.
17. her whore’s pay. Despite the effort of most translations to bowdlerize this as “trade” or “free,” the unambiguous meaning of the Hebrew ʾetnan is payment received by a prostitute for her sexual services. The Israelites, a nation of farmers and pastoralists in the earlier biblical period, viewed the trade-based economy of their northern neighbors as an activity of shady dealing, a kind of prostitution. Tyre is imagined, after a canonical period of seventy years following her destruction, renewing her former trade ties, returning to her old whoring ways.
18. But her trade and her whore’s pay shall be consecrated to the LORD. How this will come about is in no way explained. Somehow, the again prosperous Tyre will funnel her profits to Judah, enabling a life of luxury for the people dwelling in the LORD’s presence (the sense of “before the LORD”), which is to say, in the vicinity of the Jerusalem temple.
1The LORD is about to sap the earth and strip it,
contort its face and scatter its dwellers.
2And the plain people shall be like the priest,
the slave like his master, the slavegirl like her mistress,
the buyer like the seller, the lender like the borrower,
the creditor like him who seeks credit.
3Sapped, yes, sapped shall the land be,
and plundered, yes plundered,
for the LORD has spoken this thing.
4The earth is bleak, has withered,
forlorn, the world has withered,
the heights of the earth’s folk forlorn.
5And the earth is tainted beneath its dwellers,
for they transgressed teachings, flouted law,
broke the eternal covenant.
6Therefore has a curse consumed the earth,
and all its dwellers are mired in guilt.
Therefore earth’s dwellers turn pale,
and but a few humans remain.
7The new wine is flat,
the vine forlorn,
all the merry-hearted groan.
8The gladness of timbrels is gone,
the revelers’ clamor ended,
the lyre’s gladness has gone.
9With no song do they drink wine,
strong drink turns bitter to its drinkers.
10The futile city has been broken,
every house is closed to entrance.
11A scream over wine in the streets,
on all joy the sun has set,
the earth’s gladness has gone away.
12In the town desolation remains,
and the gate is smashed to ruins.
13For thus shall it be in the midst of the earth,
in the heart of the peoples,
as olives are beaten,
like gleanings as the harvest is done.
14It is they who shall raise their voice, sing gladly,
in God’s grandeur they shall shout out from the sea,
15In the coastlands of the sea,
the name of the LORD, God of Israel.
16From the edge of the earth,
we have heard songs: splendor to the righteous.
And I said: I have a secret, I have a secret—woe is me.
Traitors betrayed, in betrayal betrayed.
17Terror and pitfall and trap
against you, dweller of the land!
18And who flees from the sound of terror
shall fall into the pit
and who gets up from the pit shall be caught in the trap.
19Shattered, the earth is shattered,
all broken to pieces the earth,
toppled, the earth has toppled.
20Reeling, the earth reels like a drunkard
and rocks back and forth like a hut.
And its crime lies heavy upon it—
it has fallen and no longer shall rise.
21And it shall happen on that day,
the LORD shall punish the heavenly hosts on high
and the kings of earth on the earth.
22They shall be rounded up as prisoners in a pit
and locked up a dungeon,
and after many days shall be punished.
23And the moon shall be shamed
and the sun disgraced,
for the LORD of Armies has become king on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and before His elders is His glory.
CHAPTER 24 NOTES
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1. The LORD is about to sap the earth and strip it. After the series of prophetic pronouncements on the sundry foreign nations that began in chapter 13, these words mark the beginning of a new large unit that runs to the end of chapter 27. In the judgment of most scholars it is at the very least a century and a half later than Isaiah son of Amoz, but this prophet is also a strong poet. His perspective at points is incipiently apocalyptic but lacks some of the features of full-fledged apocalypse that one finds in the very late Daniel. Yet in keeping with this prophet’s cosmic outlook, ʾerets here means “earth” rather than “land.” This is a poet who exhibits a vigorous inventiveness in emphatic sound-play. Thus, “sap” and “strip” in this translation are only a pale approximation of boqeq and bolqah in the Hebrew.
2. And the plain people shall be like the priest. As the catastrophe descends, all social and economic distinctions are erased.
4. the earth … / the world. The poetic parallelism of haʾarets and tevel (the latter term designates all the inhabited world) is linguistic evidence that the former term is used by this poet to mean “earth,” not “land.”
5. the earth is tainted beneath its dwellers. This is a recurrent biblical notion—that corrupt behavior pollutes the earth. It is perhaps because of this that the earth must be broken to pieces (verses 19–20).
6. earth’s dwellers turn pale. The received text appears to say “are incensed” (ḥaru), but turning pale in terror is the appropriate response here, not anger. This translation reads, with the Qumran Isaiah, ḥawru, which means “to turn pale.”
10. The futile city. The qualifier of “city” here, tohu, can mean “chaos,” but its meaning extends to formlessness, pointlessness, futility; and something like “futile city” seems the most likely sense. Attempts to identify this place with a particular historical city have themselves proved futile, and it may be rather a paradigmatic or symbolic city where the earth’s dwellers are engulfed by the catastrophe their actions have brought upon them.
11. A scream over wine in the streets. Wine is supposed to gladden the heart, but in this dire moment, it has turned bitter in the mouth and instead of rejoicing, there is terror.
14. It is they who shall raise their voice, sing gladly. This line initiates a new prophecy: there will be another landscape of doom (verses 17ff.), but there is also a group in this scene that celebrates God’s greatness.
16. I have a secret. While the meaning of this line is in dispute, the least strained construction is that razi is possessive declension of the Late Biblical raz, “secret.” The secret would be the prophecy that follows.
Traitors betrayed. The wording is a little obscure, but apparently the reference is to the reprehensible behavior of all those subject to divine retribution in the lines that follow.
17. Terror and pitfall and trap. The rich sound-play of the Hebrew is paḥad wafaḥat wafaḥ. One could come closer to this in the English with “terror and trip wire and trap,” but the middle term has to be something one falls into, as is evident in the next line.
18. And who flees from the sound of terror. The prophet now turns the three alliterative nouns of the previous line into a miniature narrative in which all attempts to escape fail.
21. the LORD shall punish the heavenly hosts … / and the kings of earth. Here the incipient apocalyptic perspective is especially clear. There is no logical reason that the heavenly hosts should be punished but perhaps a poetic reason: the global catastrophe will engulf heaven and earth alike.
23. And the moon shall be shamed / and the sun disgraced. This may be part of the scenario of punishing the heavenly host. Alternately, when the LORD of Armies is enthroned in all His glory in Jerusalem, the refulgence of His presence will put the sun and the moon to shame.
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem. This entire verset is metrically too long (with five or six stresses, depending on how one scans the Hebrew for “Mount Zion”). If one drops “Mount Zion,” an acceptable four-stress verset emerges, and it could be that those two words were scribally inserted as a synonymous duplication of “Jerusalem.”
1LORD, You are my God,
I shall exalt You, acclaim Your name.
For You have performed wondrous counsel,
steadfast faithfulness from times long past.
2For You turned a town into rubble,
a fortified city to ruins,
the arrogants’ citadel, from a town,
it will never be built again.
3Therefore a fierce people does You honor,
a city of cruel nations reveres You.
4For Your people a stronghold for the poor one,
a stronghold for the needy when in straits,
a shelter from the downpour, a shade from the heat.
For the spirit of the cruel is like a downpour on walls,
like heat in the desert.
5The arrogants’ uproar You subdued,
the heat, with the shade of a cloud.
The chant of the cruel ones He answered.
6And the LORD shall prepare a banquet for all the peoples on this mountain, a banquet of rich food, a banquet of well-aged wines, rich food with marrow, well-aged wines fine strained. 7And He shall swallow up on this mountain the veil that covers all the peoples and the mantle cast over all the nations. 8He shall swallow up death forever, and the Master LORD shall wipe the tears from every face, and His people’s disgrace He shall take off from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. 9And it shall be said on that day:
Look, this is our God
in Whom we hoped, and He rescued us,
This is our own God in Whom we hoped,
Let us exult and rejoice in His rescue.
10For the LORD’s hand shall rest on this mountain,
and Moab shall be threshed beneath Him
as straw is threshed in a cesspool.
11And he shall spread his arms within it
as the swimmer spreads his arms to swim
and his pride shall be brought low
12The towering fortress of their walls He shall bring down,
bring it low, level it with the ground.
CHAPTER 25 NOTES
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1. I shall exalt You, acclaim Your name. This is the formulaic language of a thanksgiving psalm. In keeping with the biblical literary practice, this may well have been editorially inserted here from another source. The psalm continues through verse 5.
from times long past. This Hebrew word would ordinarily mean “from afar,” but the context invites construing it in a temporal, not spatial, sense.
2. the arrogants’. This translation reads, with two Hebrew manuscripts and the Septuagint, zedim for the Masoretic zarim, “strangers.” The same correction is made in verse 5.
the arrogants’ citadel, from a town. This translation follows the Hebrew. Either a phrase has dropped out, or “turned into rubble” from the previous line is meant to do double duty for this clause.
5. The chant of the cruel ones He answered. The received text is enigmatic here. Attempts to render the concluding verb as “has silenced” are questionable: yaʿaneh as it stands means “answer,” and a revocalization as yeʿaneh doesn’t work because that verb means “afflict,” not “silence,” and also requires a human object. Perhaps the “chant” is a battle chant, or a triumphal song.
6. And the LORD shall prepare a banquet for all the people on this mountain. Here begins a new, evidently eschatological section, first in prose. The mountain is probably Mount Zion, and, as several commentators have observed, the banquet may recall the sacred feast on the slopes of Mount Sinai with Moses and the seventy elders, which is marked by an epiphany.
a banquet of rich food. This passage is probably the ultimate source for the Midrashic idea of a grand banquet at the end of days in which the righteous will feast on the flesh of the Leviathan and drink wine preserved from the time of creation.
8. He shall swallow up death forever. It is hard to determine the status as literal belief of these ringing words. Standard biblical notions see death as inevitable and final. Prophetic discourse is given to extravagant hyperbole (the mountains dripping wine, the sower overtaking the reaper, and so forth), but then hyperbole may lead to new beliefs. Many generations of Jews and Christians have taken these words literally, and the exquisite tenderness of the clause that follows—“and the Master LORD shall wipe the tears from every face”—remains deeply moving.
9. And it shall be said. The Hebrew appears to say “and he shall say,” but the third-person singular verb (like the on construction in French) is often used as the equivalent of a passive.
10. as straw is threshed in a cesspool. Straw was soaked in animal excrement, and the soggy mixture was then trampled so that it could be used for fertilization. This is a deliberately repellent and humiliating image to depict the fate of Israel’s traditional enemy Moab.
11. And he shall spread his arms within it. Even though the Hebrew word for “cesspool” is feminine and “within it” has a masculine ending, the reference seems to be to the cesspool. This yields a rather nasty image of the flailing Moab trying to swim in a cesspool.
churn. The Hebrew ʾorbot (what appears to be a noun attached to “arms”) appears nowhere else, and links to purported cognates in other Semitic languages are not convincing. This is another instance in which one is compelled to surmise the sense from the context.
1On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
Victory will be set—walls and ramparts.
2Open the gates
and let a righteous nation enter,
keeping faith.
3A steadfast nature You guard in peace
for in You it trusts.
4Trust in the LORD forever,
for in Yah the LORD is an everlasting Rock.
5For He has brought low the dwellers on high,
the lofty city,
brought down, brought it down to the earth,
leveled it with the dust.
6The foot tramples it,
the poor man’s footsteps.
7The path of the righteous is straight,
a straight course for the righteous You pave.
8The path of Your judgments
we hoped for, O LORD.
are our utmost desire.
9With my life-breath I desired You by night,
with my spirit within me I sought You.
For when Your judgments are on earth,
the world’s dwellers learn righteousness.
10Should the wicked be spared, he does not learn righteousness,
on earth he twists what is straight,
and he does not see the LORD’s majesty.
11O LORD, when Your hand is raised,
they do not look,
let them look and be shamed by the zeal for the people,
by the fire consuming Your foes.
12O LORD, grant peace to us,
for our every act You have wrought for us.
13O LORD our God,
masters besides You possess us.
Your name alone we invoke.
14The dead shall not live,
nor shall the shades rise up.
Therefore have You singled them out and destroyed them
and expunged all remembrance of them.
15You added to the nation, O LORD,
You added to the nation, were honored.
You enlarged all the limits of the land.
16O LORD, in straits they sought You out.
A whispered prayer of anguish was Your chastisement to them.
17As a woman with child draws near to give birth,
she shudders, she shakes in her pangs,
so we were before You, O LORD.
18We were with child, we shuddered, as if birthing the wind,
no victories had we on earth,
and the world’s dwellers did not fall before us.
19Your dead shall live, their corpses rise,
the dwellers in the dust shall wake and sing gladly.
For Your dew is a dew of brightness,
and the netherworld releases the shades.
20Go, my people, come into your chambers
and shut your doors behind you.
Hide but a moment
until the wrath passes.
21For the LORD is about to come out from His place
to punish the crime of the dwellers on earth,
and the earth shall lay bare its bloodguilt
and no longer cover its slain.
CHAPTER 26 NOTES
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1. On that day this song will be sung. The designation of the prophecy enunciated here as “song” signals from the beginning its celebratory, triumphalist character.
A strong city is ours. The nation, previously assaulted and overwhelmed, now possesses an impregnable city.
Victory will be set—walls and ramparts. The translation reproduces the rather crabbed formulation of the Hebrew. The verb appears to read “he will set,” but third-person singular active verbs with no clear antecedent often serve in lieu of passives in biblical Hebrew. The general sense, despite the obscure wording, is clearly that the restored city will have strong ramparts that no enemy can conquer.
2. Open the gates / and let a righteous nation enter. This image looks as if it refers to the return to their city of a people who has been banished. In their righteousness, they are now worthy of this vindication and renewal.
4. an everlasting Rock. This metaphor, a stock image in Psalms, represents God as a stronghold and thus jibes with the references to powerful ramparts.
5. brought low the dwellers on high, / the lofty city. The lofty city that has been brought low is an obvious counterpoint to the strong city with its bristling ramparts.
6. the needy, / the poor man’s. The rhetoric of prophecy in behalf of social justice is here intermingled with the prophecy of national renewal. Given the context, the “poor man” in this verse would appear to be a symbol of the people of Israel, weak and helpless in the face of powerful nations but now triumphing over them.
8. For Your name and repute / are our utmost desire. The practice of substituting God’s “name” for the unmediated presence of the deity becomes especially pronounced in the Late Biblical period, but there are abundant precedents earlier. “Our” is added in the translation before “desire” for clarity.
10. Should the wicked be spared, he does not learn righteousness. What begins to emerge here is an eschatological differentiation between the wicked, who are beyond saving, and the righteous, who in a time to come will be singled out for renewal.
11. when Your hand is raised. Presumably, the divine hand is raised to punish the miscreants, but they pay no heed.
14. The dead shall not live. Although this is a standard biblical view, the emphasis here is on the dead who never heeded God in their lifetime: they have no hope of rising from the dust.
16. A whispered prayer of anguish was Your chastisement to them. This whole verset is opaque in the Hebrew, and hence any translation is no more than a guess. Tsaqun laḥash, rendered here as “a whispered prayer of anguish,” is especially obscure, although in later Hebrew it becomes a frequently invoked idiom with the sense of “heartfelt whispered prayer.”
17. As a woman with child draws near to give birth, / she shudders, she shakes in her pangs. These two versets vividly illustrate the tendency in many lines of biblical poetry to produce a miniature narrative from one verset to the next: first, the pregnant woman is nearing term; then, she is in the midst of violent labor. The third verset, as is often the case in triadic lines, strikes out in a new direction instead of continuing the parallelism—here, spelling out the referent of the simile. The next line then further develops the applicability of the simile to its referent.
18. and the world’s dwellers did not fall before us. The Hebrew merely says, rather enigmatically, “did not fall.” “Before us” has been added in the translation as an interpretive guess.
19. Your dead shall live. The entire line of poetry flatly contradicts the declaration in verse 14 that the dead shall not live. The operative term of distinction is “Your.” Is the prophet introducing a doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which is generally not thought to emerge until the Book of Daniel? This is at least a possibility, and this is certainly the way this verse was later understood by communities of believers. But given the theme of national renewal that informs this entire prophecy, it may be more likely that what the poet has in mind is a rebirth of the nation, like Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones.
their corpses. The Masoretic Text has “my corpse,” but two ancient versions show the more likely “their corpses.”
For Your dew is a dew of brightness. Dew is a component of the natural “irrigation” system in the land of Israel and hence an apt image for revivification.
the netherworld. In the context of “shades,” ʾarets has its occasional sense of the realm of the dead, even though it usually means “earth” or “land.”
releases. The Hebrew verb means “to drop” and is the second odd use of that verb in this chapter.
20. come into your chambers. The sometimes proposed notion that this refers to the chambers of death is far-fetched. God’s people are urged to take shelter within the shut doors of their houses until the divine wrath finishes its work of destruction.
21. to punish the crime of the dwellers on earth. The perspective looks global and hence eschatological. All who are guilty of murderous acts will now feel the fierce force of divine justice.
lay bare its bloodguilt / … no longer cover its slain. The language reflects the biblical notion that wrongfully shed blood pollutes the earth and needs to be “redeemed” by an act of retributive justice.
1On that day the LORD shall punish
with His fierce and great and mighty sword
Leviathan the slippery serpent,
Leviathan, the twisting serpent,
and shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.
2On that day,
a lovely vineyard, sing out to it!
3I, the LORD, watch over it,
moment by moment I watch it,
so that no harm come to it,
night and day I watch over it.
4No anger do I have.
Should one give Me thorns and thistles,
I would stride out in battle against it.
I would set it on fire.
5If he clings to My stronghold,
he makes peace with Me
he makes peace with Me.
6In days to come Jacob shall take root,
Israel shall bud and flower,
and the face of the world shall fill with bounty.
7Has he been struck like the blow of his striker?
Like the slaying of his slain was he slain?
8In due measure, when He drove her out, He contended with her,
He let loose His fierce blast on an east-wind day.
9Therefore in this shall Jacob’s crime be atoned,
all this comes from removing his offense:
When he turns all the stones of the altar
into shattered stones of chalk—
no cultic poles or incense altars shall stand.
10For the fortified town is solitary,
an abode deserted and abandoned, like the desert.
There the calf grazes
and there it lies down and gnaws away its boughs.
11When its branches are dry, they are broken.
Women come, light fires with them,
for they are not a discerning people.
Therefore its Maker shall show it no mercy,
and its Fashioner shall not grant it grace.
12And it shall be on that day:
the LORD shall beat out the grain
from the stream of the Euphrates to Egypt’s river.
And you shall be gathered in
one by one, you Israelites.
13And it shall be on that day
a great ram’s horn shall sound,
and those lost in the land of Assyria shall come,
and the dispersed in the land of Egypt
and bow down to the LORD
on the holy mountain, in Jerusalem.
CHAPTER 27 NOTES
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1. On that day. Some take this verse to be the conclusion of the last prophecy in the previous chapter. Given its strikingly mythological character, however, it could be an independent fragment.
Leviathan the slippery serpent. The Hebrew epithet bariaḥ is not certain in meaning. It could derive from the verbal stem that means “to flee,” hence “slippery.” It is also the ordinary word for the bolt of a gate and so could conceivably refer to the serpent held under lock and key. The entire line invokes the Canaanite cosmogonic myth of Leviathan as the primordial sea monster that the weather god Baal must subdue in order for dry land, safe from the raging sea, to come into being.
2. a lovely vineyard. This Song of the Vineyard is akin to the Parable of the Vineyard in chapter 5; in both cases, the vineyard is the people of Israel.
4. Should one give Me thorns and thistles. That is, if the people through its actions allow the vineyard to fall into ruins, God will burn out the noxious growths.
5. If he clings to My stronghold. The “he” would refer collectively to the people, and clinging to God’s stronghold means keeping faith with Him. The result is peace with God instead of the battle mentioned in verse 4.
6. In days to come. The Hebrew says merely “coming” in the plural, but it is likely that “days” was inadvertently dropped from the text. This phrase is usually an introductory formula for a prophecy, which would make this verse a fragment, although it might also be taken as the conclusion of the prophecy that begins in verse 2.
8. In due measure. The Hebrew besa’sa’h is anomalous and its meaning is uncertain. This translation follows the Targum in relating it to seʾah, a dry measure.
He drove her out. Though it may be disconcerting to the English reader, the Hebrew slides readily from referring to the Israelites as a collective “he” (verse 7) to a feminine pronominal suffix here (because the nation is often imagined symbolically as a woman).
east-wind day. The east wind blowing from the desert generally signals disaster.
9. all this comes. More literally, “all the fruit of.”
the altar. As the third verset of this line makes clear, this is an altar dedicated to pagan worship, which therefore has to be shattered.
10. gnaws away its boughs. The boughs are a metonymy for the deserted town. Now women foraging for fuel (verse 11) come to pick up the dry broken branches to use as kindling.
11. for they are not a discerning people. In consonance with a recurrent pattern in triadic lines, this third verset breaks away from the semantic parallelism and instead provides an explanatory summary not only of the whole line but of the whole prophecy: this disaster has befallen the people because of its failure to see and understand God’s ways.
12. And it shall be on that day. Once again, this formula signals the beginning of a new prophecy, one of national restoration and the punishment of Israel’s enemies.
from the stream of the Euphrates to Egypt’s river. Assyria and Egypt were the two great imperial powers between which the kingdom of Judah was caught in Isaiah’s time, the eighth century B.C.E.
13. a great ram’s horn shall sound. The ram’s horn was blown at coronations and to announce the jubilee year: here it inaugurates a grand period of renewal after national tribulations. Traditional interpreters associated this verse with the messianic age.
and those lost in the land of Assyria. The Hebrew verb equally means “to be lost” and “to perish.” It is distinctly possible that Isaiah, writing a century after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel and the exile of much of its population to Assyria, has that historical catastrophe in mind.
1Woe, crown of the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards,
and a withered blossom his glory’s splendor
on the head of the fat-proud, stunned by wine.
2Look, one powerful and strong for the Master,
like a current of hail, a storm of destruction,
like a current of mighty rushing waters,
He brings down to the earth.
3Underfoot shall be trampled
the crown of the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards.
4And his glory’s splendor shall become a withered blossom
on the head of the fat-proud,
like a new fig before the harvest—
who sees it will swallow it still in his hand.
5On that day the LORD of Armies shall become
a crown of splendor and a tiara of glory to His people’s remnant,
6and a spirit of justice for him who is seated in judgment
and valor for those who drive back battle from the gate.
7And these, too, blundered through wine
and through strong drink went astray.
Priest and prophet blundered through strong drink,
were confounded through wine,
went astray through strong drink,
8For all the tables were covered with vomit,
9To whom will they teach knowledge
and to whom will they convey lessons?—
to the milk-weaned,
to babes pulled from the breast?
10For it is filth-pilth, filth-pilth,
vomit-momit, vomit-momit,
a little here, a little there.
11For in a barbarous tongue
and in alien language
He shall speak to this people
12to whom He said, “This is rest—leave it for the weary,
and this is repose,” and they did not want to listen.
13And the word of the LORD became for them—
filth-pilth, filth-pilth,
vomit-momit, vomit-momit,
a little here, a little here.
So that they should walk and stumble backward,
and be broken, snared, and trapped.
14Therefore, hear the word of the LORD,
men of mockery,
rulers of this people
who are in Jerusalem.
15For you said, “We have sealed a covenant with Death,
and with Sheol we have made a pact.
No sweeping scourge that passes by
will reach us,
for we have made falsehood our refuge
and in lies we have taken shelter.”
16Therefore thus said the Master the LORD:
I am about to lay a foundation stone in Zion,
the stone for a tower,
a precious corner, a solid foundation.
He who trusts shall have nothing to fear.
17And I will make justice the measuring cord
and righteousness the plumb line.
And hail shall sweep away the refuge of falsehood,
and the shelter, water shall wash off.
18And your covenant with Death shall be canceled,
your pact with Sheol shall not come about.
The sweeping scourge that passes by—
you shall be crushed by it.
19As it passes it shall take you
by day and by night,
shall be naught but horror.
20For the couch is too short to stretch out on,
and the blanket too narrow to cover one up.
21For like Mount Perazim the LORD shall arise,
like Gibeon Valley He shall rage
to do His deed, strange is His deed,
and to accomplish His work, alien His work.
22And now, do not mock,
lest your reins pull tight,
for direly decreed I have heard it
from the Master, the LORD
over all the earth.
23Give ear and hear My voice,
attend and hear My utterance.
24Does the plowman plow all day to sow,
break open and harrow his soil?
25When he levels its surface,
will he not scatter fennel and broadcast cumin
and barley in plots
and spelt as a border?
26For He guides him rightly,
his God instructs him.
27For fennel is not beaten with a threshing sledge
nor does the cartwheel roll over cumin.
For fennel is beaten with a stick
and cumin with a stick.
28Grain for bread is pounded,
but the thresher does not thresh it forever.
He runs over it with his cartwheel
but his horses do not crush it.
29This too from the LORD of Armies issues forth,
He is wondrous in counsel, His wisdom is great.
CHAPTER 28 NOTES
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1. Woe, crown of the pride of Ephraim’s drunkards. Ephraim, the northern kingdom that was wiped out by Assyria in 721 B.C.E., is a somewhat puzzling presence at the beginning of this prophecy, which probably refers to the predicament of the southern kingdom, besieged by Assyria, twenty years later. Perhaps the complete desolation of Ephraim, whose leaders are seen as dissolute, is meant as a portent for Judah.
the fat-proud. The Hebrew spelling of geyʾ would lead one to understand it as “valley”—that is, “valley of the fat growth” or “valley of oils.” It seems preferable to read it as geiʾ, “proud,” in apposition with “stunned by wine” and referring to the drunkards.
2. one powerful and strong for the Master. The reference is probably Assyria, conceived as God’s instrument for punishing Judah.
3–4. the crown of the pride … / his glory’s splendor. There are evidently two idioms in this image—a crown which is trampled, and something like a floral wreath, which withers.
5. a crown of splendor and a tiara of glory. In these tightly woven lines, the undeserved or false crown adorning the drunkards is replaced by the true crown that God becomes for His people.
6. a spirit of justice. The drunkards, as the continuation of the prophecy makes vividly clear, pervert justice and distort values, and they are to be replaced by a just ruler.
those who drive back battle from the gate. The city gate would be assaulted by besiegers, who are here repelled by valiant defenders.
7. And these, too, blundered through wine. The Judahites resemble their counterparts in Ephraim.
strong drink. As elsewhere, sheikhar, which like wine is a product of the vine, probably indicates grappa.
the seer. The Hebrew term clearly means this, not “vision,” as many translations here have it, and it jibes with the reference to prophet and priest gone astray.
juddered in judgment. The translation emulates the alliteration of the Hebrew, paqu peliliyah. The Hebrew verb does mean to shake, falter, be unsteady.
8. For all the tables were covered with vomit. The initial notion of drunkenness is now vividly joined by an evocation of the disgusting scene of wine-swilling debauchery.
filth. The Hebrew term indicates excremental filth, so the physical effect of the debauches comes out of the body at both ends.
9. To whom will they teach knowledge. The most likely referent of “they” is the drunken priests, prophets, and seers, whose incoherent teaching would scarcely be suitable for newly weaned babes.
10. For it is filth-pilth, filth-pilth, / vomit-momit, vomit-momit. Wildly divergent interpretations have been proposed for these words. The literal sense would seem to be: “precept precept, line line.” But if precepts are at issue here, they are precepts that have been turned into gibberish by these drunkards. The phonetic kinship between tsaw, precept or command, and tsoʾah, filth or excrement, and between qaw, line, and qiʾ, vomit, is surely not accidental. The translation seeks to convey both this correspondence and the effect of gibberish.
11. For in a barbarous tongue / and in alien language / He shall speak to this people. This is measure-for-measure justice: they have reduced any instruction they might offer to drunken babbling, and God will address them through the incomprehensible language of the Akkadian-speaking Assyrian conquerors.
13. And the word of the LORD became for them— / filth-pilth, filth-pilth. God’s very word, which as leaders of the people they had the responsibility to convey to the people, has turned into grotesque nonsense syllables.
15. We have sealed a covenant with Death. The language here verges on the mythological (Mot, the word used here, is the Canaanite god of death). Some interpreters understand this as a reference to the party in Jerusalem that promoted an alliance with Egypt, known for its cult of the dead, against Assyria. That is possible, but the more evident point is that these perverse leaders have replaced God with the god of death, imagining that they will be safe from all dangers through these covenants with the deity of the netherworld.
16. I am about to lay a foundation stone in Zion. This may look like a switch in direction, but it is not necessary to declare this a later editorial intrusion. In place of a city ruled by drunken idiots, God will establish a just, firm-founded city, while those who made a covenant with death will be swept away (verses 17–21).
19. the conveying of lessons. This phrase refers back to verse 9 and to the reduction of teaching to babble in the lines that followed it. Now, instead of gibberish, there will be terror.
20. For the couch is too short to stretch out on. This homey image represents the acute discomfiting helplessness of the miscreants when they are overtaken by divine judgment: they can neither lie without being cramped in the bed nor cover themselves.
21. like Mount Perazim / … like Gibeon Valley. These were places of victory, respectively, for David and for Joshua where God intervened on their behalf. Now He will intervene instead to effect a dire defeat of His people.
23. Give ear and hear My voice. This formal opening injunction clearly signals the beginning of a new prophecy.
24. Does the plowman plow all day to sow. These words initiate an extended simile—or perhaps it is meant to be a parable—that would have spoken directly to the ancient audience because of its agricultural imagery. Unfortunately, not all of the terms and agricultural procedures are transparent to modern readers. What compounds the difficulty is that the referent of the parable—the nimshal of the mashal—is barely hinted at.
25. fennel. This is one conjectural understanding of the Hebrew qetsaḥ.
in rows. This translation reads shurah for the opaque sorah of the Masoretic Text.
26. For He guides him rightly. This would be the evident referent of the parable: God imbues the farmer with understanding so that he can raise his crops in proper fashion. Perhaps there is a more general implication that God implants in humankind the requisite wisdom to conduct all of its affairs. But it must be said that the Hebrew verb used here generally means “to discipline,” not “to instruct.”
28. Grain for bread. “Grain for” is merely implied in the Hebrew.
He runs over it. The verb here generally means “to panic,” and so the translation, somewhat conjecturally, is dictated by the context.
29. He is wondrous in counsel, His wisdom is great. This concluding line is evidently meant to point the moral that all practical wisdom, like the know-how of the farmer who is careful to thresh his grain without polluting it, comes from God. It remains something of a puzzle why the editors chose to introduce a text of this sort in a series of prophecies about the political fate of the people of Israel.
1Woe, Ariel, Ariel,
Add year upon year,
let festivals make their round.
2And I shall cause distress to Ariel,
and it shall turn into keening and crying,
and it shall be to me as Ariel.
3And I shall camp like David against it,
and besiege it with a mound
and lay siege-works against it.
4And you shall be brought down, from the ground you shall speak,
lower than the dust shall your utterance be,
and your voice shall be like a ghost from the ground,
and from the dust your speaking shall chirp.
5And the crowd of your strangers shall be like fine dust
and like chaff blowing past the oppressors’ crowd.
And it shall happen at once, in a moment,
6she shall be singled out by the LORD of Armies
in thunder and earthquake and a great sound,
tempest and whirlwind and tongues of consuming fire.
7And it shall be like a dream, a night-vision—
the crowd of all the nations arrayed against Ariel
and all her foes and the siege-works against her
and those who distressed her.
8And it shall be as the hungry man dreams he is eating,
and wakes with an empty throat,
and as the thirsty man dreams he is drinking
and wakes and is faint and his throat is parched,
so the crowd of all the nations shall be,
arrayed against Mount Zion.
9Be dumbfounded, yes, dumbfounded,
be blinded, yes, be blinded.
They are drunk and not from wine,
stagger, and not from strong drink.
10For the LORD has poured over you
a spirit of deep slumber,
and closed your eyes—the prophets,
and covered your heads—the seers.
11And the vision of all things shall become to you like the words of a sealed book that is given to one who can read, saying, “Pray, read this,” and he says, “I cannot, for it is sealed,” 12and the book is given to one who cannot read, saying, “Pray, read this,” and he says, “I cannot read.”
13And the Master said,
Inasmuch as this people approached with its mouth
and with its lips honored Me
but kept its heart far from Me,
and their reverence for Me
was a commandment of men learned by rote,
14therefore will I continue
to strike this people with wonder upon wonder,
and the wisdom of its wise men shall vanish
and the discernment of its discerners disappear.
15Woe to those who burrow deep from the LORD
to hide their counsel,
and their deeds are done in darkness,
and they say, “Who sees us, who knows of us?”
16You are perverse!
Should the potter be reckoned as his clay,
should the thing he made say of its maker, “He did not make me,”
and the thing fashioned say of its fashioner, “He has no skill”?
17Surely in just a while,
Lebanon shall turn back into farmland
and the farmland be reckoned as forest.
18And the deaf on that day shall hear the book’s words,
and from darkness and gloom the eyes of the blind shall see.
19Once more shall the lowly have joy in the LORD,
and the needy exult in Israel’s Holy One.
20For the oppressor shall vanish,
the mocker shall cease,
and all those devoted to crime be cut off.
21Who led people to offend through a word,
ensnared the arbiter in the gate,
perverted the innocent man’s cause with lies.
22Therefore thus said the LORD Who redeemed Abraham to the house of Jacob:
Not now shall Jacob be shamed,
and not now shall his face turn pale.
23For when he sees his children,
My handiwork, in his midst,
and hallow Jacob’s Holy One,
and the God of Israel they shall hold in awe.
24And those whose spirit strayed shall know discernment,
and the grumblers shall learn their lesson.
CHAPTER 29 NOTES
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1. Ariel. Although the second verset makes it clear that this is an epithet for Jerusalem, wildly disparate proposals have been made for the etymology of the name. Perhaps the least strained is that it means “lion of God,” which is to say, not an ordinary lion but some sort of heraldic lion; and a good candidate for that would be the cherubs carved over the Ark of the Covenant, which are more or less winged lions. By synecdoche, then, this carved beast in the Temple might have become an epithet for the city in which the Temple stood.
2. And it shall be to Me as Ariel. This third verset is a little enigmatic. The possible sense is: Ariel, once My protected sacred city, will now be for Me an Ariel of keening and crying.
3. camp. This sometimes military term is pointedly chosen because the reference is not to David’s residence in the city but to his attack on it when he conquered it for the Jebusites.
4. from the dust your speaking shall chirp. As several biblical texts suggest, there was a popular belief that the spirits of the dead communicated with the living by means of faint chirping sounds that might be interpreted by a necromancer.
5. the crowd of your strangers. These are the foreign armies attacking Jerusalem.
6. she shall be singled out. This verb paqad can mean to be singled out either for recompense, for benign attention, or for punishment. The storm imagery that immediately follows might lead one to apply the negative sense, but then in verse 7 it becomes clear that the people’s enemies are the target of these foreign forces,
7. And it shall be like a dream, a night-vision. The horror of implacable enemies bent on the destruction of Jerusalem will vanish like a nightmare when the sleeper awakens. This image might accord with Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C.E., which was suddenly withdrawn.
8. the hungry man / … the thirsty man. In a rather peculiar move, the dream simile is now reversed: it is not Israel dreaming the nightmare of its destruction but the Assyrians dreaming of consuming the city who now awake and find that their hunger and thirst have not been satisfied.
9. dumbfounded, / … blinded. The prophet assumes, in consonance with general ancient belief, that the people needs the guidance of prophets and seers in order to see where it must go. In this case, false prophets have assumed the prophetic role, which is understood as a punishment from God sent against the people, causing general blindness.
11. the words of a sealed book. Some interpreters propose that this is the scroll of Isaiah’s own prophecies. In any case, the book is sealed so that even the literate cannot read it, and how much more so the illiterate.
14. wonder upon wonder. While this word often has a positive sense of God’s miraculous intervention in behalf of the people, here it obviously is used negatively for the perpetuation of a state of hopeless ignorance in the people.
15. Woe. As elsewhere, the introduction of this word, hoy, announces a new prophecy.
Who sees us, who knows of us? These words express the delusion that it is possible to hide from God’s all-seeing eyes.
16. He has no skill. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “He did not understand.” The translation here, which makes the intention clear, is borrowed from Joseph Blenkinsopp.
17. Lebanon shall turn back into farmland. A day soon to come will witness radical transformations: the heavily forested Lebanon will become farmland, and the farmland a forest. These antithetical changes set the stage for what transpires in the human landscape in the verses that follow.
18. the deaf … / the blind. Especially because of the reference to hearing the book’s words, which surely harks back to verse 11, the deaf and the blind are probably meant metaphorically: those who could neither hear nor read the words of the true prophet will now understand them.
19. the lowly … / the needy. The focus of this prophecy is not an attack by hostile armies but the perversion of social justice, which will now be restored.
21. through a word. Given the reference to courts of justice in the next two versets, the “word” here would be false testimony or perjury that deprives the innocent of his rightful cause.
23. they shall hallow My name. It is noteworthy that the prophet conceives the hallowing of God’s name not as a cultic act but as a restitution of social justice. Jacob’s face no longer turns pale with shame because his society is no longer something to be ashamed of, and this is the true sanctification of God’s name. The arc of this argument is completed in the next verse. The people that had been blind, that lacked the discernment to see the difference between right and wrong, will now come to its senses, again be discerning.
1Woe, you wayward sons,
said the LORD,
devising counsel, and not from Me,
and not to My spirit,
so as to compound
offense with offense.
2Who head down to Egypt,
and have not asked My word,
to shelter in Pharaoh’s stronghold,
and take refuge in Egypt’s shade.
3And Pharaoh’s stronghold shall turn into shame for you,
and the shelter in Egypt’s shade into disgrace.
4Though his commanders were in Zoan,
and his messengers reached Hanes,
5whoever shames a people shall not avail them,
neither for help nor for availing,
but shall be shame and sheer disgrace.
6The portent of the Beasts of the Negeb.
In a land of straits and stress,
a lion and maned beast from among them
viper and flying serpent.
On the back of donkeys their wealth is borne
and on camels’ humps their treasures
to an unavailing people.
7And Egypt’s help shall be useless and void.
Therefore I call this:
8Now, come write it on a tablet with them
and on a scroll its inscription,
and let it stand till the last day
9For it is a rebellious people,
deceitful sons,
sons who did not want to heed
the teaching of the LORD.
10Who said to the seers, “You shall not see,”
and to the visionaries, “You shall not envision for us true things.
Speak smooth talk to us,
envision illusions.
11Swerve from the way,
turn aside from the path.
Rid us of
Israel’s Holy One.”
12Therefore, thus Israel’s Holy One has said:
Inasmuch as you have spurned this word
and placed your trust in oppression and perversion
and leaned on it,
13therefore this crime shall become for you
like a breach spreading down a high wall,
where all of a sudden the breaking point comes.
14And its breaking like the breaking of a potter’s jar,
relentlessly shattered,
and no shard will be found in its fragments
to carry fire from a hearth
or scoop water from a puddle.
15For thus said the Master, the LORD, Israel’s Holy One:
In quiet and stillness you shall be rescued,
in calm and trust shall your valor be,
but you did not want it.
16And you said, “No, on a horse we shall flee.”
Therefore shall you flee.
“And on a swift steed we shall ride.”
Therefore shall your pursuers be swift.
17A thousand before the shout of one,
before the shout of five shall you flee,
till you are left like a flagpole on a mountaintop,
and like a banner on a hill.
18And therefore the LORD shall wait to grant you grace,
and therefore He shall rise to show you mercy,
for a God of justice is the LORD.
happy all who wait for Him.
19For the people shall dwell in Jerusalem,
nevermore shall weep.
He shall surely grant you grace at the sound of your crying,
when He hears it, He shall answer you.
20And the Master shall give you
bread of straits and water of oppression.
But your Teacher shall no longer be concealed,
and your eyes shall see your Teacher,
21and your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying:
This is the way, go upon it,
whether you turn to the right or the left.
22And you shall defile the overlay of your silver idols
and the plating of your molten images of gold.
You shall scatter them like a woman in her uncleanness.
Go out! You shall say to it.
23And He shall give rain for your seed
that you sow in the soil,
and bread, the yield of the soil,
and it shall be rich and fat.
Your cattle shall graze on that day
in a spacious pasture.
24And the oxen and the donkeys that till the soil
shall eat salted fodder
that is winnowed with shovel and fan.
25And there shall be on every high mountain
and on every lofty hill
on the day of the great slaughter
when towers fall.
26And the light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun,
and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold
like the light of the seven days
when the LORD binds up the breaking of His people
and heals its smashing blow.
27The LORD’s name is about to come from afar,
burning His wrath, heavy His burden,
His lips are filled with fury,
28His breath a sweeping stream
to shake nations in a ruinous sieve
and a bridle on the jaws of peoples, leading them astray.
29The song shall be for you
like the night a festival is sanctified
and heart’s joy like one who walks with the flute
to come to the LORD’s mountain, to Israel’s Rock.
30And the LORD shall sound His voice’s majesty
and show the downsweep of His arm
in furious wrath and tongues of consuming fire,
cloudburst and torrent and hailstones.
31For by the LORD’s voice shall Assyria be terrified
as He strikes with the rod.
32And each swing of the club is punishment
that the LORD shall lay down upon him
to the sound of timbrels and with lyres and with dance—
in a swoop He does battle against her.
33For Topheth was laid out long ago,
it, too is readied for Molech,
its fire pit deep and wide,
much fire and firewood.
The LORD’s breath is like a torrent of brimstone
burning within it.
CHAPTER 30 NOTES
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1. clinging to molten images. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “making [or pouring] molten images.”
2. Who head down to Egypt. Although the prophecy begins by inveighing against idolatry, it quickly switches to a political theme, and Isaiah may have associated the pursuit of foreign alliances with the worship of pagan gods. In any case, one should note that the prophet here and elsewhere assumes a vehement stance in a political debate: in the last years of the eighth century B.C.E., there was a party in Jerusalem that advocated an alliance with Egypt against the imminent military threat of the Assyrian empire, and Isaiah viewed this policy as a catastrophic error.
Egypt’s shade. As elsewhere, “shade” has the idiomatic sense of “protection.”
4. Though his commanders were in Zoan, / and his messengers reached Hanes. Both these are Egyptian cities. A Judahite delegation actually traveled to Egypt to discuss a possible anti-Assyrian alliance.
6. The portent of the Beasts of the Negeb. The picturesque title of this prophecy (perhaps an editorial invention) invokes the beasts of the great southern desert through which the emissaries journey in order to reach Egypt. The first animals named are beasts of prey and thus suggest the dangers that the foolish delegates are running in order to conduct negotiations that will lead to nothing good.
their wealth … / their treasure. The emissaries are bringing tribute—or perhaps rather a diplomatic bribe—in order to persuade Egypt to provide military assistance to Judah.
7. Arrogance Ended. The Masoretic Text reads rahav hem shevet, which would be literally: “arrogance [or Rahab] they to-sit.” This cannot be right. The translation reads with many scholars rohabam moshbat, which is merely a respacing of the letters and a revocalization. The first word could either mean “arrogance” or be the proper name Rahab, a ferocious Canaanite sea beast, possibly here referring to Egypt.
8. as a witness. The received text reads laʿad, “forever,” the same meaning as the next word in the text, but two Hebrew manuscripts and several ancient versions show laʿed, “as a witness.”
13. like a breach spreading down a high wall. This image mingles metaphor with metonymy: a hidden flaw reaches a point where it suddenly causes a total breakdown, but the wall is also the actual structure that protects the city from invaders, who will now overrun it.
14. like the breaking of a potter’s jar. The shift in metaphor is pointedly effective: the solid stone wall turns into a fragile earthenware jar that is easily broken to pieces. The smashing of the vessel into tiny fragments is vividly represented in the next line.
17. before the shout of one, / before the shout of five. Though it is more spectacular for a thousand to flee before the shout of a single person than five, the line follows the convention of biblical parallelism, where when a number is introduced in the first verset, it has to be increased in the second verset.
20. your Teacher. While other understandings are conceivable, the most likely reference is to God.
concealed. The verb yikanef is anomalous, but it may be related to the noun kanaf, the corner of a garment or a wing, perhaps suggesting a condition of lying under a fold.
21. and your ears shall hear a word behind you. The word coming from behind is a little puzzling, especially since the eyes that see the Teacher imply that He stands in front of the people. Perhaps God is in front and His prophet, to whom at last the people listens, urges them on from behind.
22. And you shall defile. That is, you shall make them unfit for worship.
You shall scatter them like a woman in her uncleanness. The verb “scatter” works better for the destroyed idols than for the menstruant woman, who in biblical law is certainly not “scattered” but rather kept at a distance in order to avoid physical contact with her.
25. streams, brooks of water, / on the day of the great slaughter / when towers fall. In a fusion of two motifs unusual in prophecies of redemption, the people restored to its glory will enjoy an abundance of fructifying freshets of water even as military catastrophe overwhelms the enemies that have dominated them.
26. And the light of the moon shall be like the light of the sun. This spectacular increase of natural light is a motif taken up by Second Isaiah and has led some scholars to conclude that at least this line was composed by him, which is a possible but not necessary inference. In any case, the striking hyperbole has invited eschatological readings, and “the light of the seven days” is clearly a mythological reference to the seven days of creation during which, according to some understandings, the light was more perfect. Creation begins with God’s summoning light to replace the primordial darkness, so national restoration is imagined in cosmic terms as a kind of renewal of creation.
27. The LORD’s name. The phrasing reflects a verbal practice that becomes pronounced in the Late Biblical period of interposing God’s name as the active agent in order to avoid anthropomorphism.
His tongue, consuming fire. These words concretize and intensify the “fury” of the first verset. They also incorporate a pun because of the intimations of tongues of fire.
28. crossing upward to the neck. The verb employed here is usually the one for a person crossing a stream, but here it indicates the water cutting the body in half and moving on upward to the neck.
in a ruinous sieve. Some interpreters, striving to make the parallelism neat, cite a purported Arabic cognate for nefet that means “yoke.” But this noun elsewhere clearly means “sieve,” and the verb “to shake up” scarcely accords with a yoke. Biblical poetry sometimes switches metaphors between the first and second verset of a line.
29. The song shall be for you. This is the song of triumph and celebration when the enemy is destroyed and the people restored.
like one who walks with the flute. This is the joyous procession at a pilgrim festival, in which the celebrants march up to the Temple mount to the accompaniment of musical instruments.
30. tongues of consuming fire. This is not the same Hebrew word as “tongue” in verse 27. The literal sense is “A flame of consuming fire.”
32. to the sound of the timbrels and with lyres. As in verse 25, the joy of national restoration is mingled with a depiction in the second verset here of God’s fearsome destruction of the enemy.
and with dance. The Masoretic Text has ʿuvemilḥamot, “and with battles.” The translation follows a commonly proposed emendation uvemeḥolot, “and with dances” (the plural has been changed to a singular in the translation for reasons of rhythm), a difference of one Hebrew letter. Another possibility would be to move the word as it appears in the Masoretic Text to the second verset and have it read: “and in swooping battles He does battle against it.” That, however, would produce a rhythmic imbalance of two stresses in the first verset and four in the second.
33. Topheth. This is the Valley of Ben-Hinnom in Jerusalem, where human sacrifice was offered. In later Hebrew usage, it became a term for “hell.”
Molech. The Masoretic Text is vocalized to read melekh, “king,” but it almost certainly is Molech, the pagan god to whom human sacrifices (usually children) were made.
The LORD’s breath is like a torrent of brimstone / burning within it. The imagery aptly concludes the prophecy of the destruction of Israel’s enemies: on the altar of Molech, human beings were devoted to the consuming flames; now God’s fiery breath will burn up the Assyrians.
1Woe, who go down to Egypt for help,
and trust in chariots because they are many,
and in horsemen because they greatly abound,
and they have not looked to Israel’s Holy One,
nor have they sought out the LORD.
2But He, too, is wise and will bring about harm,
and His word He does not revoke.
And He shall rise up against the house of the evil ones
and against those who help wrongdoers.
3And Egypt is human and not a god,
and their horses are flesh and not spirit.
And the LORD shall reach out His hand,
and the helper shall stumble, the one helped shall fall,
and both of them perish together.
4For thus said the LORD to me:
the maned beast over its prey,
when a shepherds’ band gathers against it,
it fears not their voice
nor is cowed by their clamor,
thus shall the LORD of Armies come down
to marshal forces on Mount Zion and on its slope.
5As birds fly above,
so shall the LORD of Armies protect Jerusalem,
protecting and saving, sparing and rescuing.
6Turn back to Him from Whom you swerved far away, O Israelites. 7For on that day every man shall spurn his ungods of silver and his ungods of gold that your hands have made as offense.
8And Assyria shall fall by a sword not of man’s,
and a sword not a human’s shall devour him.
And he shall flee from the sword,
and his young men be put to forced labor.
9And his rock from terror shall crumble,
and his commanders panic-stricken by the banner.
Thus said the LORD,
and a furnace in Jerusalem.
CHAPTER 31 NOTES
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1. Woe, who go down to Egypt for help. The prophet continues the vehement argument against seeking an alliance with Egypt that was put forth in the previous chapter. While ʿezrah is a general term for “help,” it often occurs in military contexts, and that connotation is obviously relevant here. The prophet will play sardonically on this word in the next two verses.
who rely on horses / and trust in chariots. Egypt was renowned for its horses and active in exporting them. There is probably also a reminiscence of the Exodus story, in which all of Pharaoh’s horsemen with their chariots are engulfed in the Sea of Reeds.
2. But He, too, is wise. There is an implied opposition between God’s wisdom and power and the purported sages and soothsayers of Egypt.
4. As the lion growls. The lion is a stock image for martial fierceness in ancient Near Eastern poetry. Here it is applied to God, as the end of this verse makes clear.
to marshal forces on Mount Zion. This whole line is ambiguous because the preposition ʿal could mean either “on” or “against” (for the latter construction, see the New Jewish Publication Society rendering, “to make war against the mount and hill of Zion”). But the idea of God’s assaulting Mount Zion is hard to sustain because in the very next verse He is represented hovering protectively over Jerusalem. The marshaling of divine forces, then, would be God’s driving off the enemies besieging Jerusalem. This might be a reference to the sudden departure of the besieging army in 701 B.C.E., though that is not certain.
5. As birds fly above. The switch of similes is pointed: if God is a fearless lion confronting Israel’s enemies, He is also a gentle bird hovering protectively over His people.
8. And Assyria shall fall by a sword not of man’s. The formulation, evoking the idea of a miraculous defeat of the Assyrian army, appears to accord with the account of the sudden flight of the Arameans (not the Assyrians) offered in 2 Kings 7.
9. And his rock from terror shall crumble. There are difficulties in the wording of this verset and the next one. The metaphor of rock or crag is often attached to God in Psalms, but it is not elsewhere linked with a human leader, as many interpreters of this verse claim. Perhaps here it is meant to designate the military power in which the Assyrians place their trust. The verb that is translated here as “crumble” because of the context actually means “to pass on,” which does not sound appropriate for “rock.”
his commanders panic-stricken by the banner. The wording is cryptic and many scholars have proposed emending the text. The text as we have it could be correct: the Assyrian commanders, seeing the banners of the army attacking them, are terrified.
a fire in Zion / and a furnace in Jerusalem. Given the defeat of the Assyrians that has just been evoked, this is a destructive fire: the Assyrians assaulting Jerusalem imagined they had surrounded a city that they would overwhelm, but God tends a blazing furnace within the city that consumes its enemies
1Yes, a king shall reign in righteousness,
and princes shall govern in justice.
2Each shall be like a refuge from wind
and a shelter from the torrent,
like freshets of water on parched earth,
like the shade of a great rock
in an arid land.
3And the eyes of those who see shall not be sealed,
and the ears of those who hear shall listen,
4and the heart of the rash shall come to understand,
and the tongue of the stammerers speak eloquence.
5The scurrilous man shall no longer be called noble,
nor the villain named high-born.
6For the scurrilous man speaks scurrility,
and his heart performs misdeeds,
to carry out foul acts
and speak wrongly of the LORD,
to leave the hungry man’s throat empty
and withhold drink from the thirsty.
7The villain, his vessels are vile,
he devises infamous things,
to do harm to the poor with lying speech,
when the needy speak in court.
8But the nobleman plans noble acts,
and on noble acts he stands.
9Women at ease, stand up,
hear my voice.
Complacent young women,
to my words give ear.
10For within but a year,
the complacent shall quake,
no harvest shall come.
11Tremble, you women at ease,
quake, complacent ones.
put a cloth round your loins,
12Beating on breasts
over lovely fields,
over fruitful vines.
13On My people’s soil
thorn and thistle shall spring up,
for on all the houses of revelry,
the merrymaking town,
14the villa is abandoned,
the town’s hubbub left behind.
The citadel and the tower
become bare places for all time,
wild asses’ revelry,
pasture for the flocks.
15Till a spirit is poured on us from above,
and the desert turns to farmland
and farmland is reckoned as forest,
16And justice abides in the desert,
and righteousness dwells in the farmland.
17And the doing of righteousness shall be peace,
and the work of righteousness, safe and quiet forever.
18And My people shall dwell in abodes of peace,
in safe dwellings and tranquil places of rest.
19And it shall come down as the forest comes down,
and in the lowland the town shall come low.
20Happy, you who sow near all waters,
who let loose the ox and the donkey.
CHAPTER 32 NOTES
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1. a king shall reign in righteousness. The theme of the just king instituting a reign of perfect harmony is picked up from chapter 11, whether by Isaiah himself or, as some scholars prefer to think, by a later prophet in the “Isaian tradition.”
and princes shall govern in justice. The prophet envisages not only a righteous king but an entire royal bureaucracy of noblemen enacting justice.
3. And the eyes of those who see shall not be sealed. This whole line is an obvious reversal of the situation delineated in God’s words to Isaiah in his dedication to the prophetic mission (6:9–10), when the prophet is enjoined to seal the eyes and stop up the ears of the people.
5. The scurrilous man. It is not entirely certain whether the Hebrew naval refers to turpitude or stupidity, or perhaps rather to a combination of the two. Blenkinsopp neatly describes this condition as “moral imbecility.”
7. The villain, his vessels are vile. The translation emulates the wordplay in the Hebrew: kelay kelaw raʿim. More strictly, the initial noun means “miser.”
to do harm to the poor with lying speech. Although the thematic unity of this entire prophecy looks loosely associative, the connective logic is as follows: the just princes and monarch are to bring about a just judicial order that is very much lacking in a society where villains pervert justice; thus the nobleman with his noble acts invoked in the next verse has a crucially necessary role to play.
9. Women at ease … / Complacent young women. A female audience is addressed both because it is these women of Jerusalem who egregiously have been leading a self-satisfied life of luxury (compare chapter 3) and because it is the role of women to take up public keening in a time of disaster, which is about to come. The first of the two terms here is nashim, the second banot, and while banot (literally, “daughters”) are definitely young women, there is no persuasive basis for the scholarly claim that nashim means “married women.”
10. the vintage is done with, / no harvest shall come. Blenkinsopp suggests that this may refer to the devastation of the countryside of Judah by Sennacherib’s invading army in 701 B.C.E.
11. Strip yourselves bare, / put a cloth round your loins. As the second verset clarifies, what the prophet has in mind is not a state of complete nakedness but the putting aside of fine clothing (again, see chapter 3) and binding sackcloth round the loins as a sign of mourning.
12. Beating on breasts. This is of course a gesture of mourning. The Hebrew participle is a masculine plural where it should be feminine. This may be a scribal error influenced by the word for “breasts,” which is a masculine plural.
13. for on all the houses. The preposition here does not seem right for “houses” but may have been pulled into the discourse by its use with “soil” in the previous verse. It also might be an ellipsis for something like “curse.”
15. Till a spirit is poured on us from above. This is the pivotal point of the prophecy: after the catastrophe in which the land is laid waste, God’s spirit will envelop the people, instituting an era of justice and fructifying the devastated countryside.
farmland is reckoned as forest. Though the forest does not produce crops, it is a place of dense verdant growth, and so it becomes hyperbolic of the efflorescence of the farmland. Throughout these lines, the prophet imagines a fusion of justice with the flourishing renewal of the land.
19. And it shall come down as the forest comes down. This entire verse appears to be damaged beyond repair. The first word in the received text is barad, “hail” (though the vowel-points make it look like a verb), which makes no sense; it has been emended here in accordance with one Hebrew manuscript and two ancient versions to yarad, “shall come down,” which at least yields semantic parallelism in the line. Even so, it is unclear what is being said, and attempts to explain the line or recover an original version that lies behind it have been unavailing.
20. who let loose the ox and the donkey. This is in keeping with the idea of planting alongside streams that provide abundant irrigation: there will be green pastures all around over which the oxen and donkeys may roam.
1Woe, plunderer, and you are not plundered,
traitor, and they did not betray you.
When you are done plundering, you shall be plundered,
when you finish betraying, they shall betray you.
2O LORD, show us grace, in You we hope,
be our arm every morning,
yes, our rescue in a time of distress.
3From the sound of a tumult peoples have fled,
from Your loftiness nations have scattered.
4And the spoil was gathered as locusts are gathered,
like grasshoppers whirring, they whir over it.
5Lofty is the LORD, for He dwells on high,
He has filled Zion with justice and righteousness.
6And He shall be the trust of your times,
power to rescue, wisdom and knowledge,
fear of the LORD, that is his treasure.
7Look, the Arielites screamed in the streets,
messengers of peace wept bitterly.
8The highways are desolate,
no wayfarer comes.
He has broken the treaty,
made no account of man.
9Mourning, forlorn, is the land
He has shamed Lebanon, it withers.
Sharon has become like a desert
and Bashan and Carmel stripped bare.
10Now will I rise, says the LORD,
now will I loom, now be raised.
11You shall conceive chaff, give birth to straw—
My breath shall consume you in fire.
12And peoples shall be burnings of lime,
thorns cut down that go up in fire
13Hear, you who are far off, what I have done,
and mark, you who are close, My might.
14Offenders have feared in Zion,
trembling has seized the tainted.
Who of us can abide the consuming fire,
who of us can abide the eternal flames?
15He who walks in righteousness, speaking truth,
spurning oppression’s profit,
who shakes his hands clean from holding a bribe,
stops up his ears from hearing blood-schemes
and shuts his eyes from looking at evil.
16It is he who dwells on the heights,
the fortress of crags his stronghold,
his bread provided, his water secure.
17A king in his beauty your eyes shall behold,
they shall see a land stretched out to the distance.
18Your heart shall murmur in awe,
“Where is he who counts, where is he who weighs,
where is he who counts the towers?”
19A fearsome people you shall not see,
a people with a tongue too unfathomable to grasp,
a barbaric language beyond understanding.
20Behold Jerusalem, our festival city,
the tranquil dwelling, a tent not to be moved.
Its pegs are not pulled up ever
and all its cords never are snapped.
21For there the LORD is mighty for us
a place of rivers, wide streams,
nor mighty vessels pass,
22For the LORD is our judge, the LORD our leader,
the LORD is our king, He rescues us.
23Your ropes have come loose,
they cannot hold up their mast,
they cannot unfurl the sail.
Then were great spoils shared out,
the very lame have taken plunder.
24And he who dwells there won’t say, “I am ill.”
The people who live there are pardoned of crime.
CHAPTER 33 NOTES
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1. Woe, plunderer. Some scholars take this verse to be the conclusion of the prophecy that runs to the end of chapter 32, but it may be an isolated fragment. The plunderer could refer to the Assyrian invader, whose destruction is prophesied in verses 10–13.
2. O LORD, show us grace. This initial formula, as many scholars have noted, is reminiscent of the psalms of supplication, but what follows in this poem scarcely constitutes a psalm.
4. as locusts are gathered, / like grasshoppers whirring, they whir over it. This appears to be the general sense of the Hebrew even though the syntax is rather crabbed.
7. the Arielites. While some commentators understand this as a term for “messengers,” it probably designates Jerusalemites, as in 29:1. The screaming and weeping, followed in the next verse with the evocation of the desolate countryside, reflect a moment when Jerusalem is sorely threatened by besiegers, and the best candidate for such a moment would be Sennacherib’s assault on the city in 701 B.C.E. In that case, the one who has broken the treaty in the next verse would be Sennacherib.
8. spurned the witnesses. The Masoretic Text reads “spurned the cities [ʿarim],” but cities would be an odd object for the verb “spurned.” The Qumran Isaiah reads ʿedim, “witnesses,” and the translation adopts that reading.
10. Now will I rise. This is the turning point when God summons His power to rout the Assyrian forces
11. You shall conceive chaff, give birth to straw. The “you” (plural in the Hebrew) refers to the Assyrians. Conceiving chaff and giving birth to straw is an image of utter futility, and since these are both highly combustible materials, the metaphor also represents their absolute vulnerability to God’s consuming fire.
14. Offenders have feared in Zion. This turn to the miscreants within Jerusalem marks the beginning of a new prophecy. It is possible that the appearance of consuming fire at the end of this verse led to the editorial decision to place this text here, after a prophecy that ends with consuming fire.
15. He who walks in righteousness, speaking truth. This list of ethical attributes has a catechistic look that recalls two different psalms in which similar questions are asked of the pilgrim ascending the Temple mount.
16. he who dwells on the heights. As the next verset makes clear, this would be a position of fortified security, although it is conceivable that there is also a kind of punning reference to the Temple mount.
17. A king in his beauty. This new prophecy harks back to Isaiah’s evocation of an ideal king in chapter 11 and elsewhere.
a land stretched out to the distance. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “a land of distances.” The idea is that the divinely restored Zion will be a vast country.
18. Where is he who counts. It is quite unnecessary to suppose, as some scholars have done, that a census is envisaged. What the prophet has in mind is the splendid abundance of buildings and towers in the restored city, precisely as in Psalm 48:13—“Go around Zion, encircle it. / Count its towers”—which is also a poetic celebration of triumph over enemies who have attacked Jerusalem.
19. a tongue too unfathomable to grasp, / a barbaric language beyond understanding. Repeatedly in biblical poetry, one of the terrifying aspects of the enemy is that he speaks an unintelligible language.
20. a tent not to be moved. Even though Jerusalem is built up with stone houses, the traditional equation between “tent” and “habitation” is so strong that it can be introduced here, albeit with the pointed emphasis that this tent is as solid and permanent as a building.
21. a place of rivers, wide streams. There are no broad rivers in the land of Judah, but this is a kind of utopian fantasy. One recalls a line by the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, “Jerusalem is the Venice of God.”
where no sailing craft can go. The context suggests that this means no invading fleets can enter.
23. Your ropes have come loose. The “you” would have to be Israel’s enemies. This may explain why no sailing craft can enter these waters: the rigging of the ships is in disarray, and they cannot sail.
the very lame have taken plunder. “Very” is added in the translation for clarification. The evident idea is that the defeat of the enemy will be so devastating that not just warriors but even the lame will plunder the armor and weapons that have been abandoned in panicked flight. This could accord with the description of the sudden flight of the Assyrian army that appears in 2 Kings 19.
1Draw near, O nations, to hear,
and you peoples, hearken.
Let the earth and its fullness hear,
the world and all its offspring.
2For fury has the LORD against all nations,
and wrath against all their army.
He has destroyed them, consigned them to slaughter.
3And their slain shall be flung away,
their corpses shall give off a stench,
and mountains shall melt from their blood.
4All the heavens’ array shall molder,
and like a scroll the heavens roll up,
and all their array shall wither
as the leaf withers on the vine
and the withered fruit on the fig tree.
5For My sword slaked its thirst in the heavens,
and on the people I doomed to destruction.
6The LORD’s sword is covered with blood,
greased with suet
from the blood of sheep and he-goats,
from the suet of kidneys of rams.
For a sacrifice the LORD has in Bozrah
and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7And wild oxen shall come down with them,
and bulls with the steers.
And their land shall slake its thirst with blood,
and their soil shall be greased with suet.
8For a day of revenge has the LORD,
a year of retribution for Zion’s cause.
9And its rivers shall turn to pitch,
its soil to brimstone,
and its land turn to burning pitch.
10Night and day it shall not go out,
forever its smoke shall rise.
For all generations it shall lie in ruins,
for time without end none pass through it.
11The hawk and the hedgehog shall take hold of it,
and the owl and the raven shall dwell there,
and He shall stretch over it the line of welter, the weight-stones of
waste.
12Its nobles shall call out, “There is no kingship,”
and all its princes be naught.
13And thorns shall spring up in her citadels,
in her fortresses nettle and briers,
and it shall turn into an abode of jackals,
14And wildcats shall meet hyenas,
and the satyr shall call to its mate.
There Lilith shall rest
and find repose for herself.
15There the adder shall nest and lay eggs,
hatch and brood in its shade.
There the buzzards shall gather,
each one with its mate.
16Inquire of the LORD’s book and read,
not one has missed its mate,
for the LORD’s mouth has commanded,
and His spirit has gathered them.
17And He has cast for them a lot,
His hand shared it out to them by measuring line.
Forever they shall take hold of it,
for all generations they shall dwell there.
CHAPTER 34 NOTES
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2. For fury has the LORD against all nations. Although a specific national target of divine wrath will emerge in verse 5, the initial perspective is global and, in effect, apocalyptic: all the earth is summoned to listen to the dire prophecy (verse 1), and God’s devastating judgment sweeps across the whole world.
3. and mountains shall melt from their blood. Other translations render the verb as “be drenched” or “flow,” but it is worth retaining the literal sense of the Hebrew, which constitutes a strong hyperbole: the tide of blood, vast and corrosive, will melt the mountains.
4. All the heavens’ array shall molder. The apocalyptic scope of the poetry is strikingly evident here: the swath of divine fury will encompass the very heavens, withering the stars, which as the army or host of the heavens correspond to the armies subjected to God’s wrath in verse 2.
as the leaf withers. The agricultural simile brings the distant and seemingly unassailable stars down to the familiar reality of transient things on earth, where a leaf or a date can wither overnight.
5. Edom. The appearance of Edom as the hated archenemy to be devastated by divine wrath suggests a relatively late date for this prophecy. Edom notoriously collaborated with the Babylonian invaders of Judah in 586 B.C.E., as Psalm 137 bitterly recalls.
the people I doomed to destruction. The Hebrew noun rendered as “destruction” has a homonym that means “net,” so the phrase might conceivably mean “the people caught in My net for judgment.”
6. For a sacrifice the LORD has. In the poetic equivalent of a cinematic faux raccord, the verse that appears to begin with the sacrifice of sheep and he-goats now converts them into a metaphor for the slaughter of the Edomites.
sacrifice … slaughter. As Blenkinsopp notes, the poet plays on the phonetic closeness between the two Hebrew terms, zevaḥ and tevaḥ.
Bozrah. This is a prominent Edomite city.
7. And wild oxen shall come down with them. While the general sense of a massacre is clear, the formulation of this whole verse is rather opaque: the verb “come down” sounds odd; the reference of “with them” (the Edomites?) is uncertain; and given that the prophet has moved on from slaughtered animals to slaughtered Edomites, it is puzzling that he should revert here to animals.
9. its rivers. The land referred to here is clearly Edom.
11. The hawk and the hedgehog. In this verse and in verses 13–15 the only animals that can be identified confidently are the jackals and ostriches of verse 13. In any case, all these are beasts whose habitat is the desolate wilderness.
the line of welter, the weight-stones of waste. The invocation of the “welter and waste” (tohu wabohu) of Genesis 1:2 is pointed: an activity of building will be undertaken but with the aim of irreversible destruction, restoring this land to the condition of primordial chaos.
12. Its nobles shall call out, “There is no kingship.” Some scholars conclude that there is a missing clause here. This translation seeks to rescue the received text, deleting an initial “and” before “there.”
13. a courtyard of ostriches. This translation reads ḥatseir, “courtyard,” for the Masoretic ḥatsir, “grass.” In this sense, it becomes an effective irony: a palace would have a courtyard; now, with the Edomite palaces in ruins, ostriches make these places their courtyard.
14. the satyr … / Lilith. As happens not infrequently in biblical poetry, there is an overlap between zoological and mythological entities: in the midst of the hyenas and jackals, goat-demons and a demonic goddess of the night make an appearance.
16. Inquire of the LORD’s book. The most plausible reference, given the context of this prophecy, is to neither a celestial book nor a canonical text but the prophecy itself, which, after all, is presented to its audience as the word of God.
not one of these is absent, / not one has missed its mate. “These” must be the noxious beasts listed in the preceding catastrophe. Every one of them will appear on the site of desolation where Edom once stood; every one will have its feral mate. The absolute fulfillment of the prophecy of the beasts in turn implies that every item in the prophecy of destruction set down in God’s book will surely come about.
17. And He has cast for them a lot, / His hand shared it out to them by measuring line. The effect of the imagery is literally sarcastic: dividing up an inheritance by lot (as in the Book of Joshua), measuring out plots of land with a line, are actions appropriate to carefully assigning property for human possession. Here, however, these actions are meant to give everlasting “property rights” in what once was Edom to all these wild beasts.
1The deserts and parched land shall rejoice,
the wilderness exult and bloom like the rose.
2It surely shall bloom and exult,
yes, exult and sing out in gladness.
Lebanon’s glory is given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall behold the LORD’s glory,
the majesty of our God.
3Strengthen the slackened hands,
bolster the tottering knees.
4Say to the fearful of heart:
Be strong, do not fear.
Look, your God in vengeance shall come,
God’s retribution shall come and rescue you.
5Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,
and the ears of the deaf be unstopped.
6Then shall the lame skip like a stag,
and the tongue of the mute sing in gladness.
For water shall break forth in the desert
and brooks in the wilderness.
7The heat-scorched ground shall become a lake
and the thirsty soil, springs of water.
Where a jackal’s abode was, its lair—
a courtyard for reeds and rushes.
8And a highway shall be there,
a holy way it shall be called.
No unclean one shall pass over it,
but it shall be for him who goes on the way,
and fools shall not wander there.
9No lion shall be there,
nor wild beasts go up on it.
There the redeemed shall go.
10Those ransomed by the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with glad song,
joy everlasting on their heads,
delight and joy they attain,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee.
CHAPTER 35 NOTES
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1. The desert and parched land shall rejoice. This prophecy of a transformation of the desert into a lush land of blossoming flowers is a metaphor for the grand restoration of the defeated people of Israel. It is tempting to conclude, in particular because of the image of a highway in the wilderness (verse 8) that this prophecy is the work of Second Isaiah. That is not entirely certain, even though the notion (verse 10) of “those ransomed by the LORD” returning to Zion on a holy highway is certainly in accord with the language and themes of Second Isaiah.
the rose. As with other biblical flora, the identity of this flower is uncertain (both crocus and asphodel have been proposed). This translation preserves the equivalent for ḥavatselet used by the King James Version both here and in the Song of Songs.
3. Strengthen the slackened hands. This entire exhortation to the people to be of good cheer, continuing in the next verse after having been downcast, speaks to the condition of exiles.
7. The heat-scorched ground. The Hebrew sharav actually means something like “heat scorch,” but ground is metonymically implied as it is the ground, not the scorching air, that turns into a lake.
8. but it shall be for him who goes on the way. This clause and the next look textually suspect in the Hebrew, and so any translation is conjectural. A literal rendering here would be: and it is for them who goes [sic, singular verb] on the way.
and fools shall not wander there. These are obviously meant to stand in contrast to the pure ones—Israel’s exiles?—who are destined to go on the highway through the wilderness, but the use of the term “fools” is rather odd.
10. come to Zion with glad song. The invocation at the end of this prophecy of “glad song” (rinah, verbal stem r-n-n) and rejoicing marks a clear envelope structure with the beginning in verses 1–2. At the beginning, the desert is filled with glad song because it is blooming; now at the end, the exiles returning to Zion sing gladly as they walk on the highway through the desert.
1And it happened in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria went up against all the fortified towns of Judah and took them. 2And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a heavy force. And he took a stance at the conduit of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Fuller’s Field. 3And Eliakim son of Hilkiah who was appointed over the house came out to him, together with Shebnah the scribe and Joah son of Asaph the recorder. 4And Rabshakeh said to them, “Say, pray, to Hezekiah: Thus said the great king, the king of Assyria: ‘What is this great trust in which you place trust? 5You thought, mere words are counsel and valor for battle. Now, in whom did you trust that you should have rebelled against me? 6Why, you have trusted in this shattered reed, in Egypt, which when a man leans on it, enters his palm and pierces it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. 7And should you say to me, In the LORD our God we trust, is it not He Whose high places and altars Hezekiah took away, and he said to Judah and to Jerusalem: Before this altar you shall bow down in Jerusalem?’ 8And now, wager, pray with my master, king of Assyria, and I shall give you two thousand horses if you can give yourselves riders for them. 9And how could you turn away the agent of the least of my master’s servants and trust Egypt for chariots and horses? 10And now, was it without the LORD that I have came up against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.” 11And Eliakim, and Shebnah and Joah with him, said to Rabshakeh, “Speak, pray, to your servants Aramaic, for we understand it, and do not speak Judahite in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” 12And Rabshakeh said, “Did my master send me to you and to your master to speak these words? Did he not send me to these men sitting on the wall—to eat their own turds and to drink their own urine—together with you?” 13And Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in Judahite and said, “Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14Thus said the king, ‘Let not Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to save you. 15And let not Hezekiah have you trust in the LORD, saying, the LORD with surely save us, this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ 16Do not listen to Hezekiah, for thus said the king of Assyria: ‘Make terms with me and come out to me, and each man eat of his vine and each man of his fig tree, and each man drink the water of his well. 17Until I come and take you to a land like your land—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. 18Lest Hezekiah mislead you, saying the LORD will save us. Did the gods of the nations ever save each its land from the hand of the king of Assyria? 19Where were the gods of Hammath and Arpad? Where were the gods of Sepharvaim, and did they save Samaria from my hand? 20Who is there of all the gods of these lands that saved their land from my hand, that the LORD should save Jerusalem from my hand?’” 21And they were silent and did not answer a word to him, for it was the king’s command, saying, “You shall not answer him.” 22And Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was appointed over the house, and Shebnah the scribe and Joah son of Asaph the recorder with him, came to Hezekiah, their garments rent, and they told him Rabshakeh’s words.
CHAPTER 36 NOTES
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1. And it happened in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. The prose narrative that begins here and runs to the end of chapter 39 replicates 2 Kings 18:13 through 2 Kings 20:19 with, for the most part, only minor textual differences and one added unit, 38:9–20. Although some scholars have argued that the Book of Isaiah is the primary source, copied by the editors of Kings, the reverse seems more likely. One indication that the Isaiah text is secondary is that at quite a few points it slightly abbreviates the text in Kings, dropping out a word, phrase, or even a clause that was not deemed strictly necessary. The editorial decision to insert this narrative segment here at the end of the prophecies of Isaiah son of Amoz (however much these include later writings) was evidently motivated by a desire to round out the prophecies with some detailed historical context. The fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign is 701 B.C.E. Sennacharib’s campaign in Phoenicia, Philistia, and Judah in that year is elaborately documented in Assyrian annals and bas-reliefs.
all the fortified towns of Judah. According to the Assyrian annals, the imperial forces captured forty-six Judean towns—which may be an imperial exaggeration. The principal one was Lachish, where Sennacharib is headquartered in the next verse. The Assyrians left a vivid bas-relief of their archers, in characteristic high-pointed caps, assaulting this town.
2. Rabshakeh. Although this word is presented in the Hebrew text without a definite article, as though it were a proper name, it is actually a title, “head steward.” In Kings, this figure is accompanied by two other Assyrian court officials who also have titles as names.
3. who was appointed over the house. That is, the palace.
6. this shattered reed. Reeds, of course, grow in abundance along the Nile.
which when a man leans on it, enters his palm and pierces it. The metaphor is quite realistic. The reed looks as if it could provide support, but it easily breaks when you lean on it, and the jagged ends of the beak can pierce the skin. Rabshakeh’s words neatly jibe with Isaiah’s political opposition to an alliance with Egypt.
8. I shall give you two thousand horses if you can give yourself riders for them. Hezekiah’s attempted rebellion is so hopelessly pathetic, Rabshakeh says, that he could not even muster sufficient cavalrymen were he given the horses.
9. agent. The Hebrew aptly uses an Assyrian imperial administrative title, paḥat (compare the English “pasha,” which has a shared linguistic background).
11. Speak, pray, to your servants Aramaic. Aramaic was the most widely shared language in the lands of the Assyrian empire east of the Jordan, and so by the late eighth century B.C.E. it had been adopted as the lingua franca. Thus, an educated Judahite court official would have been fluent in Aramaic.
do not speak Judahite. “Judahite,” of course, is Hebrew. It is not explained how an Assyrian court official had a command of Hebrew.
12. Did he not send me to these men sitting on the wall. The verb “send” is merely implied in the Hebrew. Rabshakeh makes clear that his entire speech—itself a brilliant deployment of political rhetoric—is precisely intended for the ears of the people. His purpose is to drive a wedge between the rebellious Hezekiah and the people, convincing them that the uprising is hopeless, and that, in fact, the fate of deportation to Assyria will be a happy one.
15. let not Hezekiah have you trust in the LORD. Rabshakeh appears to be shifting grounds. First he claimed that it was YHWH Who sent the Assyrians against Judah (verse 10), which was a way of conveying to the people the idea that their destruction was divinely ordained and irreversible. Now he takes a different tack: no national god has ever prevailed against the great king of Assyria.
16. Make terms with me. The literal sense is “make a gift [or blessing] with me,” but in context, as Rashi and the King James Version after him understood, the expression means to offer terms of surrender.
each man eat of his vine and each man of his fig tree. The vine and the fig tree appear in a repeated proverbial expression about peaceful and prosperous life. Eating from the vine and the fig tree and drinking well-water are a vivid antithesis to the representation of the starving besieged population eating its own excrement and drinking its own urine.
17. a land like your land. The catalogue of agricultural beauty that follows resembles the recurrent list of all the good things of the Land of Israel. Rabshakeh in this fashion depicts life in exile in Assyria as a new promised land.
1And it happened when King Hezekiah heard, that he rent his garments and covered himself in sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. 2And he sent Eliakim, who was appointed over the house, and Shebnah the scribe and the elders of the priests, covered in sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet son of Amos. 3And they said to him, “Thus said Hezekiah: ‘A day of distress and chastisement and insult in this day.
For children have come to the birth-stool,
and there is no strength to give birth.
4Perhaps the LORD will have heard the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria sent, to defame the living God, and He will chastise for the words that the LORD your God heard and you will offer prayers for the remnant that still exists.’” 5And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6And Isaiah said to them, “Thus shall you say to your master: Thus said the LORD: ‘Do not fear the words that you have heard, with which the flunkies of the king of Assyria reviled Me. 7I am about to send an ill spirit into him, and he shall hear a rumor and go back to his land, and I shall make him fall by the sword in his land.’” 8And Rabshakeh went back and found the king of Assyria battling against Libnah, for he had heard that he had journeyed on from Lachish. 9And he heard about Tirhakah king of Cush, saying, “Look, he has sallied forth to do battle with you.” And he heard, and he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10“Thus shall you say to Hezekiah king of Judah, ‘Let not your god in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11Look, you yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria did to all the lands, annihilating them—and will you be saved? 12Did the gods of the nations save them, when my fathers destroyed Gozan and Haram and Rezeph and the Edomites who are in Telassar? 13Where is the king of Hammath, and the kings of Arpad and the king of Lair, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’” 14And Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers and read them, and he went up to the house of the LORD, and Hezekiah spread them out before the LORD. 15And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, saying: 16“LORD of Armies, enthroned on the cherubim, You alone are God of all the kingdoms of earth. You it was made heaven and earth. 17Bend Your ear and listen; open, LORD, Your eyes and see; and listen to the words of Sennacherib that he sent to insult the living God. 18Indeed, LORD, the king of Assyria destroyed all the nations and their lands 19and consigned their gods to fire, for they are not gods but the work of human hands, wood and stone, and they destroyed them. 20And now, O LORD our God, rescue us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone are the LORD our God.” 21And Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus said the LORD God of Israel: ‘Of which you prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22this is the word of the LORD concerning him:
the maiden, Zion’s Daughter.
Jerusalem’s Daughter.
23Whom did you insult and revile,
and against whom have you lifted your voice,
against Israel’s Holy One?
24By your messengers you insulted the Master
and thought, “With my many chariots
I will go up to the heights of the mountains,
the far reaches of Lebanon.
I will cut down its lofty cedars,
its choicest cypresses,
and will come to its uttermost heights,
and the woods of its undergrowth.
25It is I who have dug and drunk
and dried up with the soles of my feet
26Have you not heard from afar
that which I did from time of old?
I fashioned it, brought it to pass—
and fortified towns
have turned into heaps of ruins.
27Their inhabitants, impotent,
are shattered and put to shame,
become the grass of the field
and green growth,
by the east wind blasted.”
28And your stayings and comings and goings I know
and your raging against Me.
29Because of your raging against Me
and your din that came up in My ears
I will put My hook in your nose
and My bit between your lips,
and will turn you back on the way
on which you came.
30And this is the sign for you: eat aftergrowth this year, and in the second year stubble, and in the third year sow and harvest and plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 31And the remnant of the house of Judah shall add root beneath and put forth fruit above. 32For from Jerusalem shall come forth the surviving remnant from Mount Zion. The LORD’s zeal shall do this.’ 33Therefore, thus said the LORD about the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not enter this city and he shall not shoot an arrow there, and no shield shall go before him, nor shall he raise a siege-work against it. 34In the way he came he shall go back, and he shall not enter this city, said the LORD. 35And I will defend this city to rescue it, for My sake and for the sake of David My servant.’” 36And the LORD’s messenger went out and struck down in the Assyrian camp, a hundred eighty-five thousand. And when they arose early in the morning—look, they were all dead. 37And Sennacherib king of Assyria pulled up stakes and went off and returned to Assyria and stayed in Nineveh. 38And it happened as he was bowing down in the house of his god Nisroch, that Adrammelech and Sarezer struck him down with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esharaddon his son became king in his stead.
CHAPTER 37 NOTES
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3. For children have come to the birth-stool. The poetic style makes these words seem initially cryptic, but the obvious meaning is that the children about to be born cannot emerge because when the mothers come to the birth-stool, they do not have the strength to push the babies out. The delegation from the king may want to speak to the prophet in his own characteristic language by first addressing him in a line of verse. In any case, the line forcefully frames their message to Isaiah with an image of desperate impotence that represents the plight of the people. The prophet in this narrative resembles Elijah and Elisha in being seen by others as a holy man who has the power to intercede on their behalf with God.
5. And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. Their arrival was clearly implied by the end of verse 2. Perhaps one should construe the verb as a pluperfect, though its form does not indicate that.
6. flunkies. The Hebrew neʿarim, youths or people in a subservient status, is usually represented in this translation as “lads,” but its use here by Isaiah, instead of the expected ʿavadim, “servants,” has a pejorative connotation.
7. an ill spirit. The Hebrew says only “a spirit,” but since it induces fear followed by flight, it appears to be a troubling spirit.
he shall hear a rumor. What this might be is not spelled out. If the prophecy is to be consistent with what is reported at the end of the chapter, it would be the news that his army has been stricken with a plague.
9. king of Cush. Cush is Nubia, just south of Egypt and politically linked with it. Egypt was a key player in the uprising against the Assyrian imperial forces, and so it is not surprising that the Nubian king would oppose Sennacherib. The connection of this report with the siege against Jerusalem is not entirely clear. Perhaps Sennacherib is impelled to finish off Jerusalem quickly so that he can turn his forces to the south.
14. read them … spread them out. The Hebrew has a singular object for these two verbs, but the first part of the verse speaks of multiple letters.
16. You alone are God of all the kingdoms of earth. These words are a direct rebuttal of the arrogant words of Rabshakeh in verse 12. Hezekiah will make his rejoinder to the Assyrian boast still more explicit in verses 18–19.
18. destroyed all the nations. The received text has “lands,” which looks like a dittography, triggered by “land” at the end of the verse. The parallel passage in 2 Kings and some Hebrew manuscripts show “nations.”
22. She scorns you, mocks you. The “you” is of course Sennacherib. The personified Zion, scorned by Sennacherib’s spokesman, has nothing but contempt for the presumptuous Assyrian king.
She wags her head at you. In biblical poetry, this is a conventional gesture of scorn.
23. raised your eyes up high / against Israel’s Holy One. Isaiah ups the ante of denunciation: Sennacherib’s presumption in declaring that he will destroy the kingdom of Judah is cast as an assault on the God of heaven and earth.
24. I will go up to the heights of the mountains, / the far reaches of Lebanon. Although Sennacherib’s campaign did include Phoenicia, here he is besieging Jerusalem. The mountains of Lebanon, however, are the proverbial loftiest heights in biblical poetry, and yarketey levanon, “the far reaches of Lebanon,” contains an echo of yarketey tsafon, “the far reaches of Tsafon,” the dwelling place of the gods. Sennacherib’s declaration at this point sounds rather like that of the overweening king of Babylonia brought down to Sheol in chapter 14, which may allude to the text here. The cutting down of lofty cedars also figures in chapter 14.
the woods of its undergrowth. The Hebrew karmel usually means “farmland,” which would be anomalous on the Lebanon heights, but as Yehuda Feliks has noted, it can also mean “low shrubs.” This would be the sparse vegetation in the mountaintops above the treeline.
25. the waters of foreigners. The Masoretic Text here says only “waters,” and the translation follows the version of this line in 2 Kings 19:24. The phrase, slightly opaque, is part of Sennacherib’s boast of conquest: he has seized the territories of nations and even sunk wells to exploit their water resources.
and dried up with the soles of my feet / all Egypt’s rivers. This is an antithetical act to the digging of wells—Egypt, blessed by the Nile, abounds in water. Here the Assyrian king makes himself, at least through hyperbole, a divine figure with the power to dry up rivers as he treads upon them.
all Egypt’s rivers. The translation reads kol yeʾ orey mitsrayim instead of the Masoretic kol yeʾ orey motsar, “all the waters of siege,” which does not make much sense.
27. thatch on the roofs / by the east wind blasted. The speech Isaiah attributes to Sennacherib concludes with a metaphor common in biblical poetry of the nations as mere grass, blasted by the hot wind blowing from the eastern desert.
29. your din. The received text has shaʾ anenekha, “your complacent one,” for which this translation reads, with several ancient versions, sheʾ onkha, “your din.”
I will put My hook in your nose / and My bit between your lips. Sennacherib has imagined himself as a god. Now the God of Israel describes him as a dumb helpless beast to be driven where God wants.
turn you back. This is Isaiah’s prophecy of Sennacherib’s flight back to Assyria.
30. eat aftergrowth this year. The “you” now is Hezekiah, and the verb will then switch to the plural, referring to the people. Because the invading army has laid waste to the countryside, there will be no crops for two years—and yet, as a “sign,” the Judahites will survive.
36. And the LORD’s messenger went out. The parallel text in Kings begins with the phrase, “And it happened on that night.”
struck down in the Assyrian camp. The lifting of the siege is a historical event, though the reason for it is uncertain. If the report is authentic, it might be because a plague swept through the Assyrian camp. But one must say that the historian in 2 Kings has a vested interest in presenting the event as a miraculous intervention, demonstrating God’s commitment to protect Jerusalem (in contrast to Samaria, destroyed by an Assyrian king twenty years earlier).
38. Adrammelech and Sarezer struck him down with the sword. The two figures named are Sennacherib’s sons. One gets the impression from the narrative report that the assassination took place directly after the emperor’s return to Nineveh. In fact, Sennacherib was murdered twenty years after the military campaign of 701 B.C.E. The writer, however, wants to present this killing in the temple of a pagan god as an immediate fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (verse 7) and a prompt retribution against the boasting conqueror depicted in Isaiah’s poem.
And Esharaddon his son became king in his stead. Esharaddon had been Sennacherib’s chosen successor. It was evidently this choice that led Adrammelech, abetted by one of his brothers, to kill his father, hoping to seize the throne. One infers that he then discovered no support in the court for his claim to the crown and thus was obliged to flee with his brother to Ararat in the far north.
1In those days Hezekiah fell mortally ill, and Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet came to him and said to him, “Thus said the LORD: ‘Charge your household, for you are about to die, and you will not live.’” 2And Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD. 3And he said, “Please, O LORD, recall, pray, that I walked before You truthfully and with a whole heart and did what was good in Your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept copiously. 4And the word of the LORD came to Isaiah, saying, 5“Go and say to Hezekiah, ‘Thus said the LORD God of David your forefather: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears. I am about to add to your days fifteen years. 6And from the hand of the king of Assyria I will save you and this city, and I will defend this city. 7And this is the sign for you that the LORD will do this thing which He has spoken. 8I am about to turn back the shadow on the steps that has gone down on the Steps of Ahaz with the sun ten steps backward.’” And the sun turned back ten steps on the steps where it had come down.
9A writ for Hezekiah king of Judah when he fell ill and revived from his illness.
10I thought, in the prime of my days I will pass away.
To the gates of Sheol am I consigned
for the rest of my years.
11I thought, I will not see Yah in the land of the living,
I will no more look on man, with the dwellers of the world.
12My abode is pulled up and taken from me
like the tent of a shepherd.
I have rolled up my life like a weaver,
from the loom He cuts me away,
from day to night You finish me.
13I cried out until morning.
Like a lion He broke all my bones,
from day to night You finish me.
14Like a swallow or swift I chirp,
I moan like a dove.
My eyes are worn out looking high.
O Master, I am oppressed, be my surety.
15What can I speak, and He has said to me and done it?
I toss fitfully all my years
for the bitterness of my being.
16O Master, for them who will live
and all among them is my spirit’s life,
and You healed me and gave me life.
17Why, instead of peace, it was bitter for me, bitter,
but You held back my life
from destruction’s pit.
For You flung behind Your back all my offenses.
18For Sheol will not acclaim You,
nor will Death praise You.
Those who go down to the Pit
cannot hope for Your faithfulness.
19The living, the living, he will acclaim you,
like me on this day.
Father will make known to sons
Your faithfulness.
20The LORD is here to rescue us,
all the days of our life
in the house of the LORD.
21And Isaiah said, “Let them fetch a clump of figs and smear it on the burning rash, that he may revive.” 22And Hezekiah said, “What is the sign that I will go up to the house of the LORD?”
CHAPTER 38 NOTES
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1. In those days Hezekiah fell mortally ill. This chapter replicates 2 Kings 20, though with more extensive abridgment than in the preceding replication of Kings and with the interpolation of a psalm of supplication not in 2 Kings 20.
5. the LORD God of David your forefather. This epithet serves as a reminder of God’s commitment to preserve the Davidic dynasty, and Hezekiah is presented as a king who does what is right in the eyes of the LORD, like David his forefather.
6. from the hand of the king of Assyria I will save you. This clause could be an indication that Hezekiah’s illness preceded the siege of Jerusalem, but the inference is not entirely certain because even after the lifting of the siege, Assyria would have remained a potential threat.
7. And this is the sign. At this point in the text in 2 Kings, Isaiah carries out what looks like an act of folk medicine by applying a clump of figs to Hezekiah’s rash. Here that act is moved to the end of the chapter, where it appears to be out of place.
8. I am about to turn back the shadow on the steps. What is evidently in question is a kind of sundial, but one that is not a horizontal disk but rather a series of steps set into a wall, ten on the left side to show the shadow of the ascending sun and ten on the right side for the descending sun. A device of this sort has been found in Egypt. The King James Version and modern Hebrew understand maʿa lot as “degrees,” but these were probably actual steps, which is what the word usually means in biblical Hebrew.
the Steps of Ahaz. The sundial in question proves to be a well-known marker in Jerusalem commissioned by King Ahaz.
9. A writ for Hezekiah. What follows is actually a psalm of supplication. Inserting poems from different sources was a common practice in biblical narrative or in the hands of the editors. The intention here is to give dramatic expression to the desperation of the king at death’s door. While this psalm exhibits many of the formulaic features of supplications, the text that has come down to us is manifestly damaged, especially in its second half, sometimes reducing translation to guesswork, as will be duly noted at the relevant points.
10. I will pass away. Literally, “I will go,” sometimes a euphemism for dying in biblical Hebrew.
12. I have rolled up. The verb qiped occurs only here, and so one is obliged to guess from the context what it might mean.
You finish me. The verb, derived from a root that means “whole,” looks as though it should have a positive connotation, but here it has to be negative.
13. I cried out. The received text reads shiviti, “I imagined,” “I depicted,” but the Targum reads shivaʿti, “I cried out,” as does this translation.
14. I am oppressed. The received text has an imperative, “oppress me,” which does not make sense.
15. What can I speak, and He has said to me and done it? Each of the Hebrew words here is understandable, but how they fit together is not entirely unclear.
16. O Master, for them who will live / and all among them is my spirit’s life. The translation frankly mirrors the stubborn unintelligibility of both these clauses, which defy reconstruction.
18. For Sheol will not acclaim You. The declaration in this verse and the next is one that appears with some frequency in Psalms: only the living have the capacity to praise God, and so the speaker entreats God to sustain him in the land of the living.
20. The LORD is here to rescue us. The Hebrew says merely “The LORD to rescue us.”
let us play music. Given that the music is to be played in the house of the LORD, this would be the music accompanying the singing of psalms of thanksgiving that would recount God’s beneficence in rescuing the speaker from death.
21. Let them fetch a clump of figs. In Kings, this act of folk healing is performed immediately after Isaiah comes to visit the ailing Hezekiah. The fact that a textual displacement has occurred is reflected in the king’s asking what the sign will be in the next verse. In the present chapter, this question should have occurred just before Isaiah’s response to it in verse 7, “And this is the sign for you.” That is precisely the order in 2 Kings 20.
22. that I will go up to the house of the LORD. Hezekiah is bedridden, so what he means by this question is: what is the sign that I will recover and again be able to participate in worship at the Temple? The version in 2 Kings 20:8 in fact makes this perfectly explicit: “What is the sign that the LORD will heal me and I will go up on the third day to the house of the LORD?”
1At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan king of Babylonia sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he had heard that Isaiah had fallen ill and regained strength. 2And Hezekiah rejoiced over the envoys and showed them all his house of precious things, the silver and the gold and the spices and the goodly oil and his armory and all that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing that Hezekiah did not show them in his house and in all his kingdom. 3And Isaiah the prophet came to Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say to you, and from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “From a distant land, from Babylonia.” 4And he said, “What did they see in your house?” And Hezekiah said, “All that is in my house they saw. There was nothing that I did not show them of my treasuries.” 5And Isaiah said, “Listen to the word of the LORD: 6‘Look, a time is coming when everything that is in your house and that your fathers stored up till this day will be borne off to Babylonia. Nothing will remain,’ said the LORD. 7‘And of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will beget, they will be taken, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylonia.’” 8And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” And he thought, “For there will be peace and trust in my days.”
CHAPTER 39 NOTES
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1. At that time. The narrative continues to replicate the text from the Book of Kings, with some minor divergences. The name Merodach-Baladan appears as Berodan-Baladan in the parallel passage in 2 Kings 20:12–19.
king of Babylonia. The Babylonians were threatened by the Assyrian empire to the north and so would have been eager to make common cause with the kingdom of Judah.
for he had heard. The translation reproduces the version in 2 Kings 20:12. The text here reads, illogically, “and he heard.”
2. the envoys. The received text has only “over them,” and this identification is added in the translation for clarity.
6. a time is coming when everything that is in your house … will be borne off to Babylonia. This dire prophecy is presented as punishment for Hezekiah’s imprudence in exposing all his treasures to the eyes of the Babylonian visitors. Many scholars think that the episode was added over a century later in an effort to explain the despoiling of Jerusalem during the reign of Johaiakim in 597 B.C.E. or in the final destruction of the city eleven years later, in 586.
7. they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylonia. Although sarisim sometimes may refer to court officials who are not necessarily castrated, one suspects that the core meaning of castration is invoked here: there could be no greater curse for a king than to have his sons turned into eunuchs, incapable of begetting offspring.
8. The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good. This response by Hezekiah to the grim prophecy is astonishing. On the surface, he seems to be saying to Isaiah that he accepts the word of the LORD, that it must be good because it is God’s will. In the next sentence, however, he thinks to himself that what is good about it is that the disaster will not happen in his lifetime—something that in fact Isaiah has not clearly told him. This self-centered view of national catastrophe puts the virtuous Hezekiah in a somewhat questionable light. The narrative material taken from 2 Kings breaks off abruptly at this point, and the book resumes with the soaring poetry of the anonymous prophet of the Babylonian exile called by scholars Second Isaiah. The editorial placement of chapter 39 serves as a bridge to Second Isaiah because it involves a prophecy of the Babylonian conquest: after the devastating conquest and the exile of a large part of the Judahite population, the comforting words of Second Isaiah announce a glorious return from exile.
1Comfort, O comfort My people,
says your God.
2Speak to the heart of Jerusalem
and call out to her,
for her term of service is ended,
her crime is expiated,
for she has taken from the LORD’s hand
double for all her offenses.
3A voice calls out in the wilderness:
Clear a way for the LORD’s road,
level in the desert a highway for our God!
4Every valley shall be lifted high
and every mountain brought low,
and the crooked shall be straight,
and the ridges become a valley.
5And the LORD’s glory shall be revealed,
that the LORD’s mouth has spoken.
6A voice calls out, saying: “Call!”
And I said, “What shall I call?”—
All flesh is grass
and all its trust like the flowers of the field.
7Grass dries up, the flower fades,
for the LORD’s wind has blown upon it.
The people indeed is grass.
8Grass dries up, the flower fades,
but the word of our God stands forever.
9On a high mountain go up,
O herald of Zion.
Raise your voice mightily,
raise it, do not fear.
Say to the towns of Judah:
10Look, the Master LORD shall come in power,
His arm commanding for Him.
Look, His reward is with Him,
His wages before Him.
11Like a shepherd He minds His flock
in His arm He gathers lambs,
and in his lap He bears them, leads the ewes.
12Who with his hand’s hollow has measured the waters,
the heavens has gauged with a span,
and meted earth’s dust with a measure,
weighed with a scale the mountains
and the hills with a balance?
13Who has gauged the LORD’s spirit,
and what man told then His plan?
14With whom did He counsel, who informed Him,
who taught Him the path of justice,
taught Him knowledge
and the way of discernment informed Him?
15Why, nations are a drop from the bucket,
like the balance’s dust are reckoned.
Why, the coastlands He plucks up like dust.
16Lebanon has not enough fuel,
and its beasts not enough for burnt offering.
17All the nations are as naught before Him,
as nothing and void they are reckoned by Him.
18And to whom would you liken God,
and what likeness for Him propose?
19The craftsman has shaped the idol,
and the smith overlays it with gold
and forges the links of silver.
20Mulberry wood for the gift,
wood that won’t rot he chooses.
A skilled craftsman he seeks for himself
to ready an idol that will not topple.
21Do you not know,
have you not heard?
Was it not told to you from the first,
have you not grasped how the earth was founded?
22He is enthroned on the rim of the earth,
and its dwellers are like grasshoppers.
He spreads out the heavens like gauze
and stretches them like a tent to dwell in.
23He turns princes into nothing,
earth’s rulers He makes as naught.
24Hardly planted, hardly sown,
hardly their stem rooted in earth,
When He blows on them, they wither,
and the storm bears them off like chaff.
25And to whom would you liken Me
that I be compared, says the Holy One?
26Lift up your eyes on high,
and see, who created these?
He Who musters their host by number
and all of them calls by name.
Through abundant strength and mighty power,
no one lacks in the ranks.
27Why should you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel:
My way is hidden from the LORD,
my cause is ignored by my God?
28Do you not know,
have you not heard?—
an eternal God is the LORD,
Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not tire, is not weary,
His discernment cannot be fathomed.
29He gives vigor to the weary,
and great power to those sapped of strength.
30Lads may grow weary and tire,
and young men may badly stumble.
31But who wait for the LORD shall renew vigor,
shall grow new pinions like the eagles,
walk on and not be weary.
CHAPTER 40 NOTES
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1. Comfort, O comfort My people. The prophecies of Second Isaiah begin abruptly, with no introductory formula such as “The word of the LORD came to me, saying.” If such introductory matter once existed, it would have been editorially deleted in order to encourage the perception that these prophecies are a direct continuation of what has preceded. Scholars have long puzzled over who is being addressed in the first verse. A prevalent view that it is the members of the divine council seems unlikely because there are no hints in the entire passage of a celestial setting. Others have proposed that these (the Hebrew verb is a plural) are a group of prophets exhorted to comfort Israel, but there are no such groups in the texts of the literary prophets. Groups of prophets appear only in the narrative books, where they are wandering bands of ecstatics. Perhaps it is simplest to assume that those addressed are people in general, or even the nations, enjoined to comfort Israel. In any event, the key word “comfort” at the very beginning of Second Isaiah sounds the great theme of Second Isaiah’s prophecies.
2. her term of service. The exile is imagined as a term of indentured servitude, or even a prison sentence, which is now completed.
4. the crooked shall be straight. The power of this stark formulation is worth preserving literally, even though the phrase might mean “the rugged ground shall be leveled.” The poet, conjuring up the expanse of arid land, abounding in ravines and ridges and rough terrain, that stretches between Babylonia and Judah, imagines a miraculous smoothing out of the ground as a great highway is laid down for the return of the exiles.
5. all flesh together see. This universalizing phrase might be taken as an indication that all humanity is addressed at the beginning of the prophecy.
6. A voice calls out. This could well be a truncated version of the divine call to the prophet to take up his mission.
trust. The Hebrew ḥesed here carries its sense of faithfulness or loyalty in meeting an obligation.
8. Grass dries up, the flower fades. The fondness of this poet for evocative repetition is evident here. In this case, it amounts to an incremental repetition, in which the increment is a strong antithesis to what has been repeated: “but the word of the LORD our God stands forever.”
9. here is your God. God’s vivid presence is manifest in the power and love with which He brings the exiles back to their land.
11. Like a shepherd He minds His flock. This simile makes a lovely counterpoint to the previous verse: first God shows overwhelming force (“His arm commanding for Him”) and now tender solicitude as the shepherd gathering lambs in His lap.
12. Who with his hand’s hollow has measured the waters. With this prophecy, soaring poetry becomes the vehicle to convey God’s magisterial role over all creation. It is perhaps at this point, most likely in the later sixth century B.C.E., that the universalist potential of biblical monotheism is fully realized. As several commentators have noted, there is a certain affinity here with the Voice from the Whirlwind in Job 38, though one cannot assume that either poet knew the other’s work.
weighed with a scale the mountains. Throughout these lines, there is a yawning gap between the paltry instruments of human measurement and the vastness of creation.
14. With whom did He counsel. This excludes not only puny humankind but also perhaps any traditional notion of a divine council from playing any part in creation.
15. the balance’s dust. This strikingly picks up the imagery of measuring instruments from verse 12, pushing it further by likening humankind to the dust left on the pans of a balance after it has been used—which is to say, something that has no weight at all.
17. as nothing and void. The second of the two Hebrew terms, tohu, takes us back to the primordial chaos (tohu wabohu) before creation.
19. The craftsman has shaped the idol. This would be a woodworker carving the idol, which would then be overlaid with precious metals. The focus on the manufacturing process that produces idols vividly conveys the futility of fashioning such material images of purported deities and stands in contrast to God, Who has no likeness (verse 18).
20. Mulberry wood. The Hebrew mesukan is obscure. This translation adopts one scholarly proposal, assuming that attention to craft materials fits in with the preceding verse, but there is no consensus on this.
22. He spreads out the heavens like gauze. This verset and the next are reminiscent of the splendid depiction of the grandeur of the Creator in Psalm 104.
26. He Who musters their host by number / and all of them calls by name. This is a beautiful instance of the focusing or heightening that takes place between the first verset and the second in a line of biblical poetry: first, God musters the host of the heavens, the stars, as their supreme commander; then, going beyond what any terrestrial general could do, He is able to name each one of the vast multitude of the stars.
31. grow new pinions like the eagles. The phenomenon of molting and getting new feathers is here extended, probably as a deliberate hyperbole, to the growing of new wings. The Hebrew ʾever is clearly a poetic term for “wing,” and does not mean “feather,” as some translations have it.
shall run and shall not tire. God’s inexhaustible nature is transferred to those who wait or hope for Him. If the prophet still has in mind his previous vision of a miraculous return to Zion, this idea here of a spectacular infusion of strength in the faithful would serve a double function: it would link up with the idea of a renewal of national strength after the crushing ordeal of the exile, and it could suggest that those marching over the long highway through the wilderness will not weary on the way.
1Be still for me, you coastlands,
and let nations renew their vigor.
Let them draw near, then let them speak.
Together let us come to trial.
2Who has stirred up victory from the east
called it to His feet?
He sets down before Him nations
and holds sway over kings,
turns their sword into dust,
like driven chaff their bow.
3He pursues them, moves on safe and sound,
He touches no path with His feet.
4Who has enacted and done it,
calling the generations from the first?—
“I the LORD am the first,
and with the last ones it is I.”
5The coastlands have seen and feared,
the ends of the earth have trembled,
they have drawn near and have come.
6[Each man helps his fellow
and to his brother says, “Be strong.”
7And the craftsman strengthens the smith,
the hammer wielder—the anvil pounder.
He says to the glue, “It is good,”
and strengthens it with nails that it not totter.]
8As for you, O Israel, My servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
seed of Abraham My friend,
9whom I took up from the ends of the earth
and called forth from its nobles
and said to you, “You are My servant,
I have chosen you and have not despised you.
10Do not fear, for I am with you,
do not be frightened, for I am your God.
I have sustained you, also have helped you,
also have stayed you up with My triumphant right hand.
11Look, they shall be shamed and disgraced,
all who are incensed against you,
they shall be as naught and shall perish,
those who contend with you.
12You shall seek them and shall not find them,
those who battle with you.
They shall be as naught and as nothing,
those who war against you.
13For I am the LORD your God,
holding your right hand,
saying to you, Do not fear,
I am helping you.
14Do not fear, O worm of Jacob,
men of Israel.
I am helping you, says the LORD,
and your Redeemer, Israel’s Holy One.
15Look, I have made you a threshing board
You shall thresh mountains and grind them to dust,
and turn hills into chaff.
16You shall winnow them—the wind shall bear them off,
and the storm shall scatter them.
But you shall be glad in the LORD,
in Israel’s Holy One you shall exult.
17The poor and the needy seek water and there is none,
their tongues are parched with thirst.
I the LORD will answer them,
God of Israel, I will not forsake them.
18I will open rivers on the peaks
and wellsprings in the valleys.
I will turn desert into ponds of water
and parched land into water sources.
19I will put cedars in the desert,
acacia and myrtle and wild olive tree.
I will put cypress in the wilderness,
20So they may see and know
and take to heart and grasp together,
that the hand of the LORD has done this,
and Israel’s Holy One has created it.”
21Bring out your case, says the LORD,
make your brief, says Jacob’s King.
22Let them bring out and tell us
that which will come about,
the first things, what are they, tell,
that we may pay heed and know the future,
what is to come make us hear.
23Tell the signs in advance
that we may know that you are gods.
Do either good or evil,
that we may be frightened and fear as well.
24Why, you are as naught
and your deeds are as nothing—
an abhorrence, who would choose you?
25I have roused him from the north, he has come,
from sunrise he invokes my name,
and he stomps on governors like mud,
as a potter tramples clay.
26Who has told from the first that we might know,
from beforehand that we might say, he is right?
But none has told, none has announced,
but none has heard Your sayings.
27First for Zion, here they are,
and for Jerusalem will I set a herald.
28I looked but there was no man,
whom I could ask and have them answer.
Their deeds are nothing,
mere wind and void their idols.
CHAPTER 41 NOTES
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1. and let nations renew their vigor. This second verset is scarcely a parallel member to the first verset of this line. The general scholarly hypothesis that this is an inadvertent scribal duplication of 40:31a seems quite likely. Perhaps this was originally a triadic line, that is, “Be still for me, you coastlands,” directly followed by “Let them draw near” and then “Together let us come… .”
come to trial. The trial, which is between advocates of the pagan gods and the one true God, runs through the chapter but will be followed explicitly in verses 21–24.
2. Who has stirred up victory from the east. Because of what is said in verse 4, this translation understands the reference to be to God, not to a king whom God is using as His instrument. But in all likelihood the historical event in view is the conquest of the Medes by Cyrus II in the years leading up to Persia’s capture of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. That imminent victory is something this prophet would have looked forward to eagerly.
4. calling the generations from the first. This somewhat unusual characterization of God establishes an important theological theme for the whole prophecy: God has been present from the very beginnings of history; nations, caught up in their internecine struggles in what is no more than a fleeting historical moment, have by comparison no value or substance. Thus God goes on to make the ringing declaration of the next line: “I the LORD am the first, / and with the last ones it is I.”
6–7. Each man helps … it not totter. The evocation of the enterprise of idol manufacture in this verse and the next seems out of place, and it is plausible that these lines were scribally misplaced from 40:18–20. These verses therefore are enclosed with brackets here.
9. whom I took up from the ends of the earth. Abraham was called by God to make his way from his native Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. The prophet envisages a similar trajectory for the descendants of Abraham, exiled to Mesopotamia.
10. My triumphant right hand. The noun tsedeq, which usually means “righteousness” in either the judicial sense (the just cause in court) or the ethical sense, here and in verse 2 means “triumph” or “victory.” In verse 2 the term is linked with God’s feet, here with His mighty arm.
12. as naught and as nothing. These prophecies abound in synonyms for nothingness to represent the nonentity of both nations and their gods—ʾayin, ʾefes, tohu, and ʾefa (verse 24)—although the anomalous last term may be a scribal error for ʾefes (in modern Hebrew, “zero”).
14. worm of Jacob. This ostensibly insulting designation is used to represent Israel in defeat and exile as lowly and downtrodden.
15. double edges. The Hebrew term is commonly used to characterize a double-edged sword (a sickle-shaped sword with only one cutting edge was more common), and so this word turns the threshing board into a weapon.
17. The poor and the needy. This verset is too long metrically (it has five accents where the general limit is four), and so it seems likely that one of these two synonyms is a scribal interpolation.
18. I will open rivers on the peaks. The desert landscape envisioned here that is about to be transformed into a verdant garden is probably not the wilderness to be crossed on the return to Zion but rather the land of Judah itself, devastated by the Babylonian conquerors and then at least partly left uncultivated because much of the population was exiled.
19. box tree and elm. The identification of these botanical items is a matter of guesswork.
20. created. The choice of verb is somewhat surprising, but “create” is probably used to suggest that the renewal of the land, after it has reverted to a state of chaos, is a kind of new creation.
21. your brief. The Hebrew noun derives from a root suggesting strength, so it might be taken to mean something like “strong arguments.”
22. Let them bring out and tell us / that which will come about. What is at issue in this court case is a conflict between false, pagan prophets and the true prophets that God alone can inspire.
that we may pay heed and know the future. This is sarcastic, a jibe directed at the false prophets: if you really have the gift of prophecy, tell us what the future will be.
24. as naught / … as nothing. A more literal reading would be “from naught … from nothing.”
25. I have roused him from the north. This new prophecy introduces a set of more strictly historical references. The Persian army threatening Babylonia in the sixth decade of the sixth century B.C.E. was advancing from the north, and the “he” in question is Cyrus II, the Persian emperor.
from sunrise. This could be a geographical indication, but since the east conflicts with the just mentioned north, it is perhaps used in a temporal sense: from the beginning of each day this king invokes God’s name.
26. Who has told from the first. These lines appear to pick up the theme of the failure of pagan prophecy from verses 21–24.
27. First for Zion, here they are. The Hebrew is rather cryptic here and may reflect a faulty text.
28. among them none gave counsel. This last verse continues the theme of the impotence and the abysmal ignorance of all pagan facsimiles of prophecy.
mere wind. The use of “wind” to designate what is without body or substance is close to an anticipation of Qohelet (“herding the wind”).
1Look, My servant, I have stayed him up,
My chosen one, I have greatly favored.
I have set My spirit on him,
he shall bring forth justice to the nations.
2He shall not cry out nor raise his voice
nor let his voice be heard abroad.
3A shattered reed he shall not break
nor a guttering wick put out.
In truth he shall bring forth justice.
4He shall not gutter nor shall he be smashed
till he sets out justice on earth
and the coastlands yearn for his teaching.
5Thus said God, the LORD,
Creator of the heavens, He stretches them out,
lays down the earth and its offspring,
gives breath to the people upon it
and life-breath to those who walk on it.
6I the LORD have called you in righteousness
and held your hand,
and preserved you and made you
a covenant for peoples and a light of the nations,
7to open blind eyes,
to bring out the captive from prison,
those sitting in darkness from dungeons.
8I am the LORD, that is My name,
and My glory I will not give to another
nor My acclaim to the idols.
9The first things, look, they have happened,
and the new things I do tell,
before they spring forth I inform you.
10Sing to the LORD a new song,
His acclaim from the end of the earth,
you who go down to the sea in its fullness,
you coastlands and their dwellers.
11Let the desert and its towns raise their voice,
the hamlets where Kedar dwells.
Let the dwellers of Sela sing gladly,
from the mountaintops let them shout.
12Let them pay honor to the LORD,
and His acclaim in the coastlands let them tell.
13The LORD sallies forth as a warrior,
as a man of war he stirs up fury.
He raises the battle cry, even bellows,
over His enemies He prevails.
14“I have been silent a very long time,
kept my peace, held Myself in check—
like a woman in labor now I shriek,
I gasp and also pant.
15I will wither mountains and valleys,
and all their grass will I dry up.
And I will turn rivers into islands,
and ponds will I dry up.
16And I will lead the blind on a way they did not know,
on paths they did not know I will guide them.
I will turn darkness before them to light,
and rough ground to a level plain.
These things will I do, I will not abandon them.
17They have fallen back, are utterly shamed,
who trust in idols,
who say to molten images:
you are our gods.
18O deaf ones, hear,
O blind ones, look and see.
19Who is as blind as My servant,
as deaf as My messenger whom I send?
as deaf as the servant of the LORD?
20You have seen much but do not watch,
opened your ears but do not hear.
21The LORD desires his vindication,
that He make teaching great and glorious.
22Yet it is a plundered and looted people,
all of them trapped in holes,
and hidden away in dungeons,
23subject to plunder with none who can save,
despoiled, and none says, “Give back.”
Who among you gives ear to this,
attends and heeds henceforth?
24Who has subjected Jacob to plunder
and Israel to despoilers?
Is it not the LORD against Whom they offended
and did not want to walk in His ways
and did not heed His teaching?
25And He poured out upon them His fury,
His wrath and the fierceness of battle,
and it seared them all round but they knew not,
it burned them—they did not take it to heart.
CHAPTER 42 NOTES
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1. My servant. The servant of the LORD, ʿeved YHWH, will become an important motif in the prophecies of Second Isaiah. Although some scholars have proposed that the reference here is to Cyrus II, it seems more likely, and more in keeping with later uses of this designation, that the servant is Israel, or perhaps an exemplary leader who will arise from the people. The idea in verses 2–3 that the servant will not raise his voice or so much as break an already shattered reed scarcely accords with Cyrus commanding a powerful conquering army.
greatly favored. The adverb is added to intimate the intensifying effect of nafshi, not just “I” but “my very self.”
2. raise his voice. The Hebrew merely says raise, but this is surely elliptical for “raise his voice,” a common biblical idiom.
4. nor shall he be smashed. This received text appears to say “nor shall he run,” weloʾ yaruts, but the verb is probably mistakenly vocalized and should be read yeirots, “be smashed.”
6. a covenant for peoples. Literally, this should be a “people’s covenant” as the received text shows, but the phrase is a little peculiar. The Qumran Isaiah instead of the Masoretic brit-ʿam reads brit-ʿolam, “an everlasting covenant.”
7. to open blind eyes. This is not an eschatological granting of vision to the sightless but rather the imparting of the gift of sight to those who have been plunged in the darkness of a dungeon.
to bring out the captive from prison. Here and elsewhere, prison is probably used metaphorically as an image of exile.
9. The first things, look, they have happened, / and the new things I do tell. Divinely inspired prophecy predicted the destruction of Zion and the consequent exile; now it will foretell a return from exile.
10. Sing to the LORD a new song. The beginning of this prophecy sounds like a psalm of acclamation or thanksgiving.
11. Kedar. These are Arab tribes whose habitat is in the desert area east of the Jordan.
Sela. This is an Edomite town, also east of the Jordan.
13. The LORD sallies forth as a warrior. Like a good deal of biblical poetry, this line and the next draw on an old Canaanite poetic tradition that represents warrior-gods. In the present context, the God of Israel is about to do battle on behalf of His people, routing its enemies and restoring its grandeur.
14. I have been silent a very long time, / … held Myself in check. These words answer a theological quandary that would have plagued the exiles: where is the God of Israel, why does He allow us to be reduced to this lowly state? What God says is that He has chosen to be silent and hold back, but that moment is now past.
like a woman in labor now I shriek. This simile marks the startling transition from God’s silence and self-occultation to the moment when a new era is born, with birth pangs like a human birth. The verb here, ʾefʿeh, appears nowhere else, and so the translation is inference from context.
16. I will lead the blind. It is best to understand the blindness as entirely metaphorical.
rough ground to a level plain. This picks up the image in chapter 40 of a leveled highway in the desert.
19. Who is as blind as My servant. Again, this looks as if the reference is to the people of Israel or to a leader of the people. The servant has been blind until now because he has not been able to see the way of the LORD.
Meshullam. There is considerable dispute about the meaning of this word. It could conceivably be a noun meaning “the complete one” or “the one who is paid.” It also has some currency elsewhere as a proper name, though no identification with any Meshullam mentioned in the Bible is plausible. As a poetic parallel to “My servant” and “My messenger,” it most probably is a designation of the people, perhaps linked with the place-name “Shalem,” a shortened form of Jerusalem.
20. do not hear. The received text has a third-person verb, but it is preferable to render this as a second-person verb, in keeping with the beginning of the line.
21. that He make teaching great and glorious. The teaching—torah, or law—is God’s teaching, which the now vindicated Israel will be able to promulgate.
22. Yet it is a plundered and looted people. Even as the prophet announces a glorious national restoration, he is aware that the present condition of the people is that of a population which has been stripped of its precious possessions and driven into exile.
24. Who has subjected Jacob to plunder. Lest anyone imagine that the catastrophe of defeat and exile reflects some failure on the part of God, the prophet stresses that it is precisely God Who has brought all this about (a notion in keeping with the outlook of Deuteronomy).
they offended. The Masoretic Text has “we offended,” but the rest of the verse shows a third-person plural. This is a scribal error that may have been influenced by the frequent recurrence in biblical texts of “we offended against the LORD” or “we offended against You.”
25. upon them. The Hebrew here and in the next verse has “him,” such switches from plural to singular being fairly common in biblical usage.
fury, / His wrath. The Masoretic cantillation markings put these two nouns together (“fury His wrath”), but both metrically and in regard to semantic parallelism, “His wrath” belongs at the beginning of the second verset.
it seared them all round but they knew not. There is an instructive element of shock in this image: the people is burning alive, suffering divine retribution, but it is so blind that it doesn’t even realize it is on fire.
1And now, thus said the LORD,
your Creator, Jacob, and your Fashioner, Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name, you are Mine.
2Should you pass through water, I am with you,
and through rivers—they shall not overwhelm you.
Should you walk through fire, you shall not be singed,
and flames shall not burn you.
3For I am the LORD, your God,
Israel’s Holy One, your Rescuer.
I have made Egypt your ransom,
Nubia and Saba in your stead.
4As you are precious in My eyes,
you are honored, and I love you.
And I put people in your stead
and nations instead of your life.
5Do not fear, for I am with you.
From the east I will bring your seed,
and from the west I will gather you.
6I will say to the north, “Give them up,”
and to the south, “Do not withhold.
Bring my sons from afar
and my daughters from the end of the earth,
7all who are called by My name
and for My glory I created them,
I fashioned them, yes, I made them.”
8Bring out a blind people that yet has eyes
and the deaf that yet have ears.
9All the nations have gathered together,
and the peoples have assembled.
Who among them will tell this
and make us hear the first things?
Let them offer their witnesses and let them be right,
let them hear and say the truth.
10You are My witnesses, said the LORD,
and My servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and trust in Me
and understand that I am the One,
before Me no god was fashioned,
and after Me none shall be.
11I, I am the LORD,
and besides Me there is no rescuer.
12I Myself told and rescued and made it heard,
and there is no foreign god among you,
and you are My witnesses, said the LORD.
13From the very first day I am the One,
and none can save from My hand.
I act, and who can reverse it?
14Thus said the LORD,
your Redeemer, Israel’s Holy One:
For your sake I have sent to Babylon
and turned the glad song of Chaldeans to laments.
15I am the LORD, your Holy One,
Israel’s Creator, your King.
16Thus said the LORD,
and a path in fierce waters,
17Who leads out chariot and horse to destruction,
all the fierce forces.
They lay down to rise no more,
flickered out like a wick, were extinguished.
18Do not recall the first things,
and what came before do not consider.
19I am about to do a new thing,
now it will spring forth and you shall know it.
I will make a way in the desert,
paths in the wasteland.
20The beast of the field shall honor Me,
the jackals and the ostriches,
for I have put water in the desert,
rivers in the wasteland
to give drink to My people, My chosen.
21The people that I fashioned for Me,
My acclaim they shall recount.
22But not Me did you invoke, O Jacob,
for you are wearied of Me, O Israel.
23You have not brought Me sheep for your burnt offerings
and with your sacrifices you have not honored Me.
I did not burden you with grain offerings
nor weary you with frankincense.
24You did not buy for Me cane with silver
nor sate me with the fat of your sacrifices.
But you burdened Me with your offenses,
wearied Me with your crimes.
25I, I wipe away your transgressions for My sake,
and your offenses I do not recall.
26Help Me recall, let us join in judgment,
you, recount it, that you be proven right.
27Your first father offended,
and your spokesmen transgressed against Me.
28So I profaned the sanctuary’s princes
and gave Jacob to destruction
and Israel to reviling.
CHAPTER 43 NOTES
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1. your Creator … and your Fashioner. The prophet picks up the two terms for creation used, respectively, in the P version of the Creation story (Genesis 1–2:3), and in the J version (Genesis 2:4ff), the first, a word for creation tout court, the second a more anthropomorphic term for the fashioning of clay by a potter.
2. Should you pass through water … / Should you walk through fire. This image of coming out unscathed from extreme dangers speaks to the plight of an audience that has undergone the trauma of exile and captivity. The continuing power of these words of assurance is attested by Shmuel Hanagid, the great eleventh-century Hebrew poet of Granada, who was addressed with this verse in a dream and held it close as a kind of talisman during his dangerous campaigns as commander of Granada’s army.
3. For I am the LORD, your God. This prophecy abounds in declarations like this one of God’s name and identity as the only God. These may be a deliberate echoing of God’s declaration to Moses at the burning bush.
I have made Egypt your ransom, / Nubia and Saba in your stead. The people of Israel until now has been captive to Babylonia. The prophet anticipates that the conquering Cyrus will liberate them now and that these other peoples will be taken captive in their stead. This idea of one prisoner substituted for another is continued in the next verse: “I put people in your stead / and nations instead of your life.”
5–6. From the east / … from the west / … / to the north / … to the south. Attempts to give these lines a set of precise historical referents are misplaced. It is true that there were diaspora communities not only in Mesopotamia to the east but also in Egypt and elsewhere. But the point of invoking the four points of the compass is the sweep of poetic hyperbole: wherever God’s people have been scattered, even at “the end of the earth,” He will now gather them in.
8. blind / … the deaf. The metaphorical use of these terms is consistent with their previous use (see 42:16, 18–20); their figurative sense is made explicit here by the addition of “that yet has eyes / … that yet have ears.”
10. I am the One. This could also be rendered as “I am He.” It is perhaps the strongest of God’s declarations of His uncontested status as God because of its sheer directness and simplicity.
11. I, I am the LORD, / and besides Me there is no rescuer. God is said to prove His divinity by rescuing His downtrodden people.
12. I Myself told and rescued and made it heard. These verbs indicate a process that probably refers in the first instance to the exodus from Egypt: God first assured Moses, “I am with you” (the verb “told” here), then carried out His promise by rescuing the Israelites from Egypt, then made sure that the story of liberation would be passed on to future generations.
14. brought down all the bars. The meaning of the Hebrew noun barihim is disputed, but given the fact that exile is repeatedly represented by this prophet as imprisonment, the most likely sense is the bars that bolt the doors of a prison. Although the verbal stem b-r-h does mean “to flee,” there is no attested use in the Bible of bariah as “fugitive” (a mere grammatical possibility), a sense claimed by some for the word here.
turned the glad song of Chaldeans to laments. The Masoretic Text has ʾoniyot, “ships,” which does not make much sense, and the Chaldeans were scarcely a seafaring people. The translation revocalizes that noun as ʾaniyot, “laments.”
16. Who makes a way in the sea / and a path in fierce waters. This is clearly a reference to the parting of the Sea of Reeds in Exodus 14–15. That recollection is continued in the next verse in God’s leading chariot and horse to destruction.
17. to destruction. The Hebrew says only “leads out” (or “brings out”), but with the background of the story in Exodus, destruction is surely implied.
flickered out like a wick, were extinguished. In Exodus 15, the Egyptians sink in the water like a stone or like lead. Here the poet appears to be playing with similes, likening the sinking of the Egyptian in water to the contrasting image of a smoldering wick going out.
18. Do not recall the first things. Given the immediate context, these may be the events that occurred at the Sea of Reeds. Those were, it is implied, great signs and wonders, but the miracle God is about to perform is a wholly new thing.
19. I will make a way in the desert. The great highway in the desert that God will lay down for the return from exile is a symmetrical antithesis to the “way in the sea” (v. 16) He made for Israel in its first liberation from servitude. History is thus seen in a pattern of cyclical recurrences, with differences.
20. The beast of the field shall honor Me. That is, the miraculous nature of the return to Zion through the desert is to be confirmed by the fact that the very beasts of the wilderness will look in awe as God causes water sources to spring up in parched land for the sake of His people, and predators will not attack the returning exiles.
22. But not Me did you invoke, O Jacob. These words of castigation mark the beginning of a new prophecy.
23. You have not brought Me sheep for your burnt offerings. This statement would most plausibly refer to the time when the Temple was still standing. But it is an unusual reference: more characteristic of the prophets in the idea (see 1:11–15) that the people offer sacrifices mechanically while persisting in acts of turpitude.
I did not burden you with grain offerings. Grain offerings and incense would be the easiest kind of offering. God has not imposed anything burdensome on the people in requiring sacrifices, and yet they have neglected all these obligations.
24. cane. This is aromatic cane, qaneh, mentioned as an element of the incense used in the temple cult and also as one of the fragrances in the Song of Songs.
25. I wipe away your transgressions. This declaration of absolute remission of sins contradicts the castigation in the verses that precede and follow it. Conceivably, an editor introduced this line in an effort to mitigate the harshness of the condemnation. The contrast between “I do not recall” and the immediately following “Help me recall” might signal such an editorial effort.
27. Your first father offended. The reference is probably meant to be general and not to invoke Abraham: from as far back as can be recalled, your people has offended.
spokesmen. The term probably means advocates in a trial.
28. the sanctuary’s princes. These would be the priests in the national cult. What the entire line recalls is the destruction of Jerusalem.
1And now, listen, Jacob, My servant,
and Israel whom I have chosen.
2Thus said the LORD your Maker,
your Fashioner in the womb, Who helps you:
Do not fear, My servant Jacob
and Jeshurun whom I have chosen.
3As I pour water on thirsty land
and rivulets on dry ground,
I will pour My spirit on your seed
and My blessing on your offspring.
4And they shall sprout among the grass
like willows by brooks of water.
5This one shall say, “I am for the LORD,”
and another shall call upon Jacob’s name,
and another shall write with his hand for the LORD
and Israel’s name he shall invoke.
6Thus said the LORD King of Israel
and its Redeemer, the LORD of Armies.
I am the first and I am the last—
and besides Me there is no god.
7Who is like Me? Let him call out,
let him tell it and lay it out to Me.
Who has made known from of old the signs
and what is to come has told?
8Do not be afraid and do not tremble.
Have I not informed you and told?—
And you are My witnesses.
Is there any god besides Me?
Is there any Rock? None have I known.
9Fashioners of idols, they are all mere wind,
and their cherished things cannot avail,
and their witnesses cannot see
nor know, and hence they are shamed.
10Who fashioned a god and cast an idol
to no avail?
11Look, all his fellow workers shall be shamed,
and the craftsmen, they are but men.
Let them all gather and stand,
they shall fear and all be shamed.
12The ironsmith with an adze
works it with coals
and with hammers fashions it
and works it with his strong arm.
Should he hunger, his strength will fail,
should he not drink, he will grow faint.
13The carpenter stretches a line,
marks the outline with a stylus,
he makes it with a plane,
marks the outline with a compass,
and makes it in the form of a man,
human splendor to set in a temple,
14cutting down cedars for it,
taking plane trees and oak,
he picks from the trees of the forest,
plants cedar, and the rain makes it grow.
15And it turns into fuel for man,
and he takes it and warms himself.
He lights it and bakes bread and is sated.
He also makes a god and bows down,
makes it an idol and worships it.
16Half of it he burns in fire,
on half he eats meat, he roasts it,
also warms himself, saying, “Hurrah!
I have warmed myself, seen the fire.”
17And the rest he makes as a god, as his idol.
He worships it and bows down
and prays to it and says,
“Save me, for you are my god.”
18They do not know and do not discern,
for their eyes are plastered over from seeing
and their hearts from understanding.
19None takes to heart,
with no knowledge or discernment to say:
“Half of it I burned in fire
and also baked bread on its coals,
I roasted meat and ate it.
And the rest as an abhorrence I made,
a block of wood I worshipped.”
20He herds ashes, a mocked heart has led him astray,
and he shall not save his life,
and he shall not say, “This is a sham in my right hand.”
21Recall these, O Jacob,
and Israel, for you are My servant.
I fashioned you, you are My servant,
Israel, do not forget Me.
22I have wiped away your crimes like a cloud,
and like the sky’s mist your offenses.
Turn back to Me, for I have redeemed you.
23Sing gladly, O heavens, for the LORD has done it,
shout out, you deeps of the earth.
Burst forth in glad song, you mountains,
the forest and all trees within it,
For the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
and shall glory in Israel.
24Thus said the LORD your Redeemer,
Who fashioned you in the womb:
I am the LORD, Maker of all,
stretching out the heavens, I alone,
laying down earth—who is with Me?
25Overturning the omens of lies,
making fools of soothsayers,
setting sages back on their heels
and thwarting their devisings.
26Confirming the word of His servant
and fulfilling His messengers’ counsel.
He says to Jerusalem, “You shall be settled,”
and to Judah’s towns, “You shall be rebuilt,
and I will raise up her ruins.”
27He says to the Deep, “Dry up,
and your streams I will make dry.”
28He says to Cyrus, “My shepherd!
And all I desire he shall fulfill.”
He says of Jerusalem, “It shall be rebuilt,”
and to the Temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.”
CHAPTER 44 NOTES
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2. Jeshurun. This is a synonym for “Israel” used only in poetic texts. Although the name appears to derive from a root that means “straight,” there are scholarly debates about its etymology.
5. write with his hand for the LORD. The received text says merely “write his hand,” but several ancient translations show a preposition. Perhaps the phrase indicates signing a pledge of loyalty, but some interpreters understand it to mean that he shall write the name of the LORD on his hand.
7. Who is like Me? The context gives this rhetorical question a different meaning from “Who is like You among the gods” in the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15:11. There the implication is that there are other gods but that they scarcely measure up to the God of Israel. Here, God has just emphatically declared, “I am the first and I am the last— / and besides Me there is no god.” The rest of the line, beginning with “Let him call out,” clearly indicates that there is none capable of calling out.
Who has made known from of old the signs. The received text here looks garbled. It reads literally: “From My placing an everlasting people and signs.” This translation accepts a widely proposed emendation, reading mashmiʿa meʿolam ʾotiyot instead of the Masoretic misumi ʿam-ʿolam we ʾotiyot. The “signs” are the omens of things to come: God’s divinity is demonstrated by His power to tell future events through His prophets.
8. Is there any Rock? “Rock” (tsur) is a recurrent epithet for God in Psalms, based on God’s role as a stronghold for His believers.
9. Fashioners of idols. The lengthy polemic against the manufacturers of idols that begins with these words is a hallmark of our prophet. No other biblical writer so scathingly reduces paganism to mere absurd fetishism. In the mid-twentieth century, the Israeli Bible scholar Yehezkel Kaufman used such prophecies to argue that the Israelites were so far removed from paganism that they failed to understand that idols were conceived merely as symbols of the gods they represented. One may question that view because polemic or satire is a literary vehicle that thrives on exaggeration: the prophet, in order to show vividly that idolators worship imagined entities, not real gods, represents them absurdly carving gods out of wood, using the leftover wood for fuel, and bowing down to their wooden carvings as to gods.
12. with an adze. The precise identity of several of the tools mentioned in this catalogue is uncertain.
Should he hunger. That is, the craftsman fashioning the idol is palpably subject to the human weakness of hunger and thirst, and hence it is preposterous to imagine that the image he produces is a god.
13. human splendor to set in a temple. By itself, the phrase “human splendor” sounds rather grand, but mere human splendor sitting in a temple as though it were a god becomes a satiric barb.
14. plants cedar. In this instance, the satire takes the process of manufacturing idols, all the way back to the planting of the tree that will later be cut down to provide wood for the statue.
15. bakes bread … / makes … an idol. This pairing is virtually a zeugma, the syntactic yoking together of disparate items: the same wood from which fuel is taken to bake bread also furnishes the material for an idol.
19. the rest as an abhorrence I made. This is, of course, a polemic revision of the pagan’s speech. The idol worshipper would never call his god an “abhorrence,” but that is precisely the term, toʿevah, that biblical writers frequently use to designate idols.
a block of wood. The first verset uses an abstraction, “abhorrence”; now, in keeping with the general procedure of poetic parallelism, the second verset lets us know concretely what the abhorrence is.
20. He herds ashes. This is a pointed oxymoron: ashes cannot be herded, and if a wind blows on them, they fly away. The image is an anticipation of “herding the wind” in Qohelet.
22. the sky’s mist. The Hebrew is simply another word for “cloud,” but English has scant synonyms for “cloud,” and the rare ones that come to mind (e.g., “thunderhead”) are not right for this context.
23. Sing gladly. This entire verse, which evokes a cosmic celebration of God’s glorious deeds in behalf of Israel, is reminiscent of quite a few psalms, and it is likely that the prophet-poet is remembering Psalms here.
24. Who fashioned you in the womb / … stretching out the heavens. The bold movement of the poetry here from the tight confinement of the womb to the vast expanse of the heavens beautifully conveys God’s magisterial power as Creator from the smallest things to the largest.
25. the omens of lies. The meaning of the second term, badim, is in dispute, although it could derive from the root b-d-h, which means to falsely invent or fabricate. In any case, here as above, the incapacity of pagan sages to forecast future events (which was a Babylonian specialty) is taken as a token of the nullity of their gods.
their devisings. The literal sense is “their knowledge.”
26. His servant / … His messengers. The reference is in all likelihood to God’s prophets. Unlike the pagan soothsayers, the prophets have an authentic channel through which they can foretell future events.
28. Cyrus. For the first time, the Persian emperor whose armies are threatening Babylonia is mentioned by name. In the earlier prophetic poetry there are generalized references to foreign kings—those of Assyria in particular—serving as God’s instrument, the rod of His wrath, but this text introduces a new order of specificity: a momentous change in history is unfolding, with the Babylonian empire, which destroyed the kingdom of Judah, under the shadow of destruction; and the Persian Cyrus is seen as God’s shepherd, fulfilling a divine plan. The endgame of this plan is the return to Zion and the rebuilding of the Temple, invoked in the second half of this verse and in fact to be implemented by another Persian emperor, decades after the probable time of this prophecy.
1Thus said the LORD to His anointed one,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I grasp,
to hold sway over nations,
and the loins of kings will I loosen,
to open before him double doors,
and the gates shall not be closed.
2I will go before you,
and rough places I will level,
doors of bronze I will smash
and iron bolts I will hack down.
3And I will set before you treasures of darkness
and hidden stores,
so that you may know that I am the LORD
Who calls your name, the God of Israel.
4For the sake of My servant Jacob
and Israel My chosen one,
I named you when I had not known you.
5I am the LORD and there is no other,
besides Me there is no god.
6So they may know from the sun’s rising place to its setting,
that there is none beside Me,
I am the LORD and there is no other.
7Fashioning light and creating darkness,
making peace and creating evil.
I am the LORD, making all these.
8O, heavens, drip down from above,
and skies, stream justice.
Let the earth open that it be fruitful with rescue
and bring forth righteousness with it.
I am the LORD. I created it.
9Woe, who disputes with his Fashioner,
a shard from the shards of the earth.
Shall the clay say to its Fashioner, “What are you doing?,
and Your work has no hands.”
10Woe, who says to the father, “What did you beget?,”
and to the woman, “Why do you labor?”
11Thus said the LORD,
Israel’s Holy One and its Fashioner:
The signs have inquired of Me about My sons,
and about the work of My hands they have charged Me.
12I made the earth
and the humans upon it I created.
It is I, My hands stretched out the heavens,
and all their array I commanded.
13It is I who roused him in justice
and all his ways I made straight.
He it is shall rebuild My city
and release My exiles,
not for a price and not for a payment,
said the LORD of Armies.
14This said the LORD:
The profit of Egypt and Nubia’s trade
and the Sabeans, men of stature,
shall pass over to you and be yours.
They shall walk behind you, pass on in chains,
to you they shall pray:
and there is none other save God.”
15Indeed, You are a God Who hides,
God of Israel, Rescuer.
16They were shamed and also disgraced
all of them together,
they walk in disgrace,
the crafters of idols.
17Israel is victorious through the LORD,
an everlasting victory.
You shall not be shamed and shall not be disgraced
forever more.
18For thus said the LORD,
Creator of the heavens, He is God,
Fashioner of earth and its Maker, He founded it.
Not for nothing did He create it,
to dwell there He fashioned it.
I am the LORD and there is no other.
19Not in secret have I spoken
in the place of a land of darkness.
I did not say to Jacob’s seed,
“In vain have you sought Me.”
I am the LORD speaking justice,
telling uprightness.
20Gather and come,
draw together,
survivors of nations!
Those who bear the wood of their idols
do not know
and who pray to a god
that does not rescue.
21Tell it and bring it forth,
even let them counsel together.
Who made this known of yore,
from of old told it?
Am I not the LORD
and there is no god beside Me,
a righteous God and a Rescuer,
there is none save Me.
22Turn to Me and be rescued,
for I am God and there is no other.
23By Myself have I sworn,
from My mouth has issued justice
a word that will not be revoked:
For to Me every knee shall bend,
every tongue shall vow.
24But through the LORD—of Me it was said—
victory and strength!
To Him shall they come and not be shamed,
all who were incensed against Him.
25Through the LORD shall they be victorious and praised,
all the seed of Israel.
CHAPTER 45 NOTES
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1. to His anointed one. Some readers may find it startling that a Persian emperor should be designated God’s “anointed one” (mashiah). One should keep in mind that in the first instance this is a political title, not a theological or eschatological one. Cyrus is God’s anointed because he is a king whose legitimacy is confirmed or underwritten by God and as such a ruler who will play a role God has defined for what is to happen in history.
the loins of kings will I loosen. One again can detect the common pattern of biblical poetic parallelism: first the general concept (“hold sway over nations”) and then in the parallel verset a concrete image—loosening the loins would be ungirding the loins that should be girded for battle, which is to say, disabling these royal enemies.
3. treasures of darkness / and hidden stores. The darkness here is pragmatic, not symbolic—the treasures have been hidden or buried in deep dark places, but now they will be brought to light to be appropriated by the conquering Cyrus.
4. For the sake of My servant Jacob. It is, of course, a peculiarly Israel-centered view of the world that Cyrus’s conquests are imagined as coming about strictly to rescue the people of Israel from its exile.
I called you by name. Here this idiom has the sense of “to summon,” as in the previous verse.
when I had not known you. As a foreign ruler, Cyrus would not have had any intimate relationship (the force of “to know” in the Hebrew) with YHWH.
7. Fashioning …creating. These are the two terms used for creation at the beginning of Genesis, respectively, in the J version (Genesis 2) and the P version (Genesis 1). The former term, yotser, is more concrete and, indeed, anthropomorphic, its primary reference being to the work of the potter with clay. This is a connotation that this poet repeatedly plays on, as in verse 9 below.
8. O, heavens, drip down from above. In this semiarid region dependent on rainfall, it is usually rain as a source of blessing that comes down from the sky in poetry, but here there is a metaphorical transformation of this primary notion: it is justice that rains down, fructifying human life.
9. Shall the clay say to its Fashioner. This line clearly harks back to Genesis 2, where God fashions the first human from the clay of the earth.
10. Woe, who says to the father. This line relates to the preceding one in a kind of a fortiori logic: just as it would be absurd for a person to deny that his father and mother had begotten him, it is even more preposterous that any human creature should deny that God is his Creator.
11. The signs have inquired of Me. It is unclear what these signs are. The Hebrew is as opaque as this translation and may reflect a defective text.
12. I made the earth. Just as God is the cosmic Creator, bringing into being heaven and earth, He also determines the direction of history, as the next verse will assert.
13. It is I Who roused him in justice. The “him” is Cyrus, who in this version is led to the conquest of Babylonia for the sole purpose of returning Israel from exile. As a matter of historical fact, the return to Zion took place eight decades after the fall of the Babylonian empire to the Persians.
14. shall pass over to you and be yours. “You” in this passage is feminine singular and so must refer to Zion, often represented in poetry as a woman.
to you they shall bow, / to you they shall pray. This wording may sound somewhat suspect from a monotheistic point of view. It should probably be taken as an extravagant hyperbole—these peoples of the south will be so abjectly enslaved to the Israelites that they will prostrate themselves before them and worship them as though they were gods.
In you alone is God. These words are best understood as the speech of the captives addressed to Israel and offering an explanation for their bowing down to their captors.
15. Indeed, You are a God Who hides. Many scholars view this verse as an interpolation, unrelated to what precedes or follows. If there is a connection it might be this: it is hard to detect the presence or earthly manifestation of God, but He dwells (or perhaps hides) within the people of Israel, where foreigners now discern Him through His conquering power.
17. victorious … / victory. Given the context of the subjugation of foreign peoples, the root y-sh-ʿ—elsewhere, “rescue”—probably has its military sense.
18. Not for nothing. The use of tohu amounts to a pun. Adverbially, it can mean “for nothing,” “futilely,” as it clearly does in the next verse. But as a noun, it designates the primordial chaos (in this translation of tohu wavohu, “welter and waste”) that preceded creation, so what is also being asserted is that God did not create the earth to be mere chaos or void.
20. Those who bear the wood of their idols. The formulation glances back to the representation of idol manufacture in chapter 44, suggesting an image of the pagans carrying the wood out of which they will fashion their idols.
22. all you ends of earth. As elsewhere, ʾafsey ʾarets is a metonymy since the object of the prophet’s address is clearly the inhabitants of the ends of the earth.
23. For to Me every knee shall bend, / every tongue shall vow. This line would be incorporated in the Aleinu prayer at the end of the morning service, which affirms God’s kingship over all things.
24. of Me it was said. There is no need to emend this clause, as has frequently been proposed. Although the verb appears to say “he said,” the third-person singular is often used as the equivalent of a passive form of the verb.
To Him shall they come and not be shamed. Even though “be shamed” is very often used for a condition of being defeated, here there is an image of those who have set themselves up as God’s enemies (“all who were incensed against Him”) obliged to come before God and accept His admonition in shame.
25. victorious. The root ts-d-q is associated with justice because its primary sense is winning a just case in court. But the concept of winning in a conflict also leads to its use to indicate winning in battle, which would appear to be the sense here.
1Bel has knelt,
Nebo has cowered.
become burdens for beasts and animals
loaded to exhaustion.
2They cowered, they knelt together,
could not free the burden,
and they themselves went into captivity.
3Listen to me, O house of Jacob
and all the house of Israel’s remnant,
burdened from the womb.
4And till old age it is I,
till gray hair comes I Myself will bear it.
I have made it and I will carry,
I will bear it and I will rescue.
5To whom would you liken Me and make Me equal,
compare Me that I be likened?
6Who lavish gold from the purse
and silver weigh out on the scale,
hire a goldsmith that he make a god,
they worship it, even bow down.
7They carry it on shoulders, they bear it
and set it down, it stands unmoving in its place.
Though one cries out to it, there is no answer,
from straits it does not rescue.
8Recall this and be shamed,
take it to heart, O criminals,
9recall the first things of yore.
For I am God, there is none other,
God, and none is like Me.
10Who tells from the beginning the end,
and from old what is not yet done,
Who says, “My counsel will be realized,
and all My desire will I do.”
11Who calls the bird of prey from the east,
from a distant land, the man of My counsel.
I have spoken and even will bring him,
I have fashioned it, even will do it.
12Hear Me, O bull-hearted,
who are distant from victory.
13I have brought My victory close—it is not distant,
and My triumph shall not delay.
And I will set triumph in Zion,
for Israel, my splendor.
CHAPTER 46 NOTES
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1. Bel has knelt, / Nebo has cowered. These are Babylonian deities, and the cowering marks the defeat of Babylonia by Persia.
Their images you bore aloft / become burdens for beasts and animals. In the defeat, the images that once were worshipped are loaded onto the backs of animals to be carried off in order to make use of any precious metals with which the idols may be overlaid.
2. they themselves went into captivity. This is a mocking representation of the Babylonian gods, impotent to save themselves (or their adherents), borne off as captives like a subjugated human population.
3. loaded heavy from birth, / burdened from the womb. These phrases obviously pick up the image of the beasts burdened with plundered idols from the previous verse. However, it is not clear with what the house of Jacob has been burdened from the womb. God’s assertion in the next verse that He will now carry the burden suggests that it is the heavy load of national suffering, most recently manifested in the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of a large part of its inhabitants.
4. till old age. God is with Israel from birth (verse 3) to old age.
5. To whom would you liken Me. These words sound a central theme of this prophet (compare 44:18ff). The verb of likening (tedamyuni) suggests demut, “image” or “likeness,” which leads the poet in the following lines to evoke, as he has done before, the absurdity of manufacturing images that are then worshipped.
8. be shamed. The verb in the received text, hitʾoshashu, appears to be based on a root that suggests strength, hence the New Jewish Publication Society rendering “stand firm.” But that makes no sense in the context of a castigation. This translation adapts an emendation that has been proposed by several scholars, hitboshashu, which involves the changing of one consonant.
take it to heart, O criminals. The denunciation appears to be a new note in these prophecies of Second Isaiah, which are predominantly prophecies of consolation. Joseph Blenkinsopp proposes that the prophet may have encountered resistance to his message and that these words reflect an element of antagonism between him and his audience.
9. For I am God, there is none other. The rejoinder to the doubts of the prophet’s audience is an absolute theological truth: the deity in whose name the prophet speaks is the one and only God; this fundamental fact is what is entailed in “the first things of yore.”
10. Who tells from the beginning the end. As before in these prophecies, the manifest evidence of YHWH’s status as the one and only God is His proven power to predict the future through what is revealed to His true prophets. Thus God provides authorization for the authenticity of the words of His human spokesmen. It seems likely that what the exiled audience has doubted is the grand prediction of the restoration of Zion, which the prophet here goes on to affirm will be implemented through God’s chosen instrument, Cyrus.
11. the bird of prey from the east, / from a distant land, the man of My counsel. Persia is actually to the northeast, but the poem need not be entirely precise about points on the compass. Cyrus is the man of God’s counsel in the sense that he has been designated to carry out God’s counsel or plan.
12. bull-hearted. The sense is “stubborn,” but the strong image of “bull” implicit in the Hebrew ʾabirim is worth retaining. The audience of exiles, refusing to believe they will be returned to their land, are “bull-hearted.” God now assures them through His prophet that the moment of national triumph is imminent and not distant, as the exiles may imagine.
1Go down and sit in the dust,
Sit on the ground with no throne.
O Daughter of Chaldeans.
For no longer shall they call you
tender and delicate.
2Take up a hand mill and grind flour.
Bare your tresses, strip your train.
Bare your thigh, cross the rivers.
3Your nakedness shall be bared,
your shame shall now be seen.
Vengeance will I take
4Our Redeemer, the LORD of Armies is His name,
Israel’s Holy One.
5Sit mute and come into the darkness,
O Daughter of Chaldeans,
for no longer shall they call you
the mistress of kingdoms.
6I was furious with My people,
I profaned My estate
and gave them into your hand.
You showed them no mercy,
on the elder you made your yoke very heavy.
7And you thought, “Forever shall I be the mistress.”
You did not take these things to heart
nor remember its outcome.
8And now, hear this, pampered woman,
dwelling secure,
who says in her heart,
“It is I and none besides me.
I will not dwell a widow
and will not know bereavement.”
9These two shall come upon you,
in a flash, on a single day—
bereavement and widowhood
shall come upon you in full measure
despite your many incantations
and the great power of your spells.
10But you trusted in your evil,
you said, “No one sees me.”
Your wisdom and your lore,
it was this that made you stray.
And you said in your heart,
“It is I and none besides me.”
11And evil shall come upon you,
and disaster shall fall upon you,
you shall not know how to ward it off,
and ruin shall suddenly come upon you,
with you unwitting.
12Stay, pray, with your spells
and with your many incantations
with which you toiled from your youth.
Perhaps you may avail,
perhaps still tyrannize.
13You are disabled despite all your counsels.
Let the sky scanners, pray, stand and rescue you,
those who see visions in the stars,
announcing them month after month,
what is to come upon you.
14Look, they have become like straw,
fire burns them up,
they cannot save themselves from the flame.
This is no coal to warm oneself,
no hearth by which to sit.
15This have they become for you, with which you toiled,
your traders since your youth:
each man wanders on his own way,
there is no none to save you.
CHAPTER 47 NOTES
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1. Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Others render this as “maid of Babylon.” The personification of a people or a city as a woman is widespread in the Bible, especially in poetry. The term denoting virginity is worth retaining in translation because humiliating sexual exposure will follow.
Sit on the ground with no throne. Not only is she to be forced to sit in the dust, but now we are reminded that she was formerly seated on a throne as “mistress of kingdoms” (verse 5). This dire evocation of the crushing and stripping of Babylon is integral to this prophet’s vision of the hated Babylonian empire falling to Persia.
2. Take up a hand mill. The once splendid queen is now to perform menial tasks.
Bare your tresses. Many interpreters insist that tsamah here and in the Song of Songs 4 means “veil,” but Chana and Ariel Bloch have persuasively argued in their commentary on the Song that the verb used for “bare,” gali, applies only to body parts, not to items of apparel, and tsamah in Song of Songs 4:1, 3 is part of a catalogue of body parts.
strip your train. Here a different verb is used, ḥasaf, which in fact applies to things worn.
Bare your thigh, cross the rivers. Blenkinsopp observes that she would have to hitch up her robes, thus exposing her thighs, in order to wade across rivers. The implied image is of a woman driven into exile.
3. Your nakedness shall be bared. This is an explicitly sexual term, referring to the pudenda.
no man shall intercede. The Masoretic Text has “I will intercede,” but the appropriate third-person form of the verb with the negative is reflected in the Septuagint.
4. Our Redeemer. This verse may be out of place.
6. I was furious with My people / … You showed them no mercy. This verse performs a theological balancing act. God was furious with Israel and punished them by allowing the Babylonians to defeat them, but the Babylonians enacted this historical role mercilessly, tormenting Israel with a heavy yoke, treating even the aged savagely. For this, Babylonia will now suffer severe retribution.
8. bereavement. The Hebrew word has the special sense of being bereaved of children. If Babylonia is personified as a woman, her people are her children.
9. despite your many incantations / and the great power of your spells. The Babylonians were famous for their expertise in soothsaying and divination, which is attested by the many texts of divination and spell casting that have been discovered.
10. But you trusted in your evil. “Evil” here is probably a denigrating summarizing term for all the skills of sorcery and divination (“Your wisdom and your lore”) in which Babylonia placed its trust.
11. You shall never know dawn. The Hebrew says “its dawn,” a feminine suffix with no clear referent. This is best taken as a follow-up to “come into the darkness” (verse 5)—the disaster about to overtake Babylonia is one long night of darkness without a dawn.
12. Stay, pray, with your spells. This is obviously sarcastic, with the introduction of the polite particle naʾ, “pray,” heightening the sarcasm.
13. the sky scanners. This translation adopts the solution for hovrey shamayim proposed by both the New Jewish Publication Society version and Blenkinsopp. It should be noted that the Babylonians were not only astrological diviners but also rather sophisticated astronomers.
14. they have become like straw. “They” here would have to refer either to the astrologers or to the lore they deploy.
This is no coal to warm oneself, / no hearth by which to sit. There is no longer any question of domesticated fire for human benefit; instead, raging flames will consume everything.
1Hear this, house of Jacob,
who are called by the name of Israel
and came out from Judah’s womb,
and who invoke the God of Israel
neither in truth nor in righteousness.
2For from the holy city they have been called
and on Israel’s God they have leaned—
the LORD of Armies is His name.
3The first things of old have I told,
from My mouth they issued, I announced them,
of a sudden I did it and they came about.
4For I knew that you were hard,
and your neck was iron sinews
and your forehead brazen.
5And I told you of old,
before it came, I announced it to you,
lest you should say, “My idol did these.
My carved and molten images ordained them.”
6You have heard—behold it all,
and you, will you not tell?
I announced to you new things from hence
and hidden things you did not know.
7Now are they created and not long ago,
before this day, and you have not heard.
Thus you say, “Why, I did not know them.”
8You have never heard, you have never known,
of old, your ear was never open.
For I knew you would surely betray,
and from the womb you were called a rebel.
9For My name’s sake I will hold back My wrath
and for My glory I will be restrained toward you
so as not to cut you off.
10Look, I have refined you but not as silver,
I have purged you in the forge of affliction.
11For My sake, for My sake, I do it,
And My glory I will not give to another.
12Listen to Me, O Jacob,
and Israel, whom I have called.
I am He, I am the first,
and I am the last as well.
13Indeed, My hand founded the earth,
and My right hand spread out the heavens
I summon them,
they stand together.
14Gather, all of you, and listen!
Who among you has told these things?
The LORD loves him, shall do his desire.
against Babylonia, and his arm against the Chaldeans.
15I, I have spoken, even called him,
I have brought him and made his way prosper.
16Draw close to me, and hear this:
Not from the first did I speak in secret,
from when it came into being, there I was.
And now, the Master, the LORD,
17Thus said the LORD, your Redeemer,
Israel’s Holy One:
I am the LORD your God,
Who teaches you to avail,
guides you on the way you should go.
18Had you heeded My commands,
your well-being would have been like a river
and your bounty like the waves of the sea.
19And your seed beyond number like sand
and the offspring of your loins like its grains.
Its name before Me
would not be cut off and not be destroyed.
20Go out from Babylonia,
flee from the Chaldeans.
With a sound of glad song tell,
make this heard:
They have brought him out to the end of the earth.
Say—the LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob.
21And they did not thirst in the parched land where He led them.
Water from a rock He made flow for them.
There is no well-being, said the LORD, for the wicked.
CHAPTER 48 NOTES
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1. house of Jacob, / who are called by the name of Israel. Although it is a regular procedure in poetic parallelism to use “Jacob” (the primary term) in the first verset and “Israel” (the name to which “Jacob” was changed) in the second verset, the wording here looks as if it may be a gloss on the two names. Formerly “Israel” designated the northern kingdom, but since that kingdom was destroyed, the name has been attached to the Judahites as well, who now constitute the entire people. This adoption of the national name is further explained by the third verset, “who came out from Judah’s womb.”
and who invoke the God of Israel / neither in truth nor in righteousness. The end of this whole two-line sentence is a barbed reversal: the people of Judah, now calling itself “Israel,” invokes the God of Israel—but falsely and hypocritically.
3. The first things of old have I told. As earlier, YHWH’s authenticity as the one overmastering God is manifested in His power to foretell what will happen in the future through His prophets.
4. For I knew that you were hard. The essential element of God’s knowledge is His recognition of Israel’s stubborn recalcitrance to live up to its covenantal obligations, which will inexorably bring about the national disasters predicted by the prophets.
7. Now are they created. The historical eventualities long predicted by the prophets are even now being shaped and happening.
8. your ear was never open. The reiterated theme of spiritual deafness and blindness is a notion that this prophet appears to have picked up from Isaiah 6.
9. For My name’s sake I will hold back My wrath. The prophet invokes a recurrent biblical idea: that God’s reputation in the world would suffer if He allowed Israel to be utterly destroyed, and for that reason He in the end spares Israel, despite its disloyalty.
10. I have purged you in the forge of affliction. This is the other component of God’s plan for Israel: the people’s treacherous behavior earns it punishment, and the punishment has a purging function, bringing the people to its senses about what it has done and leading it to change its ways.
11. for how could I be profaned. This whole line picks up the idea of verse 9: if God were to allow Israel to perish in exile, His name would be profaned, His glory surrendered, and so He is now prepared to intercede on behalf of his people.
14. The LORD loves him. The pronominal object of the verb here is Cyrus. It may seem extravagant to say that the LORD loves a foreign emperor, but the sense in context is that God, using Cyrus as the instrument in a divine historical plan, has chosen to give full support to Cyrus’s imperial ambitions and to enable him to subdue Babylonia.
15. even called him. As often in biblical Hebrew, the multipurpose verb “call” has the sense of “summon,” “single out for a mission.”
16. Not from the first did I speak in secret. While there is no introductory formula, the next line of poetry makes it clear that the speaker of these words is the prophet, not God. From the moment of his dedication as prophet, he has spoken openly and plainly about what God has set out to do in history. These two lines of poetry constitute a kind of coda or closing frame to the prophecy spoken by God that begins in verse 12.
has sent me with His spirit. The Masoretic Text reads “has sent me and His spirit,” emended in this translation by substituting for the initial particle we (“and”) the particle be (“with” or “in”). More elaborate emendations have been proposed but seem unnecessary.
18. bounty. The Hebrew tsedaqah has at least three meanings: “righteousness,” “victory,” and “bounty.” In the present context, the third of these seems most likely.
19. beyond number. This idiom, often attached to “sand,” is merely implied in the Hebrew.
20. Go out from Babylonia. This new prophecy makes explicit the vision of a return to Zion. That event in fact did not occur until almost a century later, and many of the exiles chose not to return.
21. Water from a rock He made flow for them. Though this line clearly invokes the miraculous providing of water to the Israelites in their wanderings in the wilderness, that divine intervention long ago is envisaged here as a miracle to be reenacted when the exiles make the long trek back from Babylonia to Judah.
There is no well-being, said the LORD, for the wicked. The logical link of this third verset to the two preceding ones is weaker, and this may well be an interpolated sentence.
1Hear me, O coastlands,
and listen, faraway nations.
The LORD called me forth from the womb,
from my mother’s belly He invoked my name.
2And He made my mouth a sharp sword,
in the shadow of His hand He hid me,
and He made me a well-honed arrow,
in His quiver He sheltered me.
3And he said to me, “You are My servant,
Israel, in whom I glory.”
4And I had thought, “In vain have I toiled,
for naught, for mere breath, my strength have I sapped.
Yet my cause is with the LORD
and my wages with my God.”
5And now the LORD has said,
my Fashioner from the womb as a servant to Him,
to bring back Jacob to him,
and Israel shall be gathered to Him,
and I shall be honored in the eyes of the LORD
and my God shall be my strength.
6And He said, “It is too little a thing that you are My servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and bring back Israel’s survivors.
I shall make you a light for the nations,
that My rescue reach the end of the earth.”
7Thus said the LORD,
Israel’s Redeemer, its Holy One,
to the despised one, reviled by nations,
to the slave of rulers.
Kings shall see and rise,
princes, and bow down,
for the sake of the LORD, Who is faithful,
Israel’s Holy One Who has chosen you.
8Thus said the LORD:
In an hour of favor I answered you
and on a day of rescue I aided you.
And I fashioned you and made you a people’s covenant
to raise up the land,
to inherit desolate estates.
9Saying to the captives, Go out!
to those in darkness, Come into the open!
Along the roads they shall feed
and on all the heights—their pasture.
10They shall not hunger and shall not thirst,
and hot wind and sun shall not strike them
for He Who shows mercy to them shall lead them
and by springs of water guide them.
11And I will make all My mountains a road,
and My highways shall rise.
12Look, these shall come from afar,
and, look, these from the north and the west,
and these from the land of Sinim.
13Sing gladly, heavens,
and rejoice O earth,
shout out, O mountains, gladly.
For the LORD has comforted His people
and shown mercy to His afflicted.
14Yet Zion says, “The LORD has forsaken me,
and the Master has forgotten me.”
15Does a woman forget her babe,
have no mercy on the child of her womb?
Though she forget,
I will not forget you.
16Why, on My palms I have inscribed you,
your walls are before Me always.
17Your children hasten.
Those who ravaged you, destroyed you,
shall leave you.
18Lift up your eyes all around and see—
they all have gathered, have come to you.
As I live, says the LORD,
all of them like a jewel you shall wear
and tie them on like a bride.
19As to your ruins and your desolate places
and your ravaged land—
now you shall scarcely have room for dwellers,
and your destroyer shall go far away.
20Yet shall they say in your hearing,
the children of whom you were bereaved:
“The place is too crowded for me,
make me room that I may dwell.”
21And you shall say in your heart:
“Who gave birth for me to these,
when I was bereaved and barren,
exiled and cast aside,
and these, why, who has raised?
Why, I was left alone,
these, from where have they come?”
22Thus said the LORD:
Look, I will raise My hand to the nations,
and to the peoples I will lift My banner,
and they shall bring your sons in their laps,
and your daughters shall be borne on their shoulders.
23And kings shall be your attendants
and princesses your wet nurses.
Face to the ground they shall bow to you
and lick the dust of your feet.
And you shall know that I am the LORD,
all who hope for Me shall not be shamed.
24Shall prey be taken from a warrior
or captives of a tyrant be freed?
25For thus said the LORD:
even a warrior’s captive shall be taken away
and a tyrant’s prey freed.
And with your contender will I contend,
and your children I Myself will rescue.
26And I will feed your oppressors their own flesh,
and as with wine they shall be drunk on their blood.
that I am the LORD, your Rescuer,
and your Redeemer, the strong one of Jacob.
CHAPTER 49 NOTES
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2. And He made my mouth a sharp sword. The assertion in this line and the next that the prophet’s discourse is a potent weapon may be a little surprising because the chief burden of his prophesies is a message of consolation. Perhaps, speaking in a situation of painful political powerlessness, he wants to assert that his poetry has power, even the power to devastate those who would resist it. One should note that there is a counterpoint between the first and second verset in each of these two lines: the first verset expresses the weaponlike power of the prophet’s discourse, the second, his enjoyment of shelter provided by God, with the image of the quiver neatly combining shelter and weapon.
3. You are My servant, / Israel. The poem segues from the prophet to the people whose conscience and representative he is.
6. I shall make you a light for the nations, / that My rescue reach the end of the earth. The unheard-of act of bringing the exiled people of Israel back to its land is imagined as taking place in a cosmic arena: this spectacular intervention on behalf of the defeated people will be seen throughout the earth.
9. Along the roads they shall feed. This is a reprise of Second Isaiah’s central vision of a grand journey through the wilderness back to Zion. Although in verse 11 it picks up the theme from chapter 40 of the rough terrain transformed into a level highway, the special emphasis here is on providing food and water for the returning exiles—something that would have been a practical concern for those anticipating a trek through desert-land over hundreds of miles.
12. the land of Sinim. Some read this as “the land Syene” (Aswan?), but the identification remains uncertain.
14. Yet Zion says. Zion is imagined as a woman (the verb is feminine), a common convention in biblical poetry for representing cities and countries. The poet, as we shall see, develops this feminine figure in an original way.
The LORD has forsaken me. This verb is one that would be used for a wife abandoned by her husband. The metaphor of God as husband and Israel as beloved wife is vividly articulated in Jeremiah 1; the poet here taps into this conventional trope.
15. Does a woman forget her babe. God assures Zion, who feels she has been rejected by Him, that His feelings for her are even stronger than those of a mother for her child. The elaboration of the simile leaves it ambiguous as to whether Zion is God’s daughter or His bride. At the same time, the invocation of a mother’s attachment to her baby lays the ground for the vision of restored children in verses 17–21.
17. Your children hasten. / Those who ravaged you … / shall leave you. This is a panorama of two-way traffic. The conquerors of Zion flee as Zion’s children rush back.
18. all of them like a jewel you shall wear. The somewhat unusual image of children worn like a jewel may be motivated by a literary allusion. Benjamin Sommer has proposed that Second Isaiah explicitly has in mind Jeremiah 2:32: “Does a virgin forget her jewels, / a bride her knotted sash?” In our text, the forgetting is transferred from jewels to children, and “jewel”—the same Hebrew word, ʿadi—becomes a metaphorical representation of the children. Since producing children was imagined in this culture as a woman’s greatest fulfillment, it logically follows that they are her chief ornament, what she can glory in before the eyes of the world.
20. the children of whom you were bereaved. This is an eloquent poetic paradox: as in a fairy-tale happy ending, the children who Zion had thought were lost forever now appear before her and announce that because there are so many of them, there is scarcely room for them all to dwell in the land to which they have returned.
21. Who gave birth for me to these. The poignant force of Second Isaiah’s poetry of consolation is beautifully felt here. Zion had thought herself bereaved of all her children and hopelessly barren, never to replace them. Now she finds them swarming around her, and she expresses her amazement in simple, almost naïve exclamation: did some mysterious surrogate mother give birth to all of these for me, “these, from where have they come?” The last sentence is still more pared down in the Hebrew: “these, where are they?” One should note that the Hebrew verb for “gave birth” is, against biology, masculine. Either the final feminine heh was dropped in scribal transmission, or this is an instance in which the masculine singular verb serves as a passive (“by whom were these given birth”).
22. I will raise My hand to the nations. In Isaiah 5:26, God raises a banner to marshal the armies from the ends of the earth that will attack Judah. In the reversal here, the military signal inaugurates the return from exile, which is wholly pacific, with the sons and daughters of Zion carried in the laps and on the shoulders of the rulers of nations.
23. attendants. The Hebrew ʾomen suggests “tutor,” or perhaps even a kind of glorified babysitter.
Face to the ground they shall bow to you. After the humiliation of the subjugation in exile, the prophet puts forth a grand reversal in which kings and noblewomen lick the dust at the feet of the people of Israel.
24. tyrant. The Masoretic Text reads tsadiq, “righteous man” (or according to some, “victor”), but the Qumran Isaiah as well as two ancient versions have ʿarits, “tyrant,” and this reading is supported by the fact that the terms “warrior” and “tyrant” recur in the next line of poetry in a pointed repetition.
25. even a warrior’s captive shall be taken away. The terms of comparison are now made to refer directly to the condition of the people of Israel: though experience tells us that no one can snatch captives from a fierce warrior or prey from a tyrant, you, who have been captives and the prey of tyrants, will be freed.
I Myself will rescue. For both verbs here (“contend” and “rescue”), the Hebrew introduces the personal pronoun “I,” usually not needed for conjugated verbs, as a gesture of emphasis.
26. And I will feed your oppressors their own flesh. In the immediately preceding prophecy, the kings and princes of nations were reduced to nursemaids and attendants. Here, in an angrier turn of vengeful thinking, they are condemned to hideous starvation leading to cannibalism.
all flesh shall know. In a move characteristic of both biblical poetry and biblical narrative prose, a word that has just been used in one sense—“flesh” as what constitutes together with “blood” the human body—is repeated in a very different sense: “all flesh” as a designation of all humankind.
1Thus said the LORD:
Where is the divorce writ of your mother,
whom I have sent away,
or to which of My creditors did I sell you?
Why, for your crimes you have been sold,
and for your offenses your mother was sent away.
2Why did I come and there was no one there,
I called out and no one answered?
Is My hand too short to redeem,
and is there no power in Me to save?
Why, when I roar, I dry up the sea,
I turn rivers into desert.
Their fish stink where there is no water
and die on parched ground.
3I will clothe the heavens with blackness
and make sackcloth their garment.
4The Master, the LORD, has given me
a skilled tongue,
knowing how to proffer a word to the weary.
Morning after morning, He rouses my ear
to listen as do the disciples.
5The Master, the LORD, has opened my ear,
nor did I fall away.
6My back I gave to the floggers
and my cheeks to those who plucked my beard.
My face I did not hide
from abasement and spittle.
7But the Master, the LORD, has helped me,
and so I set my face like flint
and knew I would not be shamed.
8My Vindicator is close.
Who would contend with me, let us confront one another.
Who would be my accuser in court,
let him approach me.
9Why, if the Master, the LORD, helps me,
who can declare me wrong?
Why, they all shall wear out like a garment,
the moth shall eat them away.
10Who among you fears the LORD,
heeding the voice of His servant,
let him trust in the name of the LORD
and lean upon his God.
11But all you who glow hot with fire,
girded with firebrands,
walk by the blaze of your fire
and by the firebrands you have lit.
From My hand this has come to you:
in pain shall you lie down.
CHAPTER 50 NOTES
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1. the divorce writ of your mother, / whom I have sent away. The trope of the people of Israel as God’s bride is now extended to the alienation of Israel from God, which is represented as divorce. The wife has been “sent away” (the technical verb used for divorcing a woman) because she has misbehaved—implicitly, because she has betrayed YHWH with other lovers, other gods. As the metaphor is developed, we see that she has been not only divorced but sold into slavery, a condition that jibes with that of the subjugated exiles.
2. Why, when I roar, I dry up the sea. Out of context, it may appear unseemly that God should boast of His divine powers. In the present context, the point is that Israel somehow has failed to take note of God’s all-powerful nature: He certainly would have been able to save them, had they been worthy of it, and He also has the power to wreak devastating destruction, turning rivers into dry desert and enveloping the bright sky with darkness.
4. has given me / a skilled tongue. The prophet now speaks autobiographically. He has been granted the gift of language—he is after all a fine poet, and he is surely conscious of his ability. The phrase “a skilled tongue” is literally “the disciples’ tongue,” that is, a tongue that has been rigorously trained. The same Hebrew word appears in conjunction with “testimony” at the end of this verse, where it has been translated as “disciples.”
to proffer. The anomalous Hebrew verb is understood only by context here.
5. for I, I did not rebel. Having been vouchsafed revelation (“the Master, the LORD, has opened my ear”), the prophet does not shirk the burden of his mission, even if he knows that his message will encounter harsh resistance.
6. My back I gave to the floggers. There is a long tradition of Christian interpretation that refers this entire verse to Christ. What the prophet is speaking about is his own experience: while most of his prophetic message has been a discourse of consolation, it is easy enough to imagine that his soaring vision of a splendid restoration to Zion would have been seen by many in his audiences as an outrageous pipe dream, an insult to their continuing plight as exiles, and some would have responded by mocking, insulting, even roughing up the prophet as he tried to address them.
plucked my beard. “Beard” is merely implied in the Hebrew by the verb used and the reference in the Hebrew to “cheeks.”
7. and so I was not disgraced. The prophet, knowing that he speaks for God and is supported by God, does not feel really shamed even in the midst of public humiliation, and he can set his face hard as flint even as it is spat upon and his beard torn.
8. My Vindicator is close. The prophet now represents his suffering vilification at the hands of his audience through a legal metaphor: whoever accuses him will be found wrong in a court of law.
10. Who among you fears the LORD. Now, in a kind of peroration to this prophecy, the prophet turns back to his audience.
who has walked in darkness. Darkness and light are obviously archetypal images, but this prophet is especially fond of them and rings the changes on them in his poetry. This particular verset might be a deliberate allusion to Isaiah 9:1: “The people walking in darkness / have seen a great light.”
radiance. The Hebrew nogah is strictly poetic diction and suggests something grander than mere “light,” which is the English equivalent used in most previous translations.
11. But all you who glow hot with fire. The poet now turns around the imagery of the light 180 degrees. Instead of the radiance God provides that liberates from darkness, there are those who prefer the light generated by their own fire. Whether this is simply arrogant self-reliance or the false light of fabricated gods is not clear. But this is a destructive source of light, its burning rather than its illumination salient in the language of these lines.
1Listen to me, pursuers of justice,
seekers of the LORD.
Look to the rock you were hewn from
and to the quarry from which you were cut.
2Look to Abraham your father
and to Sarah who spawned you.
For he was the one whom I summoned,
and I blessed him and made him many.
3For the LORD has comforted Zion,
brought comfort to all her ruins
and made her desert like Eden,
her wasteland like the garden of the LORD.
Gladness and joy are within her.
thanksgiving and the sound of song.
4Hearken to Me, My people,
and My nation, give ear to Me.
For teaching from Me shall go out
and My justice as a light to the peoples.
5In an instant My triumph draws near,
My rescue comes forth,
and my arm shall rule over peoples.
The coastland shall wait for Me
and count on My strong arm.
6Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
and look on the earth below.
Though the heavens be scattered like smoke,
and the earth worn out like a garment,
and its dwellers like gnats die out,
My rescue shall be forever,
and My triumph shall not be shattered.
7Listen to Me, knowers of justice,
a people with My teaching in its heart.
Do not be afraid of the insults of men,
and from their mockery do not quail.
8For like a garment the moth shall consume them,
and like wool the grub shall consume them.
But My triumph shall be forever
and My rescue for ages to come.
9Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD.
Awake as in days of yore,
ages long past.
Was it not You who hacked apart Rahab,
who pierced the Beast of the Sea?
10Was it not You who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
Who turned the sea’s depths into a road
for the redeemed to go over?
11And the LORD’s ransomed shall return
and come to Zion with glad song,
everlasting joy upon their heads,
gladness and joy they shall attain,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee.
12I, I am He Who comforts you.
What troubles you that you should fear man who dies
and the son of man who is no more than grass,
13and you forget the LORD your Maker,
Who stretches out the heavens and founds the earth,
and you are in constant fear, all day long,
of the oppressor’s wrath, as he aims to destroy?
But where is the oppressor’s wrath?
14He who crouches shall quickly be freed,
and shall not die in the Pit,
and his bread shall not lack.
15As for Me, the LORD your God,
Who treads the sea and its waves roar,
the LORD of Armies is His name.
16I have put My word in your mouth
and in the shadow of My hand have covered you,
stretching out the heavens and founding the earth
and saying to Zion, “You are My people.”
17Awake, awake,
rise up, Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD
the cup of His wrath,
you drank to the dregs.
18There is none to guide her
of all the sons she bore,
and none to hold her hand
of all the sons she raised.
19Two did I call down upon you—
who will grieve for you?—
wrack and ruin, famine and sword
how can I comfort you?
20Your children have fainted, are lying
at the head of every street
filled with the wrath of the LORD,
the rebuke of your God.
21Therefore, pray hear this, afflicted woman,
drunk but not from wine.
22Thus said your Master the LORD
and your God Who contends for His people:
Look, I have taken from your hand
the chalice of My wrath.
You shall no longer drink from it,
23and I will put it in the hand of your oppressors
who said to you, “Bow, that we may walk over you.”
and you made your back like the ground,
like a street for passersby.
CHAPTER 51 NOTES
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1. Look to the rock you were hewn from. Although “rock” (tsur) in biblical poetry is often an epithet for God, the reference to Abraham and Sarah in the next verse suggests that the poet has in mind here the human forefather and foremother of the people of Israel. “Quarry” is never an epithet for God, and the fact that a rock juts up (and is a masculine Hebrew noun) while a quarry is a cavity in the ground (and a feminine Hebrew noun) further aligns the two metaphors with Abraham and Sarah respectively.
3. like Eden. The references of this prophecy of national restoration keep moving back in time—first to the couple who were the founders of the nation and now to the lushness of the primordial garden.
5. In an instant. This phrase reflects in English the Hebrew verb ʾargiʿa, which can mean to do something in an instant (regaʿ). In the Masoretic Text, this verb appears at the end of the previous verse, but it almost certainly serves here as part of a sequence of two successive verbs, the first in effect adverbially modifying the second—that is, ʾargiʿa ʾaqriv, “I will [do] in an instant, I will draw near.”
my arm shall rule over peoples. The arm in biblical idiom is repeatedly a metaphor for power, although the use of the plural here is unusual. The Hebrew here uses a plural, but the translation avoids “arms” in order not to suggest the sense of “weapons.” At the end of this verse, “arm” occurs in the singular, and the translation has added “strong” in order to convey the idiomatic sense of the Hebrew.
6. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, / and look on the earth below. The poem now pushes its movement back in time from the Garden of Eden to the heavens and the earth that emerged at the very beginning of creation. Through all these eons, from Abraham and Sarah to Eden to the first moment of creation and forward to the imagined end of creation, God’s beneficent power remains steadfast.
like gnats. The Hebrew kemo-khen appears to say “also thus,” a dubious phrase before “die out” and after two strong similes (“like smoke,” “like a garment”) in the two preceding versets. This translation assumes a scribal error for kemo kinim, “like gnats.”
7. Do not be afraid of the insults of men. These words attributed to God, spoken through the prophet, appear to assume a situation in which an embattled minority listen to the prophet and embrace his vision of a return to Zion. Others whom he may address either cynically dismiss his message as mere illusion or perhaps even show themselves ready to discard their national identity and deity and assimilate to the surrounding culture.
9. Awake, awake. As the feminine second-person verbs make clear, this new discourse is an apostrophe to the arm of the LORD, which, as we have seen, means His militant power.
Rahab, / … the Beast of the Sea. These names locate the “days of yore” in the primordial era before creation came about. The Creation myth invoked, at least for the expressive purposes of poetry, is Canaanite, although this prophet of the sixth century B.C.E. would have been several centuries removed from its active circulation. In the Canaanite myth, the weather god Baal, replaced in Hebrew poetry by YHWH, subdues a ferocious sea monster, variously called Rahab, Leviathan, Yamm, or Tanin (rendered here as “the Beast of the Sea”) in order for creation to take place.
10. Was it not You who dried up the sea. This verse ostensibly continues the archaic Creation story (and “the sea” could also be understood as Yamm, one of the names of the Beast of the Sea). That impression is reinforced by the use of “the great deep,” a designation that refers to the primordial abyss. But in the next line of poetry, that Creation myth merges, in an effect like cinematic faux raccord, with the drying up of the Sea of Reeds—“Who turned the sea’s depths into a road / for the redeemed to go over.”
11. And the LORD’s ransomed shall return. In a second doubling of imagery with a leap forward in time, the “LORD’s ransomed” at the Sea of Reeds are turned into a precursor for the people of the prophet’s own time who are about to be ransomed from captivity and led not between walls of water but over desert terrain in the return to Zion.
13. the oppressor’s wrath. While many scholarly attempts have been made to identify a specific historical oppressor, it is prudent to read this as a generalized reference to the oppression of the Babylonian exile.
14. He who crouches shall quickly be freed. The translation of this verse is somewhat conjectural, and the meaning of the initial verb is especially doubtful. The general sense, however, of someone—surely the people of Israel—suffering subjugation who is now to be liberated seems clear.
15. Who treads the sea. The Masoretic Text has as the verb here rogaʿ, but despite the contention of some scholars that this means “stir up,” it actually means the opposite, “to quiet” or “to be subdued,” (compare the occurrence of precisely this phrase in Job 25:12). The present translation reads instead roqaʿ, “to tread or stomp.”
16. stretching out the heavens. The received text shows lintoʿa, “to plant,” but this is surely a mistake for lintot, “to stretch out.”
17. the chalice of poison. The usual translation of the term tarʿeilah is “reeling” or “staggering” but it is more plausibly related to raʿal, which definitely means “poison” in postbiblical Hebrew, as it may also do in Zechariah 12:2. This understanding is supported by the fact that the word for “wrath” in “the cup of His wrath” also means “venom.” The Hebrew for “chalice” is two words, literally, “the cup of the chalice,” and some think “cup” is a gloss on the rare word for chalice, qubaʿat, but joining two synonyms in a construct form is elsewhere a means to intensify or heighten the sense of the noun, and that may be the case here.
20. like an antelope in a net. The identity of the beast is uncertain.
22. the cup of poison, / the chalice of My wrath. In an elegant reversal of terms, “cup” is now linked with “poison” and “chalice” with “My wrath,” whereas in verse 17 it is the other way around.
23. and you made your back like the ground, / like a street for passersby. The second and third verset of this line vividly illustrate the impulse in biblical poetry to concretize semantic material introduced in the first verset as the line unfolds: first the oppressors command their victors to prostrate themselves so that they can step on them; then we get the concrete—and painful—image of the backs of the victims turned into a roadway upon which passersby tread.
1Awake, awake,
don your strength, O Zion.
Don the garments of your glory,
O Jerusalem, holy city.
For no longer shall they enter you,
the uncircumcised
and the unclean.
2Shake yourself from the dust, arise,
sit on your throne, O Jerusalem.
Loose the bonds round your neck,
captive Daughter of Zion.
3For thus said the LORD: For nothing were you sold and for no silver shall you be redeemed. 4For thus said the Master LORD: To Egypt My people at first went down to sojourn there, and then Assyria oppressed them for no payment. 5And now, what do I have here, says the LORD, for My people was taken for nothing. Those who ruled them howled, said the LORD, and constantly all day long was My name reviled. 6Therefore shall My people know My name. Therefore shall they know on that day that it is I Who speak to them.
7How lovely on the mountains
the steps of the bearer of good tidings,
announcing peace, heralding good things,
announcing triumph,
saying to Zion: Your God reigns.
8Hark! Your watchmen raise their voice,
together they sing gladly.
For with their very eyes they shall see
when the LORD comes back to Zion.
9Burst out in song, sing gladly together,
O ruins of Jerusalem,
for the LORD has comforted His people,
He has redeemed Jerusalem.
10The LORD had bared His holy arm
to the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth have seen
the triumph of our God.
11Turn aside, turn aside, come out from there,
no unclean thing do touch.
Come out from its midst,
bearers of the LORD’s vessels.
12For not in haste shall you come out,
nor in flight shall you go,
and your rearguard is Israel’s God.
13Look, My servant shall prosper,
be lofty, exalted, and very high.
14As many were appalled by him,
so marred beyond human his looks
and his features unlike humankind’s,
15so he shall astound many nations,
kings shall seal their lips because of him,
for what was never told them they shall see,
and what they never heard they shall behold.
CHAPTER 52 NOTES
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1. Awake, awake. This unit of text includes two prophecies, this one at the beginning and another near the end, that begin with a twice-repeated imperative verb in the second-person feminine singular addressed to Zion (the other is “Turn aside, turn aside,” verse 11ff.). The repetitions are dictated by a powerful impulse of exhortation: Zion, long sunk in the dust and plunged in captivity, is urged to forget her sorrows and bestir herself to embrace her triumphant restoration.
2. sit on your throne. The Masoretic Text says only “Sit, O Jerusalem.” The transition follows the Targum, which adds “on your throne,” two Hebrew words that in all likelihood were dropped in a scribal error.
3. For nothing were you sold. You were sold into slavery (this is the verb generally used for enslavement), but nobody paid a price for you—your captors simply took you into slavery. Enslavement here amounts to a hyperbole because the exiled Judahites were not necessarily enslaved, or, in any case, surely not all of them.
4. To Egypt … then Assyria. There is, then, a history of being subject to slavery that goes back to the beginnings of the nation: first Egypt, then Assyria (which “enslaved” the northern kingdom), and now Babylonia.
5. howled. The Hebrew verb suggests a kind of derisive yelp.
6. shall they know on that day. The repetition of the verb “know” either has been scribally omitted or is meant to be implied.
7. How lovely on the mountains / the steps of the bearer of good tidings. The poet makes a boldly poignant choice in using “lovely,” the same word that is attached to the beautiful features of the beloved in the Song of Songs, for this is surprising in a reference to the feet of a messenger. The focus on the feet is because the messenger is running across the mountains to bring the good tidings.
8. Your watchmen. This probably continues the idea of the preceding verse—the watchmen, no doubt stationed on towers, see from afar the approach of the bearer of good tidings.
10. and all the ends of the earth have seen / the triumph of our God. As before, the return to Zion is imagined as an event enacted in a global theater, the restoration of an exiled people to its land being, at least as the prophet sees it, an unprecedented historical event that manifests God’s power.
11. come out from there. “There” has to be the condition of exile.
12. for the LORD goes before you, / and your rearguard is Israel’s God. This is a purposeful paradox: as you march back to Zion, God both leads the way as vanguard and protects you from behind as rearguard.
14. so marred beyond human his looks / and his features unlike humankind’s. This whole line vividly demonstrates the power of personification and hyperbole. Collective Israel is imagined as a person. In point of historical fact, the exiles, undergoing a fate that was by no means unprecedented, would scarcely have been perceived as having lost their humanity. In the poetic hyperbole, personified Israel, deprived of sovereignty, homeland, and place of worship, is envisaged as someone so degraded, humiliated, and abused by his condition in history that those who see him are appalled and can scarcely recognize a human form in this disfigured person.
15. he shall astound many nations. This is another instance in which the verb is anomalous, and so the translation is based on context.
kings shall seal their lips. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “kings shall purse their mouths closed.”
1Who could believe what we heard,
and to whom was the LORD’s arm revealed?
2He sprung up like a shoot before Him
and like a root from parched land.
He had no features nor decent appearance—
we saw nothing in his looks that we might desire.
3Despised and shunned by people,
a man of sorrows and visited by illness.
And like one from whom the gaze is averted,
despised, and we reckoned him naught.
4Indeed, he has borne our illness,
and our sorrows he has carried.
But we had reckoned him plagued,
God-stricken and tormented.
5Yet he was wounded for our crimes,
crushed for our transgressions.
The chastisement that restored our well-being he bore,
and through his bruising we were healed.
6All of us strayed like sheep,
each turned to his own way,
and the LORD brought down upon him
the crimes of all of us.
7Afflicted and tormented,
he opened not his mouth.
Like a lamb led to the slaughter
and like an ewe mute before her shearers
he opened not his mouth.
8By oppressive judgment he was taken off,
and who can speak of where he lives?
For he was cut off from the land of the living
for My people’s crime, bearing their blight.
9And his grave was put with the wicked,
for no outrage he had done
and no deceit in his mouth.
10And the LORD desired to crush him, make him ill.
Would he lay down a guilt offering,
he would see his seed, have length of days,
and the LORD’s desire would prosper through him,
11from his toil he would see light,
My servant shall put the righteous in the right for many,
and their crimes he shall bear.
12Therefore I will give him shares among the many,
and with the mighty he shall share out spoils,
for he laid himself bare to death
and was counted among the wrongdoers,
and it is he who bore the offense of many
and interceded for the wrongdoers.
CHAPTER 53 NOTES
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2. He sprung up like a shoot before Him. This crucial prophecy carries over the representation of the Servant of the LORD in the third person that began with the last three verses of the previous chapter. Earlier, the Servant spoke of himself in the first person.
like a root from parched land. The objection that roots don’t grow in parched land fails to see the context of the poetry. The point is that the Servant managed to flourish and carry out his prophetic mission in the most unpromising circumstances, addressing a hostile audience in the bleak condition of exile.
3. Despised and shunned by people, / a man of sorrows and visited by illness. Famously, these words and what follows were embraced by Christian interpreters from the formative period of Christianity onward as a prophecy of the Passion narrative and the Crucifixion. The emphasis on the Servant’s bearing the sins of the people and becoming a kind of sacrificial lamb seemed especially relevant to the idea of Christ’s dying for the sins of humankind. Illness, however, is not part of the story of Jesus. Virtually no serious scholars today see this as a prediction of the Passion, but it certainly provided a theological template for interpreting the death of Jesus. Debate persists about the identity of the Servant. A recurrent Jewish view sees him as a representation of collective Israel, but the details of the passage argue for the biography of an individual, and already in the Middle Ages Abraham ibn Ezra proposed that the Servant was the prophet himself. The speaker, then, would be one of the prophet’s disciples, as Blenkinsopp suggests, eulogizing him after his death (see verse 8) on behalf of himself but also of a group of disciples (the “we” that is invoked here).
6. and the LORD brought down upon him / the crimes of all of us. This reiterated idea, which later would nourish the central Christian story, is the solution to a psychological dilemma on the part of the speaker. He sees the Servant as a devoted and true prophet of God, yet the Servant has suffered unspeakably—plagued with illness, somehow physically disfigured, reviled and rejected by society, and finally condemned to an early death. The explanation for all this unwarranted suffering is that the Servant has acted as a surrogate for the people, taken upon himself the burden of the people’s crimes. Thus, in a culture in which misfortune and sickness were usually seen as manifestations of divine punishment for wrongdoing (the view of Job’s comforters), the wrongdoing is transferred to the people, and the righteousness of the prophet is actually confirmed by his suffering.
8. By oppressive judgment he was taken off. Textual obscurities begin to proliferate. “By oppressive judgment” is a somewhat conjectural translation, although “was taken off” probably refers to death. The translation of the second verse of this line is also by no means certain.
bearing their blight. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “a blight for them,” and “bearing” has been added as an interpretive guess.
9. and with evildoers his death. The received text has “and with a rich man” (ʿashir), which makes no sense either thematically or as a poetic parallelism. The translation is based on an emendation to ʿosey raʿ. The word for “death” is an odd-looking plural form, but a proposed emendation from bemotow to bamotow is dubious because there is scant evidence that the latter term ever means “sepulchers,” as scholars have claimed. In any case, the point of the line is that he was given a disgraceful burial.
10. Would he lay down a guilt offering. Again, the Hebrew is crabbed and the translation conjectural. It is also puzzling that after the Servant has been reported dead and buried, and a surrogate for Israel’s sins, this conditional possibility of a long and happy life should be offered. Could this verse be a textual intrusion?
11. see light. There is no “light” in the Masoretic Text, but it appears both in the Qumran Isaiah and in the Septuagint.
be sated in his mind. The meaning of the two Hebrew words here is obscure.
My servant. The perspective now shifts, and it is God, not the disciple, who is speaking, but the idea that the Servant has borne the sins of the many is continued.
12. Therefore I will give him shares among the many. This is another somewhat perplexing declaration because the Servant is dead, and “he laid himself bare to death” appears to be a reiteration of that fact. Perhaps the reference is to a posthumous restoration of his reputation and to a posthumous acceptance of his prophecy by the many, though it is just conceivable that the words refer to reward in the afterlife. That was not an available alternative in previous biblical literature, but the beginnings of such an idea might be emerging at this late moment, as the polemic against it in Job and Qohelet appears to attest.
1Sing gladly, O barren one who has not given birth,
burst out in glad song, exult, who has not been in labor,
for the desolate one’s children number more
than the children of the one with a husband.
2Spread wide the place of your tent,
and let the curtains of your dwelling stretch out—
do not stint.
Lengthen your cords
and strengthen your tent pegs.
3For to the north and the south you shall burst forth,
and your seed shall take hold of nations
and shall settle desolate towns.
4Do not fear, for you shall not be shamed,
and you shall not be disgraced, for you shall not be dishonored.
For the shame of your youth you shall forget,
and the dishonor of your widowhood you shall no longer recall.
5For he who takes you to bed is your Maker,
the LORD of Armies is His name,
and your redeemer is Israel’s Holy One,
God of all the earth He is called.
6“For as a forsaken woman
and pained in spirit the LORD called you
and a wife of one’s youth who is spurned,”
said your God.
7“In a brief moment I forsook you
but with great compassion will I gather you in.
8In surge of fury I hid My face from you,
but with everlasting kindness I have compassion for you,”
said your redeemer, the LORD.
9“For as Noah’s waters is this to Me,
as I vowed not to let Noah’s waters go over the earth again,
so have I vowed
not to be furious with you nor to rebuke you.
10For though the mountains move
and the hills totter,
My kindness shall not move from you
nor My pact of peace totter,”
said He Who has compassion for you, the LORD.
11Afflicted, storm-tossed woman, uncomforted,
I am about to lay your stones with turquoise.
And I will set your foundations with sapphires
12and make your battlements rubies
and your gates of beryl
and all your walls of precious stones.
13And all your children—disciples of the LORD,
and great the well-being of your children.
14In righteousness shall you be firm-founded.
Keep far from oppression that you need not fear
and from terror that it not draw near you.
15Why, none shall strike fear if it is not from Me,
who would strike fear in you, before you shall fail.
16Why, it is I Who created the smith,
who fans the charcoal fire
and makes the weapons for his deeds—
but it is I Who created the Destroyer to wreak havoc.
17Any weapon fashioned against you shall fail,
any tongue that contends with you in court you shall show wrong.
This is the estate of the LORD’s servants,
and their triumph through Me, says the LORD.
CHAPTER 54 NOTES
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1. Sing gladly. Although the natural association of song and joy is virtually idiomatic in biblical poetry, this prophet’s repeated emphasis on song implicitly points to his own use of the medium of poetry to conjure up a joyous vision of the people restored to its land.
the one with a husband. The passive form beʿulah designates a woman who has a husband, baʿal, but it also has a sexual connotation because the active verb showing this root means “to cohabit,” “to possess sexually.” Thus, the beʿulah is the woman who has a bedmate, unlike “the desolate one.” Compare verse 5, where the active verbal form boʿalayikh is translated as “he who takes you to bed.”
2. your tent. While the actual habitations would of course have been stone houses, poetry, with its intrinsic attachment to archaic language, invokes the tent as the archetypal dwelling.
4. the shame of your youth … / the dishonor of your widowhood. As is often the case in biblical poetry, there is an implied temporal progression from the first verset to the second. First, Israel was a young bride who shamefully betrayed her husband. As a result, the bitter fate of widowhood was inflicted on her (God was “dead” to Israel), a condition that in this society was a humiliation because the woman was left without the sustaining support of the husband.
5. he who takes you to bed … / your redeemer. The widow again has a husband, who provides the “desolate one” with the gratification a woman needs. The parallel term “redeemer” is used here less in a theological sense than in a social one—the “redeemer,” goʾel, is the man who marries the widow, thus redeeming her from her condition of abandonment. The Book of Ruth uses goʾel precisely in this sense.
8. with everlasting kindness. The Hebrew noun ḥesed is a nexus of several related meanings. It can mean “kindness” or, as some render it, “love” (and the King James Version joins the two with “loving kindness”). It also suggests the “loyalty” or “faithfulness” of one party to another in a covenantal or conjugal relationship, and that sense is also obviously in play here. The connotation of “faithfulness” may be especially strong when “kindness” is used again in verse 10.
11. I am about to lay your stones with turquoise. Although this new prophecy begins with “Afflicted, storm-tossed woman,” the focus of the vision of national restoration now shifts from the widowed and/or childless wife to the buildings of the city. The resplendent restored Jerusalem is to be built not out of stones but with precious jewels. The reader should be alerted that the precise identification of most of these precious stones, as elsewhere in the Bible, is uncertain. The dazzling bejeweled Jerusalem is obviously a poetic hyperbole, but it lays the ground for eschatological imaginings of Jerusalem as the glorious City of God.
15. none shall strike fear if it is not from Me. The Hebrew syntax is ambiguous, and the verb gor is anomalous, though it probably is related to the more familiar noun, magor, “terror,” as this translation assumes.
16. the weapons. The all-purpose keli can also mean vessel, tool, or gear, but it is used in the very next verse in the sense of “weapon,” and that is probably what it means here as well.
the Destroyer to wreak havoc. The “Destroyer” would be the mythological agent who stalks through the land of Egypt in the terrible tenth plague, killing the firstborn. The intended relation of this verset to the preceding one is oppositional: man—himself created by God—forges his weapons in the workshop of the metalsmith, but God has the power to create a Destroyer who has an incomparably more devastating instrument of destruction. The image of God defending Israel with insuperable force complements the image of the jewel-studded Zion that precedes it: God promises to rebuild Jerusalem as a city of supernal splendor, and He then guarantees that no enemy will be able to assail the city.
1Oh, every one who thirsts go to the water,
and who has no silver,
buy food and eat.
Go and buy food without silver
and at no cost, wine and milk.
2Why should you weigh out silver for what is not bread
and your substance for what does not sate?
Listen well to Me and eat goodly things,
and you shall enjoy lavish fare.
3Bend your ear and come to Me,
listen and be revived,
and I will make with you a perpetual pact,
the faithful kindness shown to David.
4Look, I made him witness to the peoples,
prince and commander of the peoples.
5Look, to a nation you knew not you shall call,
and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,
for the sake of the LORD your God
and Israel’s Holy One, for He made you glorious.
6Seek the LORD where He is found,
call to Him where He is near.
7Let the wicked forsake his way
and a wrongdoing man his devisings
and turn back to the LORD, and He will show mercy to him;
and to his God, for He abundantly pardons.
8For My devisings are not your devisings
and your ways are not My ways,
says the LORD.
9For as the heavens are high over earth,
so My ways are high over your ways
and My devisings over your devisings.
10For as the rain comes down upon earth
and the snow from the heavens,
and there it does not return
but waters the earth
and brings forth growing things
and gives seed for the sower and bread to eat,
11so is My word that comes out of My mouth,
it does not return empty to Me
but does what I desire,
and makes prosper what I have sent.
12For in joy shall you go out,
and in peace you shall be led.
The mountains and hills shall burst forth in glad song before you,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13Instead of the thornbush a cypress shall grow.
Instead of the nettle a myrtle shall grow.
And it shall be a testimony for the LORD,
a perpetual sign that shall not be cut off.
CHAPTER 55 NOTES
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1. Go and buy food without silver. The water, food, milk, and wine are all metaphorical. What the metaphors suggest is that God’s beneficence to His people will be unstinting and freely given with no price exacted for it. The Hebrew kesef is translated as “silver,” not “money” as in other versions, because coins were not yet in general usage, and the use of the verb “weigh out” for “silver” in the next verse clearly indicates that what is imagined is silver weights. There is some question about the relation of this chapter to the fifteen preceding chapters of Second Isaiah. Joseph Blenkinsopp thinks that it is by a different hand and that it is intended as a bridge to the rest of the book, which, at least according to scholarly consensus, is the work of still another prophet. The evidence, however, is somewhat tenuous: the supposed stylistic differences of this chapter from the earlier ones are by no means clear-cut, and the claimed affinities with the Book of Proverbs are debatable.
3. the faithful kindness shown to David. The Hebrew says merely “the faithful kindness of David,” but the clear sense is the faithful kindness, or staunch commitment to the divine promise, that God has shown to David. The poet is not necessarily speaking of a revival of the Davidic dynasty but is invoking God’s commitment to David and his descendants as a model for how He remains committed to His exiled people.
4. witness to the peoples, / prince and commander of the peoples. This would have to be a reference to David’s military dominance, his success in establishing a mini-empire (which biblical writers tend to exaggerate). As David was once a triumphant leader of the nation, Israel will again be triumphant. That notion is perfectly in keeping with the previous prophecies of a restored Israel to which kings and princes will be subservient. This idea is continued in the next verse, where nations from afar run to do Israel’s bidding.
6. Seek the LORD where He is found. That is, you may have imagined that God was distant, hiding His face from you, but He is there close by, if only you seek Him.
10. For as the rain comes down upon earth / and the snow from the heavens. The metaphor elaborated in this verse and then carried on to its referent in the next implies two ideas at once: just as the rain and snow cannot be turned back to the sky from which they come, God’s pronouncements, once issued, cannot be reversed; but the rain and the snow fructify the earth, irrigating it so that it can yield life-sustaining produce, and in this prophecy of restoration, the word God issues is a word of bountifulness, with an effect like the rains of blessing, making things “prosper.”
12. For in joy shall you go out. The going out clearly refers to going out from exile. This entire verse, with the mountains and hills bursting forth in song, as well as the initial poetic line of the next verse, is quite in keeping with earlier prophecies by Second Isaiah of a jubilant return to Zion.
13. a testimony for the LORD. The literal meaning of the noun used here is “name.” The idea is that Israel’s grand restoration will be a visible manifestation to all the nations of God’s power and His loyalty to Israel.
a perpetual sign that shall not be cut off. Once the people of Israel is again firmly established in Zion, there will be no further threats to the well-being of the nation, and this very continuity will bear lasting witness to God’s greatness.
1Thus said the LORD:
Keep justice and do righteousness,
for My rescue is soon to come
and My triumph to be revealed.
2Happy the man who does this
and the son of man who holds fast to it,
keeping the sabbath, not profaning it
and keeping his hand from doing all evil.
3And let not the foreigner say,
who joins the LORD, saying,
“The LORD has kept me apart from His people,”
nor let the eunuch say, “Why, I am a withered tree.”
4For thus said the LORD:
Of the eunuchs who keep My sabbath,
and choose what I desire
and hold fast to My covenant,
5I will give them in My house and within My walls
a marker and a name better than sons and daughters,
an everlasting name will I give them that shall not be cut off.
6And the foreigners who join the LORD
to serve Him and to love the LORD’s name,
to become servants to Him,
all who keep the sabbath, not profaning it
and hold fast to My covenant,
7I will bring them to My holy mountain
and give them joy in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
shall be welcome on My altar.
For My house a house of prayer
shall be called for all the peoples.
8Thus said the Master the LORD,
Who gathers Israel’s dispersed:
Still more will I gather for him besides those gathered.
9All beasts of the field, come to devour,
all beasts of the forest.
10His watchmen are all of them blind,
they do not know.
who know not how to bark.
lovers of slumber.
11But the dogs are fierce in appetite,
they are never sated,
who know not understanding.
They all turn to their own ways,
to their own gain, each and all.
12“Come, let me take wine,
and let us swill strong drink.
And it will be like this tomorrow,
even still more than this.”
CHAPTER 56 NOTES
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1. Keep justice and do righteousness. This moral exhortation, coupled with the urging to observe the sabbath in the next verse, strikes a new note in the Isaiah collection, one that some commentators have characterized as “sermonic.” It is the strong consensus of biblical scholarship, with only a few dissenters, that Isaiah 56–66 is a later composition than Isaiah 40–55, and almost certainly the work of more than one prophet. The frequent allusions to the imminent Persian conquest of Babylonia in chapters 40–55 enable us to date it, or at least much of it, to the time just before the conquest in 539 B.C.E. The situation presupposed in chapters 56–66 is of the exiles already returned to their homeland—there are no further prophecies of the people triumphantly crossing the desert to Zion, and the issues engaged are the behavior of the people in their land and the nature of the community they constitute. The probable period for these prophecies is the early decades of the fifth century B.C.E., before the arrival from Babylonia of Ezra and Nehemiah in the middle of the century. Those responsible for these texts appear to have been familiar with Second Isaiah, but the often asserted claim that they were his disciples seems a little off the mark because they were separated from him by at least two generations.
3. And let not the foreigner say. This is another new note. There were foreigners living in the province of Judah, whether people who had settled there after the Babylonian conquest in 586 B.C.E. or those who may have been drawn to accompany the returning exiles from Mesopotamia. Some of these were attracted to the faith of the Judahites, and the prophet argues that such people should be freely admitted to the ranks of Israel. (At this point in time, there was nothing like a formal conversion ceremony.)
nor let the eunuch say, “Why, I am a withered tree.” This declaration extends the prophet’s program of inclusion. Eunuchs and men otherwise sexually maimed were prohibited from participation in the Temple cult. One therefore may infer that the “joining” the LORD envisaged here is not limited to the cultic (though sacrifices are mentioned in verse 7) but involves entering a community of observance—in particular, observance of the sabbath. The eunuch can produce no biological offspring, but in adhering to the covenant, he becomes part of a community vouchsafed the covenantal promise of a destiny to be as multitudinous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the shore. This notion is spelled out in verse 5, “I will give them in My house and within my walls / a marker and a name better than sons and daughters.” Offspring means permanence; here permanence is being part of the covenanted people.
7. For My house a house of prayer / shall be called for all the peoples. Solomon’s dedication of the First Temple also emphasized prayer, but the designation here of the new Temple as a house of prayer is noteworthy. The phrase “for all the peoples” reflects a universalist perspective, but what it means in the context of foreigners joining the LORD is that God’s house becomes the house of prayer for all people when they embrace His laws.
8. Still more will I gather for him. Either this whole verse is a fragment, predicting another wave of returned exiles and hence unconnected with what has preceded, or the clause refers to the foreigners and eunuchs who are added to the community of Israel.
9. All beasts of the field, come to devour. These words mark the beginning of a new prophecy, one of castigation. It is usually assumed that the devouring beasts are a metaphorical representation of Israel’s enemies.
10. His watchmen are all of them blind. The watchmen are the leaders of the people or, more specifically, its (false) prophets. The motif of the blind leadership is picked up from Second Isaiah.
mute dogs. “Dogs” in biblical language is always a term of opprobrium—truly insulting for leaders or prophets. The muteness refers to their failure to rebuke the people as they should have done. There is scant evidence that watchdogs were used in ancient Israel; most of the biblical references to dogs conceive them as feral scavengers, not domesticated animals.
Dazed. The verb hozim appears only here. In later Hebrew, based on an unlikely understanding of the meaning here, it suggests something like “to hallucinate” or “to entertain idle visions.” Blenkinsopp proposes a possible pun on ḥozim, “to see visions.”
11. they are the shepherds. Throughout the Bible and elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern literature, “shepherd” is a stock metaphor for “ruler.”
12. Come, let me take wine, / and let us swill strong drink. The evocation of drunken leaders may allude to chapter 28. The word for “come” is an Aramaicizing usage that reflects the relatively late period of this text. In poetic parallelism, the more common term, yayin, “wine,” always occurs in the first verset and sheikhar, “strong drink,” in the second. But since sheikhar—in all likelihood, grappa—has a higher alcohol content, this order also follows the principle of intensification of parallel terms from the first verset to the second.
1The righteous one perishes,
and no man takes it to heart,
with no one noticing,
for through evil the righteous is taken off.
2Yet he shall come in peace,—
they shall rest on their couches—
who walks straight before him.
3As for you, draw near,
sons of the sorcerer,
seed of an adulterer and a whore.
4Over whom are you gleeful,
over whom do you gape with your mouth
and stick out your tongue?
Are you not children of crime,
seed of lies?
5Who go into heat over gods
under every lush tree,
slaughtering children in wadis
under crevices in the rocks.
6Your share is in the stones of the wadi,
it is they that are your portion.
Even to them you poured libation,
offered up grain offerings.
Over these should I relent?
7On a high and lofty mountain
you put out your couch.
Even there you went up
to offer sacrifice.
8Behind the door and doorpost
For away from Me you bared yourself,
climbed up, made room on your couch.
And you sealed a pact with them,
you loved bedding down with them,
9And you gave gifts of oil to Molech,
and profusely put on your perfume,
and sent your envoys far off,
10On all your ways you wore yourself out,
yet you never said, “I give up.”
You found your own vigor
and so you did not weaken.
11Whom did you dread and fear
that you should lie,
and Me you did not recall,
you paid no heed?
Did I not keep silent and avert My gaze,
yet Me you did not fear?
12I will tell of your “triumph”
and of your deeds,
and they shall not avail for you.
13When you cry out, let those gathered round you save you.
But all of them the wind shall bear off,
a mere breath take them away.
But who shelters in Me shall inherit the land
and take hold of My holy mountain.
14And He said, Build up, build up, clear a road,
take away stumbling blocks from My people’s road.
15For thus said the lofty and high One,
Who dwells forever and holy His name:
Lofty and holy do I dwell
and with him who is crushed and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of those crushed.
16For not for all times will I quarrel
nor forever will I rage.
Though a spirit grows faint before Me,
the life-breath—it is I Who made it.
17For their crime of greed I raged
and I struck them, hiding as I raged,
and they went astray in the way of their heart.
18Their ways will I see and heal them,
will guide them and grant comfort to them and their mourners.
19Creator of fruit of the lips,
“Peace, peace, to the far and the near!”
said the LORD, “And I will heal them.”
20But the wicked are like a roiled sea,
for it cannot be still,
and its waters roil with mud and muck.
21“There is no peace,” said my God, “for the wicked.”
CHAPTER 57 NOTES
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1. taken off. More literally, “gathered,” in all probability a euphemism for dying, perhaps an elliptical form of the idiom “gathered to his fathers.”
2. they shall rest on their couches. The Hebrew switches from singular to plural and then back to singular (hence the bracketing off of this clause with dashes in the translation). These words became part of the Jewish prayer for the dead.
3. seed of an adulterer and a whore. This verse, set in conjunction with verses 5–9, makes a double use of sexual promiscuity. The prophet seems to assume that dabbling in pagan magical rites is associated with violating the constraints of sexual morality, perhaps because orgiastic rites are practiced. At the same time, promiscuity, as elsewhere in the Bible, is a metaphor for abandoning YHWH, Israel’s true husband, for dalliance with foreign gods. For “a whore,” the Masoretic Text shows a verb “and she went whoring,” but several ancient versions reflect the noun, zonah.
5. Who go into heat over gods / under every lush tree. See the previous comment on the double use of sexuality. The phrase “under every lush tree” occurs in Jeremiah and elsewhere to indicate abandonment to paganism, and what may be in view here is the practice of fertility cults under sacred trees.
slaughtering children in wadis. The inveighing against child sacrifice, which began to be widespread in the eighth century B.C.E., picks up the purely metaphorical aspect of the language of sexual promiscuity just introduced.
6. Your share is in the stones of the wadi. Although the meaning is not certain, this may refer to sacred steles, matseivot, made of piles of stones. The wadis are where the abomination of child sacrifice is performed. It should be noted that throughout this passage, “you” is feminine singular: the female personification of the people, which also accords with the motif of sexual betrayal.
8. you have put your mark. The noun usually means “memorial.” It would appear to be some sort of ritual marker of pagan worship, analogous to the words of Torah to be affixed to the doorpost according to the injunction in Deuteronomy.
away from Me. The sense of the Hebrew preposition is not certain.
climbed up, made room on your couch. “Climbing up” is the verb used in biblical idiom for getting into bed. The adulterous Israel is getting into bed with alien gods.
lust did you behold. The Hebrew appears to say “a hand did you behold.” Blenkinsopp’s claim that yad, “hand,” means “penis” is dubious: he cites two purported proof texts, Isaiah 56:5, where yad clearly means “memorial” or “marker,” and Song of Songs 5:4–5, where yad clearly means “hand.” This translation follows the proposal of the New Jewish Publication Society version that relates yad here to the verbal stem y-d-d, which means “to love.” But this verset is metrically defective, having only two accents, so one suspects that there was originally a longer word here derived from y-d-d that a scribe contracted to yad either because he was unfamiliar with an unusual term or because of prudery.
9. gave gifts. The Hebrew tashuri ordinarily means “to espy,” but that makes no sense here. This translation links it with the noun teshurah, “gift.”
Molech. The Masoretic Text shows melekh, “king,” but the original text almost certainly read “Molech,” the pagan deity to whom children were sacrificed.
as far down as Sheol. The reference to the netherworld may be more than a hyperbole for great distances because it could refer to the worship of Mot, the Canaanite god of death.
13. let those gathered round you save you. This is another ambiguous reference. “Those gathered round” could mean the gods that the paganizing Israelites have collected, or it could refer to the adherents of the pagan cult. In all this, the denunciation of paganism in the Judahite community is a very different theme from what one finds in Isaiah 40–55. The aim of this later prophet is to purge the community of its wayward elements. A sharp division in the Judahites community is envisioned: those who have exerted themselves to go after strange gods (verses 9–10) will be borne off by the wind, while those who have been steadfast in their loyalty to YHWH will “inherit the land,” which is to say, they will be the legitimate possessors of the Persian province of Yehud, now restored to the people of Israel.
14. And He said. Since the Hebrew of course has no capital letters, the verb here could refer to God, or it might be the prophet who is speaking.
build up, clear a road. In Second Isaiah, the road or highway is a thoroughfare through the desert on which the exiles will pass on the way back to their land. It looks as though this later prophet, clearly familiar with both Isaiah and Second Isaiah, has picked up this image and turned it into a metaphor—as “road” or “way” often is used in the Bible—for the right way before God. The “stumbling block” would thus be the sort of scandalous behavior that has just been scathingly denounced.
15. crushed. Most translations render this as “contrite,” but the Hebrew dakaʾ is in the first instance a physical term: the condition of being pushed down.
16. the life-breath—it is I Who made it. The proposed understanding of this verse is as follows: a spirit may be on the point of failing, but I, God, as the Creator of all spirits, will show compassion and revive it.
19. fruit of the lips. This appears to be a kenning for “speech,” though it does not occur elsewhere. The idea is that God, the Creator of the faculty of speech, has the power to pronounce these healing words of peace.
20. But the wicked are like a roiled sea. The prophet continues his notion of a radical split in the people between the faithful and the derelict. This divide has an incipiently sectarian look, preparing the way for the Book of Daniel and the Qumran texts.
21. There is no peace. This verse does not scan as a line of poetry and could be a kind of epilogue to the prophecy added editorially.
1Call out with full throat, do not stint,
raise your voice like a ram’s horn,
and tell to My people its crime,
and to the house of Jacob their offense.
2And Me day by day let them seek,
let them desire the knowledge of My ways
like a nation that does what is right
and its God’s rule it does not forsake.
Let them ask of Me rules of righteousness,
God’s closeness let them desire.
3“Why did we fast and You did not see?
We afflicted ourselves and You took no note?”
In your fast-day you found pleasure
while all your affairs you pursued?
4For quarrel and strife you fasted
and to strike with a wicked fist?
Your fasting this day
will not make your voice heard on high.
5Will like this be the fast that I choose,
the day a man afflicts himself,
to bow his head like a reed
and bed down in sackcloth and ash?
Is it this that you call a fast,
and a day pleasing to the LORD?
6Is not this the fast that I choose—
to unlock the shackles of wickedness,
and loosen the bonds of the yoke,
and to break every yoke?
7Yes, to offer your bread to the hungry,
and bring the wretched poor into your house.
When you see someone naked, you should clothe him,
and your own flesh do not ignore.
8Then shall your light break forth like the dawn
and your healing quickly spring up.
And your vindication shall march before you,
the LORD’s glory shall be your rearguard.
9Then shall you call and the LORD shall answer,
cry out, and He shall say, “Here I am.”
If you remove the yoke from your midst,
the mocking finger and vicious speech.
10And you proffer your bread to the hungry,
and sate the appetite of the afflicted.
Then your light shall dawn in the dark,
and your gloom shall be like the noon.
11And the LORD shall guide you always
and sate your appetite in arid land,
and your bones He shall strengthen,
and you shall be like a well-moistened garden
and like a water source
whose waters do not fail.
12And from among you they shall rebuild the ancient ruins,
foundations laid in times past you shall raise.
And you shall be called repairer of the breach,
restorer of paths for dwellers.
13If you refrain from journey on the sabbath,
from pursuing your affairs on My holy day,
and call the sabbath a delight,
the LORD’s holy day, respected,
and honor it by not following your ways,
nor pursuing your affairs and speaking in vain.
14Then shall you delight in the LORD,
and I will mount you on the heights of the earth,
and make you thrive with the estate of Jacob your father,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
CHAPTER 58 NOTES
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1. Call out with full throat. This injunction is directed to the prophet, and what follows is the content of his clarion call.
2. let them seek. Verb tenses and verbal modes in biblical poetry are notoriously ambiguous. Many interpreters understand the verbs in this verse as present tense, but since what is stated contradicts the preceding proclamation of Israel’s “crime” and “offense,” translations based on this understanding have to preface the verse with “yet” or “to be sure,” for which there is no warrant in the Hebrew. It makes better sense to construe all the verbs in this verse as cohortatives: would that they would seek God and the knowledge of His ways, in contrast to what they are actually doing.
3. Why did we fast and You did not see? Communal fasts were instituted in times of crisis—for example, during a famine or a plague—as one can see in Psalm 90. Members of the community not only refrained from eating but also adopted mourning practices such as the wearing of sackcloth and sprinkling ashes on the head. The underlying idea was that such practices of mortification would engage the compassion of the deity, and the disaster would end.
afflicted ourselves. This idiom, ʿinuy nefesh, is a synonym for fasting, and in rabbinic Hebrew the first of these two words would generate another noun for “fast,” taʿanit.
In your fast-day you found pleasure / while all your affairs you pursued. The consideration of sincere versus hypocritical fasting led to the apt selection of this chapter to be chanted in the morning service for Yom Kippur, the great fast-day.
4. to strike with a wicked fist. The inveighing here and in the lines that follow against social injustice may reflect, as some scholars contend, the dire state of Judahite society in the early decades of the fifth century B.C.E., but it is difficult to link any of this to specific historical circumstances. Exploitation of the poor, after all, and indifference to suffering are prevalent enough in virtually all societies, including affluent twenty-first-century America. That is precisely what imparts a sense of timeless relevance to this prophecy.
5. afflicts himself. A more idiomatic rendering would be “mortifies himself,” although that, unfortunately, is rhythmically ponderous.
6. the downtrodden. The Hebrew retsutsim is usually translated as “oppressed,” but the term requires a more physical English equivalent because the literal sense of the Hebrew is “smashed,” “shattered.”
7. your own flesh. The sense is “your fellow human being,” who shares your condition as a creature of flesh and blood.
9. Then shall you call. The obvious antithesis is to the fasting supplicant who goes through the motions of prayer and calls to God while ignoring injustice.
the mocking finger. The literal meaning is “extending of the finger.” This idiom is not attested elsewhere, and so the translation is based on the context.
12. they shall rebuild the ancient ruins. This formulation does seem to be directed to the challenges facing the Judahites in the early years of the return from exile.
restorer of paths for dwellers. The Hebrew uses an infinitive, “to dwell,” but since paths are not places of habitation, “for dwellers” may be the intended meaning.
13. If you refrain from journey on the sabbath. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “If you draw back your foot from the sabbath.” This translation follows Blenkinsopp’s proposal that “foot” stands in for “traveling,” even though others think it suggests trampling the sabbath. In this period, the sabbath was becoming increasingly important, and prohibitions were evolving that would eventually issue in the elaborate rabbinic laws of the sabbath.
speaking in vain. The Hebrew says, cryptically, “speaking a word.” Since conversation on the sabbath was obviously not forbidden, the phrase may suggest something like what is indicated in this translation, though others think it has to do with business pronouncements.
14. make you thrive. The literal sense of the Hebrew verb is “feed you.”
1Why, the LORD’s hand is not too short to rescue,
nor His ear too dull to hear.
2But your crimes have parted
you from your God,
and your offenses have hidden His face
from you, so He does not hear.
3For your palms are stained with blood
and your fingers with crime.
Your lips speak lies,
and your tongue utters wrong doing.
4There is none who sues in righteousness
or comes to court in good faith.
They trust in emptiness and speak falsehood,
conceive trouble and bring forth vice.
5Viper’s eggs they hatch,
and a spiderweb they weave.
Who eats their eggs will die,
and when crushed an asp is hatched.
6Their webs become no garment,
and none covers up with what they make.
What they make are deeds of vice,
and the work of outrage in their palms.
7Their feet run to evil
and hurry to shed innocent blood.
Their devisings, devisings of vice,
wrack and ruin upon their paths.
8The way of peace they do not know,
and there is no justice where they go.
They make their courses crooked—
who treads on them knows not peace.
9Therefore is justice far from us,
and vindication does not reach us.
We hope for light, but, look, darkness,
for brightness, but we go in gloom.
10We grope the wall like blind men,
like the eyeless we grope.
We stumble at noon as at twilight,
among the robust like dead men.
11All of us growl like bears,
and like doves we ever moan.
We hope for justice but there is none,
for rescue,—it is far from us.
12For many are our crimes before You,
and our offenses bear witness against us.
For our crimes are with us,
and our misdeeds, we know them.
13Rebelling and denying the LORD
and falling back from our God,
speaking oppression and waywardness,
conceiving in the heart and uttering lying words.
14And justice is made to fall back,
and vindication stands off afar,
for truth stumbles in the square,
and honesty cannot come in.
15And truth is not to be found,
who turns from evil is despoiled.
And the LORD saw, and it was evil in His eyes,
for there was no justice.
16And He saw that there was no man,
and He was appalled, for none intervened.
But His own arm gave Him victory,
and His triumph stayed Him up.
17And He donned triumph as His armor
and victory’s helmet on His head.
And He donned clothes of vengeance as a garment,
and wrapped round zeal like a robe.
18As for their deserts, as for that, He requites,
wrath for His foes, just deserts for His enemies,
to the coastlands He exacts just deserts.
19And they shall fear from the west the LORD’s name,
and from the sun’s rising His glory.
For He shall come like a pent-up river,
for the LORD’s breath drives it on.
20And a redeemer shall come to Zion,
and to those who turn back from crime in Jacob—
21“As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” said the LORD, “My spirit that is upon you and My word that I put in your mouth—they shall not depart from your mouth and from the mouth of your seed and from the mouth of the seed of your seed,” said the LORD, “from now and for all time.”
CHAPTER 59 NOTES
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2. hidden His face. The Hebrew merely says “face,” but the clear reference is to God. The first two verses of this chapter are a strong articulation of a basic idea of prophetic theology: if you want to know why God appears to be absent, allowing the people of Israel to suffer grievously at the hands of its enemies, the explanation is that God has withdrawn His presence because of the people’s offenses. Thus, one should not imagine that God in any way lacks the capacity to rescue Israel or to hear its prayers (verse 1); rather, the lack of divine intervention is solely the consequence of the people’s own actions.
4. There is none who sues in righteousness. While the verb used generally means “to call” or “to call out,” the parallel term in the second verset, nishpat, “comes to court,” suggests a judicial meaning, and that is the understanding of most biblical scholars.
5. Viper’s eggs … / a spiderweb. These two metaphors drawn from two of the more disagreeable members of the animal kingdom suggest two different negative consequences of the miscreant’s acts—respectively, lethally poisonous effects and flimsy, useless insubstantiality.
7. Their feet run to evil. The function of the two lines of poetry that constitute this verse is to spell out in explicit moral terms the meaning of the metaphors of viper and spiderweb.
9. Therefore is justice far from us. These words initiate a new prophecy. Instead of the preceding castigation of the evildoers first in the second person and then in the third person, this text speaks in the first-person plural on behalf of a people plunged in disaster, for whom God will dramatically intervene (verses 16–20). The hook, surely visible to the eye of the editor, that connects the two prophecies is the pronouncement about the lack of justice at the beginning of the second prophecy.
10. like blind men, / like the eyeless. This line neatly illustrates how in the second verset in lines of biblical poetry some sort of epithet (or often metaphor) is substituted for the standard term (here, “blind”) that appears in the first verset. “Eyeless” (more literally, “no-eyes”) concretizes the condition of blindness. The line is also an elegant chiasm: we grope—blind men—the eyeless—we grope.
the robust. The Hebrew ʾashamnim appears only here, so the proposed meaning, linking it with the root sh-m-n, which can mean either “healthy” or “fat,” is conjectural.
12. For many are our crimes before You. This, and what follows to the end of verse 15, is perfectly in accord with the theological notion of alienating God through evil actions that is expressed in verses 1–2, but here it constitutes a collective confession of sin.
14. for truth stumbles in the square. Since the square is the chief public place of the ancient city, usually facing the gates where courts of justice were held, the implication is that the entire society has violated the principles of justice.
16. And He saw that there was no man. At this point the prophet offers a new notion of God’s saving power: the society is so thoroughly given over to injustice that there is scarcely hope that anyone will emerge who can turn things around, and consequently God Himself decides that He must intervene.
17. And He donned triumph as His armor. The prophet now draws on the ancient Canaanite imagery of the warrior-god, which appears with some frequency in biblical poetry.
18. As for their deserts, as for that. The Hebrew preposition keʿal is unusual, but the sense reflected in the translation seems likely, if not certain.
wrath for His foes, just deserts for His enemies. All this continues the representation of God as a fierce warrior. If elsewhere in the Isaian corpus the enemies of Israel are conceived as God’s instrument, they have, after all, devastated, exiled, and subjugated the covenanted people, and in doing so they have become God’s enemies, on whom He will now wreak vengeance.
19. they shall fear. This translation agrees with Blenkinsopp that the verb is stronger than “revere,” the choice of several modern versions: God the warrior, sweeping over vast regions like a torrential river, inspires fear from east to west.
20. to those who turn back from crime in Jacob. Despite the idea of a unilateral divine initiative of rescue articulated in verses 16ff., here at the end the prophecy asserts that the redemption will come only for those who turn back to God.
said the LORD. This attribution of divine speech is introduced here to mark the end of the prophecy.
21. As for Me. What follows the prophecy is a prose epilogue. Some understand it as a formal conclusion to the whole section running from chapter 56 through chapter 59.
My spirit that is upon you. The “you” is singular, but the claim that it refers to the prophet, with “your seed” indicating his disciples, is questionable. Similar formulations in Deuteronomy and elsewhere clearly indicate the spirit of God that will continue to invest the covenanted people for all time, and there is no warrant for the use of “seed” in the sense of “disciple” rather than as a term for biological offspring. “Seed” in precisely this sense repeatedly figures in the covenantal promises to Abraham.
1Rise, O shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD has dawned over you.
2For, look, darkness covers the earth,
and thick mist, the peoples,
3but nations shall walk by your light,
and kings by your dawning radiance.
4Raise your eyes all round and see—
they all have gathered, come to you.
Your sons shall come from afar
and your daughters dandled on the hip.
5Then shall you see and gleam,
and your heart shall throb and swell,
for the sea’s bounty shall be yours,
the wealth of nations shall come to you.
6A tide of camels shall cover you,
dromedaries from Midian and Ephah,
they all shall come from Sheba.
Gold and frankincense they shall bear,
and the LORD’s praise they shall proclaim.
7All Kedar’s flocks shall be gathered to you,
Nebaioth’s rams shall serve you.
They shall be welcome offerings on My altar,
and the house of My splendor I will make splendid.
8Who are these who fly like a cloud
and like doves to their cotes?
9For Me the coastlands wait,
and Tarshish ships are at the head
to bring your children from afar,
their silver and their gold are with them,
for the name of the LORD your God,
and Israel’s Holy One, Who makes you splendid.
10And foreign sons shall build your walls,
and their kings shall serve you.
For in My fury I did strike you
and in My favor I have compassion for you.
11And they shall open your gates perpetually,
night and day they shall not close,
to buy you the wealth of nations,
and their kings as captives driven.
12For the nation and the kingdom that does not serve you shall perish, and the nation shall surely be destroyed.
13Lebanon’s glory shall come to you,
cypress, fir, and box tree all,
to make splendid the place of My sanctuary,
and I will honor the resting place of My feet.
14And they shall go to you bent over,
the sons of your afflictions,
and all your revilers bow at the soles of your feet.
And they shall call you City of the LORD,
Zion of the Holy One.
15Instead of your being forsaken,
rejected, with none passing through,
I will make you an everlasting pride,
a rejoicing for all times.
16And you shall suckle the milk of nations,
royal breasts you shall suckle,
and you shall know I am the LORD your Rescuer,
and your Redeemer, Jacob’s Mighty One.
17Instead of bronze I will bring gold,
and instead of iron I will bring silver
and instead of wood, bronze,
and instead of stone, iron.
And I will set as your governance Peace
and your overseers, Righteousness.
18No more shall “outrage” be heard in your land,
“wrack and ruin” within your borders.
And you shall call your walls Deliverance
and your gates Praise.
19No more shall the sun be your light by day,
nor the moon’s radiance shine for you,
but the LORD shall be your everlasting light
and your God become your splendor.
20No more shall your sun set,
your moon shall not go down.
But the LORD shall be your everlasting light,
and your mourning days shall be done.
21And your people, all of them righteous,
shall forever possess the land,
the shoot I have planted,
My handiwork in which to glory.
22The least shall become a thousand,
the smallest, a mighty nation.
I, the LORD, in its due time I will hasten it.
CHAPTER 60 NOTES
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1. Rise, O shine for your light has come. Often thought of, with the next two chapters, as the core of Trito-Isaiah, this poem picks up the motif of transcendent light from Second Isaiah and transforms it into an enthralling poetic vision of Zion magnificently restored. This vision is dramatically developed in the next two verses, in which the whole earth is imagined engulfed in darkness, and Zion’s brilliant dawn offers light for humankind.
3. your dawning. The Hebrew verbal stem z-r-ḥ does not mean merely “to shine,” as several translations show, but the breaking light of dawn, a pointed word choice because Zion’s light is to come after the long dark night of the nations.
4. Your sons shall come from afar. The entire line builds on the image of Zion’s sons and daughters being brought back to their homeland in Isaiah 49:14–21.
dandled. The Hebrew verb, ʾaman, suggests caring for or tending to a child.
6. A tide of camels. The first noun here, shifʿah, indicates a flow or spate. The poetic image is of an endless flow of caravans of camels that is like a stream or tide.
7. the house of My splendor I will make splendid. This is not a redundancy. The Temple by rights is the house of God’s splendor, but only when it is completely rebuilt and grandly refurbished will it achieve its status as the house of God’s splendor.
8. Who are these who fly like a cloud. The obvious reference is to the exiles flocking back to their land. Although this and the next two verses reflect a clear connection with the sundry prophecies of the return to Zion in chapters 40–55, the difference is that the point of view here appears to be that of someone in Zion watching the crowd of returned exiles as it approaches.
9. Tarshish ships. This is an exercise of poetic license to convey the idea of the exiles being brought from afar because in fact they would be coming overland from Mesopotamia, not from the west by sea.
10. And foreign sons shall build your walls, / and their kings shall serve you. This fantastic flourish is another motif picked up from chapters 40–55.
11. And they shall open your gates perpetually. As the next poetic line makes clear, the gates are open to bring in the wealth of nations. But normally, the gates of a city would be closed at least at night to guarantee its security, so what is envisaged here is a perfectly peaceful city that will never be attacked. This is still another instance in which the poem builds on hyperbole.
their kings as captives driven. The verb for “drive” is usually attached to animals or prisoners, so “as captives” is implied though not stated.
12. For the nation and the kingdom. This entire verse, which is in prose, looks like an editorial intervention meant to point the moral of the poem.
16. And you shall suckle the milk of nations. In 49:23 foreign princesses were to become the wet nurses of Judahite infants; here, that extravagant image is rerun metaphorically.
royal breasts. The Masoretic Text is vocalized to read shod, “booty,” but the original word was almost certainly shad, “breast,” either mistakenly vocalized by the Masoretes or altered by them because the image troubled them.
17. governance. The Hebrew pequdah is one of those biblical terms that can mean half a dozen different things, but in context, and with regard to the parallelism, this is the most likely sense here. Abraham Ibn Ezra sees it as an ellipsis for ʾanshey pequdah, “men of governance.”
18. outrage … / wrack and ruin. These are conventional outcries in response to a disaster—for example, a person attacked by marauders.
19. No more shall the sun be your light by day. At the beginning of the poem, Israel’s radiance lit up the world. Now, the heavenly luminaries are to be replaced by God, as an everlasting source of light. Again, poetic hyperbole points the way to eschatological vision.
21. your people … / shall forever possess the land. The land in question is of course the Land of Israel, and this is an especially pointed promise to a people that little more than a century earlier had been violently uprooted from its land.
22. a mighty nation. The Hebrew adjective can equally mean “multitudinous.”
in its due time I will hasten it. The entire prophecy has conjured up the idea of a glorious national restoration. At the time it was delivered, in the early or middle decades of the fifth century B.C.E., the Judahite community was in disarray, the rebuilding of Jerusalem proceeding fitfully, inner divisions manifesting themselves, fears of armed attacks hovering over the Judahites. Thus the prophet is constrained to have God say that He will hasten the arrival of the grand restoration, but only in its due time.
1The LORD’s spirit is upon me
as the LORD has anointed me
to bring good tidings to the poor,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim freedom to the captives,
to the prisoners, release,
2to proclaim a year of favor for the LORD
and a day of vengeance for our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3to set out for the mourners of Zion,
to give them turbans instead of ashes,
joy’s oil instead of mourning,
a glorious wrap instead of gloomy spirit.
And they shall be called oaks of victory,
God’s planting in which to glory.
4And they shall rebuild the ancient ruins,
the desolate places of yore they shall raise up,
and renew the ravaged towns,
and the desolate places of times long past.
5And foreigners shall stand and tend your flocks
and strangers be your farmers and keepers of your vineyards.
6As for you, the LORD’s priests you shall be called,
our God’s ministrants it shall be said of you.
The wealth of nations you shall enjoy
and in their glory revel.
7Instead of the shame twice over and disgrace
they shall exult in their lot.
Therefore they shall possess their land twice over,
everlasting joy shall be theirs.
8For I, the LORD, love justice,
and I will truly pay their wages,
an everlasting pact I will seal with them.
9And their seed shall be known in the nations,
and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them shall recognize
that they are the seed the LORD has blessed.
10I shall greatly rejoice in the LORD,
my very being exult in my God.
For He has clothed me with garments of triumph,
has wrapped me with victory’s cloak,
as a bridegroom dons, priestlike, a turban
and as a bride is adorned in fine clothes.
11For as the earth brings forth its growth
and a garden makes its plants flourish,
so shall the LORD make victory flourish
and praise before all the nations.
CHAPTER 61 NOTES
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1. The LORD’s spirit is upon me … / to bring good tidings to the poor. This prophet of the fifth century B.C.E. announces at the outset of the prophecy that he has been commissioned to bring a message of comfort, not castigation.
the poor. While many understand ʿanawim as “the humble,” it can also be a variant form of ʿaniyim, “poor,” and the prophet appears to be referring to people in a state of wretchedness.
to proclaim freedom to the captives. The first verb and noun here echo the language concerning the jubilee year in Leviticus 25:10, where Israelite slaves were restored to freedom. Efforts to link these lines with specific conditions in the fifth-century Judahite community are, however, no more than conjectures. Captivity is a recurrent poetic image for all sorts of states of subjugation, including its frequent use in chapters 40–55 as a metaphor for exile.
3. turbans instead of ashes. The Hebrew features sound-play: “turban” (often the word means “splendor”) is peʾeir and “ashes,” ʾeifer, the same Hebrew consonants in a different order.
joy’s oil instead of mourning. Rubbing oneself with oil was part of the enjoyment of the good life, and mourners would refrain from this practice. Putting ashes on the head was a mourning rite.
4. ancient ruins. The ruins were made when Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C.E., well over a century before this prophecy, and from the poet’s perspective these ruins are “ancient,” from “times long past.”
6. the LORD’s priests you shall be called. One should not take this declaration literally. The point is that all the people will now enjoy an intimate relationship with God in the Temple, rather in the spirit of all Israel’s being “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).
7. they shall possess their land twice over. This is a hyperbolic flourish: the people dispossessed of their land will now hold on to it with doubled security. The phrase might also refer to a second taking-possession of the land after the first one in Joshua’s conquest.
8. robbery and vice. The Masoretic Text reads for the second noun beʿolah, “in burnt offering,” but this should be revocalized as beʿawlah.
10. For He has clothed me with garments of triumph. The clothing metaphor, continued here until the end of the verse, picks up the “turban” and the “glorious wrap” from verse 3.
as a bridegroom dons, priestlike, a turban. The Hebrew uses a verb, yekhahein, that literally means “to minister as a priest.” The priests wore turbans and splendid robes and so serve as a model for fine attire.
as a bride is adorned in fine clothes. “Fine” is implied in the Hebrew because the verb used is one for putting on ornaments.
1For Zion’s sake I will not be still,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet,
till her triumph emerges like radiance
and her deliverance burns like a torch,
2and nations see your triumph
and all kings, your glory.
And you shall be called a new name
that the mouth of the LORD shall fix.
3And you shall become a crown of splendor in the hand of the LORD
and a regal diadem in the palm of your God.
4No more shall be said of you “Forsaken”
and of your land no more be said “Desolation.”
For you shall be called “My Delight Is in Her”
and your land, “The One Bedded.”
For the LORD delights in you
and your land shall be bedded.
5As a young man beds a virgin,
and a bridegroom’s rejoicing over the bride
shall your God rejoice over you.
6On your walls, O Jerusalem,
Through the day and through the night,
they are never still.
You invokers of the LORD,
do not fall silent,
7and do not let Him fall silent
till He sets Jerusalem firm, praise in the earth.
8The LORD has vowed by His right hand
and by His powerful arm:
I will no more give your grain
to your enemies as food,
and foreigners shall not drink your new wine
over which you toiled.
9But those who garner it shall eat it,
and they shall praise the LORD,
and those who gather it shall drink it
in My holy courts.
10Pass through, pass through the gates,
clear the people’s way.
Build up, build up the highway,
clear away the stones,
raise a banner over peoples.
11Look, the LORD has made it heard
to the end of the earth:
look, your rescue comes.
Look, His recompense is with Him,
and His wages are before Him.
12And they shall call them “Holy People,”
“The Redeemed Ones of the LORD.”
And you shall be called “The One Sought Out,”
“The City Unforsaken.”
CHAPTER 62 NOTES
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2. And you shall be called a new name. In the biblical world, as in many other cultures, the name was conceived as incorporating the essence of the person or object. The most striking illustration of this notion is Jacob’s wrestling with the mysterious stranger in Genesis 32. He is given a new name, Israel, instead of his old one (“Jacob” is etymologically associated with crookedness or deception), while the stranger refuses to reveal his own name, saying it is a mystery. The prophet of these chapters is particularly preoccupied with changing names: Israel’s disastrous destiny is about to be transformed into triumph, and the poetry marks this transformation by assigning a cluster of new names.
4. My Delight Is in Her. A transliterated version of the Hebrew for this name, Hephzibah, at one time had some currency among Bible-reading speakers of English.
The One Bedded. Again, the transliteration, Beulah, became an English name. Most translations render it as “espoused,” but that is too formal and too decorous. This passive form of the verb baʿal does indicate a woman who has a husband (the noun baʿal), but it has a sexual connotation: Zion, the woman who has been forsaken, will now enjoy consummation again. The sexual implication of the term is clearly suggested in verse 5: “and a bridegroom’s rejoicing over the bride / shall your God rejoice over you.”
5. your sons shall bed you. This sounds inadvertently like incest (in the next line of poetry, it is rather God’s relationship with Israel that is analogous to the bridegroom’s relationship with the bride), but the intended idea is that the desolate land, personified as a woman, will be plowed and cultivated by its sons, as a young man is intimate with a virgin and makes her fruitful.
6. watchmen. Some take this to be a figure for the prophet and his disciples, but they may well be literal watchmen.
9. those who gather it shall drink it / in My holy courts. The point of this verse and the preceding one is not only that the people will no longer have the fruit of their agricultural labors stripped from them by invaders, but also that they will bring their grain and wine to celebrate God in His Temple. This is a sentiment very much in keeping with many of the Psalms.
10. Build up, build up the highway. This, like several other lines in the poetry of this prophet, is a pointed variation on the language of Second Isaiah (especially 40:3–4).
11. Say to Zion’s Daughter. These are the words grandly confirming the restoration of Zion that God is about to proclaim throughout the earth.
His recompense … / His wages. That is to say, God carries with Him the recompense He will now give to Israel.
12. And they shall call them “Holy People.” In the fervor of this vision, all the nations of the earth are caught up in this movement of assigning new names to the people of Israel because they see and attest to its splendid transformation.
1Who is this coming from Edom,
in ensanguined garments from Bosra?
striding in His great power.
“I speak out in triumph,
great for granting victory.”
2“Why is there red on your garments
and your clothes like one treading a winepress?”
3“In the vat I have trodden alone—
of the peoples, no one was with Me,
and I trampled them in My wrath,
stomped on them in My fury,
and their lifeblood splattered My garments,
all My clothes I have befouled.
4For it is vengeance day in My heart
and My vindication’s year has come.
5And I looked, and there was no helper,
and I stared—and there was no sustainer.
But My own arm made Me triumph,
and My wrath, it was this sustained Me.
6And I trampled peoples in My wrath
and made them drunk with My fury,
and shed their lifeblood on the ground.”
7The LORD’s acts of kindness I recall,
the praises of the LORD.
As for all that the LORD requited us,
and the great bounty to the house of Israel
whom He requited with His mercy
and with His many acts of kindness.
8And He said, “Why, they are My people,
children who do not betray,”
and He became their rescuer.
9In all their distress was He distressed,
and the agent of His presence rescued them.
In His love and in His compassion He redeemed them,
plucked them up and bore them all the days of yore.
10But they rebelled and pained
His Holy spirit,
and He became an enemy to them,
He fought against them.
11But He recalled the days of yore,
drawing His people out from the water:
Where is He Who brought them up from the sea,
the shepherds of His flock?
Where is He Who put in their midst
His holy spirit?
12Who led at the right hand of Moses
with His glorious arm,
split the waters before them
to make Him an everlasting name,
13leading them through the deep;
like a horse in the desert they did not stumble.
14Like cattle in the valley You guided them,
the LORD’s spirit guided them.
So you led Your people
to make You a glorious name.
15Look from the heavens and see,
from Your holy and glorious abode.
Where are Your zeal and Your might?
Your deep feeling and your compassion
are held back from me.
16Though Abraham did not know us
nor Israel recognize us,
You, LORD, are our Father,
our Redeemer of yore is Your name.
17Why should You make us stray, LORD, from Your ways,
why make our hearts callous to the fear of You?
Turn back for the sake of Your servants,
the tribes of Your estate.
18For a brief time Your holy people had possession—
our foes trampled Your sanctuary.
19We become like ones You never ruled,
on whom Your name was not called.
Would that You tore open the heavens, came down,
that the mountains melted before You,
CHAPTER 63 NOTES
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1. Who is this coming from Edom, / is ensanguined garments from Bosra? The first six verses of this chapter are the most vivid—and grisly—representation in biblical poetry of YHWH as a warrior-god. The image of God trampling the vineyard would be picked up in the Book of Revelation and then would be used at the beginning of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Edom. If one may judge by Psalm 137, Edom took an eager role in collaborating with the Babylonian invaders in 586 B.C.E. and was thus singled out by the Judahites as a particular object of hatred. It is conceivable that this prophecy was composed not long after 586.
ensanguined. The adjective ḥamuts is unusual, and it is not the ordinary word for “red.” It nevertheless refers through the color to the name “Edom,” which is associated with ʾadom, “red,” as one clearly sees in the naming of Esau in Genesis 25:30. In the story of the stealing of the blessing (chapter 27), Jacob puts on the “finery” that belongs to his brother Esau, but Yair Zakovitch proposes that the Hebrew word used for these, ḥamudot, is a scribal or editorial substitution for ḥamatsot, the adjective that occurs here.
glorious in attire. In a provocative leap, the blood-splattered garments are glorious attire.
2. Why is there red on your garments. The form of question and response between an anonymous observer (perhaps the prophet but not necessarily) and God is quite unusual in biblical poetry.
like one treading a winepress. The association between wine and blood is not only because of the color red but also because a kenning for wine in biblical poetry, inherited from the Ugaritic, is “blood of the grape” (see Genesis 49:11).
5. But My own arm made Me triumph. This is a very different view from that of Second Isaiah, in which Cyrus acts as God’s agent in history, but this prophecy may antedate the advent of Cyrus by a century or more.
6. made them drunk with My fury. The metaphor of drunkenness is enhanced by the fact that the word for “fury” has a homonym that means “venom,” a lethal liquid that can be imbibed.
7. The LORD’s acts of kindness I recall. These words signal the beginning of a new poem with an entirely different theme. If we recall that “the LORD’s acts of kindness,” ḥasdey YHWH, is a recurrent motif in Pslams, the composition that begins here looks very much like a psalm—in this instance, a collective supplication that rehearses God’s bounty to Israel in times past and prays for the renewal of divine intervention to save the people.
11. But He recalled the days of yore. The recalling is stated as a completed fact, but that is somewhat confusing because in what follows God is repeatedly asked why He does not now come to the aid of Israel as He once did.
drawing His people out from the water. The Hebrew mosheh ʿamo should not be construed as “Moses his people,” which would make little sense. Instead, mosheh is used as a verb here, the verb with which the name of Moses is etymologized. This usage is clear because of the next line, “Where is He Who brought them up from the sea.” But the poet interprets the Moses story as he invokes the miracle at the Sea of Reeds: the infant Moses drawn from the water is a prefiguration of Israel saved from the waters as the sea is split open.
13. like a horse in the desert. The odd-looking simile again alludes to the story of the Sea of Reeds: the Egyptian horses all drowned in the waters of the sea, whereas a horse on the dry surface of the desert—the antithesis of the sea—does not stumble.
14. Like cattle in the valley You guided them. The Masoretic Text reads “as cattle goes down in the valley,” but three ancient versions have “You guided them” instead of “[it] goes down.”
15. Your deep feeling. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “the stirring [or roaring] of your innards.” The innards or bowels were thought to be the seat of compassion, and for this odd reason, “bowels” in eighteenth-century English came to mean, through the literalism of the King James Version, “compassion.”
16. Though Abraham did not know us. This is a rhetorical hypothesis contrary to fact: even if it were the case that Abraham did not know us, God would still be our Father.
17. Why should You make us stray. The theological reasoning is: since God causes all things, if we have strayed it must be somehow because He has decreed it, and so we are not entirely to blame.
18. For a brief time Your holy people had possession. The meaning of this whole verset is in doubt. Scholars have performed radical surgery on the received text, but their results are equally doubtful.
19. the mountains melted before You. The chapter ends on a comma because this sentence continues through the first verse of chapter 64, and the entire prophecy begun in verse 7 goes on until the end of chapter 64.
1as fire catches in brushwood,
as fire makes water seethe,
to let Your name be known to Your foes,
before You nations quake.
2When You did fearsome things we had not hoped for,
You came down, and before You the mountains melted.
3They never had seen,
they never gave ear,
no eye has seen a God besides You.
He acts for those who wait for Him.
4You struck him who delights in doing justice,
who recalls You in Your ways.
Look, You raged, and so we offended,
when You hid Yourself we transgressed.
5We become all of us like an unclean thing,
and like a filthy rag, all our merits.
And we all of us shriveled like leaves
and our crimes bore us off like the wind.
6And none called Your name
nor roused himself to hold fast to You,
for You hid Your face from us,
and gave us over to our crimes.
7Yet now, LORD, You are our Father,
we are the clay and You the Potter,
and Your handiwork all of us are.
8Do not, O LORD, be so furious,
and do not forever recall crime.
Oh, look, pray, to Your people, all of us.
9Your holy towns have become a desert,
Zion has become a desert, Jerusalem a desolate place.
10Our holy house and our glory
in which our fathers praised You
has been consumed by fire
and all our precious things become a ruin.
11For these will You hold back, O LORD,
be silent and gravely afflict us?
CHAPTER 64 NOTES
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1. brushwood. The Hebrew term appears only here, but the context suggests this sense.
to let Your name be known to Your foes. God’s omnipotence is manifested on earth as He descends amid seismic upheavals in all His power.
2. before You the mountains melted. The language is reminiscent of the Song of Deborah. Compare Judges 5:5.
3. He acts for those who wait for Him. The switch from second-person to third-person reference to the same subject is characteristic biblical usage.
4. You struck him who delights in doing justice. This appears to be an abrupt transition on the argument of the poem. In times past, God showed His fearsome power in acting on behalf of Israel. Now, however, even those who pursue justice are the victims of His wrath. This negative construction of the verb pagaʿ, which can mean either “to strike” (usually fatally) or “to encounter,” is supported by the report of divine rage in the next line.
You raged, and so we offended, / when You hid Yourself we transgressed. This line extends the theological understanding of 63:17: Israel’s transgressions are the consequence of God’s rage and the hiding of His face rather than their cause.
5. a filthy rag. The Hebrew ʿidim is another word unique to this text, and the translation simply reflects the understanding of interpretive consensus.
6. gave us over. This translation reads instead of the Masoretic watemugeinu (“you melted us”) watemageinu, a reading reflected in three ancient versions.
10. Our holy house … / consumed by fire. The language here clearly indicates that the Temple has not yet been rebuilt, and this poem may well have been written shortly after the destruction of 586 B.C.E. Scholars have noted several points of similarity in the language of this prophecy with Lamentations.
11. For these will You hold back, O LORD. This plea concludes the collective supplication: in light of the terrible devastation—Jerusalem turned into a desolate place, the Temple in ruins, the whole people cast off like a filthy rag—God must surely relent His fury and restore Zion. All this is very far from the upbeat vision of national redemption articulated by Second Isaiah and almost certainly reflects an earlier historical moment.
1I yielded oracles when they did not inquire,
I was found when they did not seek Me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am”
to a nation not called by My name.
2I spread out My hands all day long
to a wayward people
that walked on a way not good
after its own devisings.
3The people that vexes Me
to My face perpetually,
offering sacrifice in the gardens,
burning incense on the bricks,
4sitting among the graves,
in vigil stations passing the nights,
and broth of foulness in their pots,
5saying, “Keep off,
do not approach me, for I am not to be touched by you.”
These are smoke in my nostrils,
smoldering fire all day long.
6Look, it is written before Me:
I will not be still
till I have paid back,
paid back into their laps,
7their crimes and their fathers’ crimes together—
said the LORD—
that they burned incense on the mountains
and on the hills reviled Me,
I will measure out their wages
8Thus said the LORD:
As new wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, “Do not destroy it
for there is blessing in it,”
not destroying everything.
9And I will bring out seed from Jacob
and from Judah as heir to My mountains,
and My chosen ones shall take hold of it,
and My servants shall dwell there.
10And Sharon shall become a pasture for flocks
and the Achor Valley a bedding-down for cattle—
11As for you, who forsake the LORD,
who lay out a table for the good luck god
and fill bowls of mixed wine for the god of fate.
12I have destined you for the sword,
and you all shall kneel to be slaughtered,
since I called and you did not answer,
I spoke and you did not hear,
and you did what was evil in My eyes,
and what I did not desire you chose.
13Therefore, thus said the LORD:
and you shall hunger.
Look, My servants shall drink
and you shall thirst.
Look, My servants shall rejoice
and you shall be shamed.
14Look, My servants shall sing gladly
with a cheerful heart,
and you shall cry out for heart’s pain
and from a broken spirit howl.
15And you shall leave your name as an oath to My chosen ones:
“May the Master, the LORD, put you to death!”
And My servants He shall call by another name.
16Who blesses himself in the land
shall bless himself by the God of trust,
and who vows in the land
shall vow by the God of trust,
for the former troubles have been forgotten
and are hidden from My eyes.
17For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be recalled
and shall not come to mind.
18But rejoice and exalt for all times,
that I am creating,
for I am about to create in Jerusalem
exultation and with it rejoicing.
19And I will exult in Jerusalem
and rejoice in My people,
and no longer shall be heard within it
the sound of weeping and the sound of screams.
20There shall not be there a tender babe or elder
who will not live out his days.
For like a lad he shall die at a hundred,
and who misses a hundred shall be thought accursed.
21And they shall build houses and dwell in them
and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22They shall not build for another to dwell
and shall not plant for another to eat,
for like the days of a tree My people’s days,
and the work of their hands shall My chosen outlive.
23They shall not toil for naught
nor give birth in panic,
for they are the seed blessed of the LORD,
and their offspring are with them.
24And it shall be, before they call, I will answer,
while they still speak, I will hear.
25The wolf and the lamb shall graze as one,
and the lion like cattle eat hay
and the serpent—dust, its food.
They shall do no evil and do no harm
on all My holy mountain, said the LORD.
CHAPTER 65 NOTES
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1. I yielded oracles. The literal sense of the passive verb nidrashti is “I was sought out.” But darash is the verb that has the technical sense of “inquire of an oracle,” and that appears to be the meaning here: even though the people did not seek Me in any sense, including inquiry of My oracles, I was ready to vouchsafe them revelation.
2. I spread out My hands. This phrase continues the paradox of the previous verse because spreading out the hands is a gesture of prayer, and it is as though God, not the people, were praying.
3. offering sacrifice in the gardens. These are sacred gardens where nature gods, or fertility goddesses such as Asherah, were worshipped.
burning incense on the bricks. We have no specific information about this cultic practice, although setting out incense on bricks for burning sounds plausible, and thus emending the received text seems unwarranted.
4. sitting among the graves. This looks like some sort of ancestor worship.
vigil stations. The Hebrew netsurim is opaque, but it derives from a verbal stem that means to watch, or guard, hence this conjectural translation. What appears to be invoked is a practice of waiting through the night for some sort of epiphany of a god, perhaps a chthonic god because of the nocturnal setting.
eating the flesh of pigs. This is, of course, prohibited, but the point is probably not just the dietary restriction but the consumption of pork in a pagan ritual.
broth. The Masoretic Text shows peraq, a term not attested elsewhere, and this translation reads instead meraq. The vehement inveighing against a whole set of paganizing practices does not appear in the previous chapters, and pagan or syncretistic worship does not seem to have been an urgent issue either in Babylonian exile or in fifth-century B.C.E. Judah. One is led to the tentative inference that this is a prophecy dating from the last years of the Judahite monarchy, a time when, as other sources show, pagan practices were widespread.
5. I am not to be touched by you. The Hebrew qedashtikha is problematic. The reasoning behind this translation is: to be qadosh, “holy,” is to be unapproachable except by designated priests. The speaker may be saying that I have assumed a condition of qedushah, holiness, by my participation in these rites, and so no profane person is allowed to come near me.
6. Look, it is written before Me. These introductory words are extrametrical. In the next verse, “said the LORD” is also extrametrical.
7. on the mountains / … on the hills. Though these terms are a formulaic word-pairing in the parallel structure of biblical poetry, their use here again points to nature worship, like the gardens in verse 3.
first. The meaning of the Hebrew riʾshonah is unclear, and the translation mirrors that opaqueness.
8. so will I do for My servants. Here and in what follows, there is a distinction between those who are God’s “servants” or His “chosen ones” and the rest of the people. Presumably, the servants are those who have not been spending their time burning incense in sacred gardens and sitting among graves. They are thus like the cluster of healthy grapes on the vine that also bears rotten fruit. Blenkinsopp sees in all this the beginnings of a sectarian perspective. Later, both the Book of Daniel and a good many of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit this division between those who will be saved and those who are irrevocably lost.
10. for My people who seek Me. This qualification is important: the splendidly restored countryside will not be for everyone but for those who seek God.
11. neglecting My holy mountain. The holy mountain is the site of the Temple. “Neglecting” (or, more literally, “forgetting”) it means going to sacred gardens and graveyards to worship there.
the good luck god. The Hebrew refers to him by name, Gad. The worship of Gad is attested in inscriptions in Phoenicia and in its North African colonies over many centuries.
the god of fate. Again, a name is given in the Hebrew, Meni, and variations of this name for a god of fate or destiny appear in many extrabiblical sources.
12. destined. The Hebrew verb maniti plays sardonically on the just mentioned “Meni.”
I called and you did not answer. Normally, it is man’s place to call out to God, but this reversal of roles is in keeping with the reversal in verses 1–2.
13. Therefore, thus said the LORD. This introduction is again extrametrical.
My servants shall eat / and you shall hunger. This sharp antithesis between the fate of God’s servants and the audience of paganizers that is rebuked vividly illustrates the split between those in the people who will be saved and those destined to come to a disastrous end.
15. And you shall leave your name as an oath. What the miscreants will leave behind them is a name that will become the byword of a curse (in contrast to what is said in Genesis of Abraham, whose name is to be a blessing invoked by all). The words that follow here, “May the Master, the LORD, put you to death!,” are the words of the curse, and they may have been completed by a name, “like So-and-so.”
My servants He shall call by another name. Either there is a collective name for this group of paganizers that now must be replaced, or the individual paganizers bear names in general currency, and so new names are required.
16. the God of trust. This could be rendered as “the God of amen,” but the word ʾamen derives from a root that suggests trust, dependability, confirmation.
17. I am about to create new heavens / and a new earth. Many interpreters read this literally as an eschatological statement, but it may be more plausible to understand it as poetic hyperbole: it is not that the order of nature will be radically transformed but that, in this Jerusalem now filled with joy and exultation, there will be a general sense of sweeping renewal.
20. like a lad he shall die at a hundred. Not only will a person have an extravagantly long life span (easily two or three times the actual average longevity in ancient society), but he will come to his end after a century in all the vigor of his youth.
22. They shall not build for another to dwell. This of course would happen when the land was conquered. It is not, however, an inevitable inference that this prophecy is post-586 B.C.E., because the imminent prospect of being conquered and dispossessed was ominously evident through the last century and a half of the Judahite monarchy as Assyrian and then Babylonian armies threatened Jerusalem and other Judahite cities.
and the work of their hands shall My chosen outlive. The verb used here means to “wear out,” but the obvious sense is that they will live beyond the point where the things they make have fallen apart. Based on the formulation here, this verb would become idiomatic precisely in this sense in later Hebrew.
25. The wolf and the lamb shall graze as one. This entire verse is an obvious abbreviated reprise of Isaiah 11:6–9. Many scholars assume it is an editorial addition, though it is perfectly plausible that the prophet could choose to quote the earlier prophecy in order to round out his own picture of the ideal age.
and the serpent—dust, its food. The serpent will no longer sink its fangs into human flesh or that of other animals. But these words also recall the curse on the primordial serpent, “and dust shall you eat” (Genesis 3:14).
1Thus said the LORD:
and the earth is My footstool.
What house would you build for Me
and what place for My resting,
2when all these My hand has made
and Mine all these are?—
said the LORD—
But to this do I look, to the poor man
and to the broken of spirit who trembles at My word.
3Who slaughters an ox, who strikes down a man,
sacrifices the sheep, breaks the neck of a dog,
brings up in offering the blood of a pig,
burns incense in token, blessing strange gods—
they, too, have chosen their ways,
in their abominations they have delighted.
4I, too, will choose their rank acts
and what they fear I will bring upon them.
Because I called and none answered,
I spoke and they did not listen,
and they did what was evil in My eyes,
and in what I did not delight they chose.
5Listen to the word of the LORD,
Your brothers who hate you have said,
who scorn you for the sake of My name:
and we shall see your joy,”
but they shall be shamed.
6The sound of uproar from the town,
a sound from the Temple,
the sound of the LORD,
dealing punishment to His enemies.
7Before she labors, she gives birth,
before the birth pangs come upon her, she delivers a male.
8Who heard the like of this,
who has seen things like these?
Can a land go through birth in a single day,
can a nation be born in a single breath?
For Zion went into labor,
gave birth to her children.
9Shall I cause labor and not bring about birth?
said the LORD.
Shall I bring about birth and block the womb?
said your God.
10Rejoice with Jerusalem
and all who love her exult in her.
Be glad with her in gladness,
all who mourn for her,
11that you suck and be sated
from her comforting breast,
that you drink deep and know pleasure
12For thus said the LORD:
I am about to stretch out to her
well-being like a river,
and like a rushing brook
and your babes shall be borne on the hip,
and on knees they shall be dandled.
13As a man whose mother comforts him,
so I Myself will comfort you,
and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
14And you shall see, and your heart shall rejoice,
and your bones shall flourish like grass,
and the LORD’s hand shall be known to His servants,
and He shall rage against His enemies.
15For, look, the LORD shall come in fire,
and like the whirlwind His chariots,
to bring His anger to bear in fury
and His rebuke in flames of fire.
16For the LORD exacts justice in fire
and with His sword against all flesh,
and the slain by the LORD shall be many.
17Those who consecrate themselves and purify themselves to enter the gardens, following one in the center, eating the flesh of pigs, reptiles, and mice, they shall come to an end together, says the LORD. 18As for Me, [I know] their acts and their devisings.
[A time] is coming to gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see My glory. 19And I will set a sign upon them and send from them survivors to the nations, to Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, Tubal and Javan, the distant coastlands that have not heard of Me and have not seen My glory, and they shall tell My glory among the nations. 20And they shall bring your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the LORD on horses and chariots and covered wagons and on mules and on dromedaries to My holy mountain in Jerusalem, said the LORD, as the Israelites bring a grain offering in a pure vessel to the house of the LORD. 21And from them, too, I shall take to be priests and Levites, said the LORD.
22For as the new heavens and the new earth
that I am making stand before Me, said the LORD
so shall stand your seed and your name.
23And it shall be, from one month to the next
and from one sabbath to the next,
all flesh shall come
to bow before Me, said the LORD.
24And they shall go out and see
the corpses of the people who rebelled against Me,
for their worm shall never die
and their fire shall not go out,
and they shall be a horror to all flesh.
CHAPTER 66 NOTES
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1. The heavens are My throne … / What house would you build for Me. These words are in keeping with a theme of Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple (1 Kings 8), which may well have been composed in this post-exilic period. The point, as in Solomon’s prayer, is not a categorical rejection of the Temple but resistance to the popular idea that it was literally God’s house.
2. to the poor man / and to the broken of spirit who trembles at My word. The argument here is clearly against materialist notions of closeness to the deity. What a compassionate God wants is not a grand building but suffering humanity that is attuned to the divine word.
3. Who slaughters an ox, who strikes down a man. These words begin a new prophecy, which is a castigation of those given over to syncretistic or pagan forms of worship. The entire concluding chapter of Isaiah is made up of brief textual units only imperfectly connected with each other. This somewhat fragmented character may be the consequence of editorial process, in which remaining fragments of writing were drawn together at the end, as is the case in the last chapter of the Song of Songs. Some commentators think that the offensive rites listed here took place within the precincts of the Temple itself, although that is not altogether clear. In any case, all four versets here are structured as pairings of contradictions: a person slaughters an ox, which is acceptable, but kills a man (some think, in ritual slaughter); conducts the acceptable sacrifice of a sheep but also breaks the neck of a dog in a sacrificial rite; brings up in offering—a term usually set aside for grain offering—the blood of a pig.
strange gods. The Hebrew ʾawen has the basic meaning of “wrongdoing” but is sometimes used as a pejorative epithet for pagan gods.
5. you who tremble at His word. This recurrent designation of the pious, as Blenkinsopp plausibly contends, probably refers to a sect or at least a group of true believers who resist the repellent practices of the paganizers enumerated in verse 3. The sense of a deep schism within the people is brought out in the next line, “Your brothers who hate you.”
Let the LORD be honored, / and we shall see your joy. These words are uttered in biting sarcasm to those “who tremble at His word” by the people who hate them.
7. Before she labors, she gives birth. This begins still another prophecy. The “she” is Zion, and the image of childbirth is one picked up from Second Isaiah. To give birth without labor is to reverse the curse on Eve in Genesis, and it also suggests the miraculous swiftness with which the redemption is to be realized.
8. in a single breath. Literally, “in one time.”
11. that you suck and be sated / from her comforting breast. The metaphor of nursing infants builds on the birth imagery of the previous passage. The received text reads shod, “spoils,” but this is certainly a scribal bowlderization of shad, “breast,” just as it is in 60:16.
teat. The Hebrew ziz occurs in only one other place in the Bible, but in a sense that is inappropriate here. Both the poetic parallelism and a proposed Arabic cognate suggest that it means “breast” or “nipple.”
12. the glory of nations. The context would indicate that “glory” here implies “wealth.”
your babes shall be borne on the hip, / and on knees they shall be dandled. This line is a virtual citation of 60:4.
13. comforts … / comfort … / comforted. The triple insistence on this verb, following “her comforting breast” is an explicit allusion to the comforting, “Comfort. O comfort My people,” at the beginning of chapter 40, bringing all of 40–66 to closure in an envelope structure.
14. the LORD’s hand. As often elsewhere, “hand” suggests “power.”
16. His sword against all flesh. The phrase “all flesh,” as in the Flood story (which may be a relevant linguistic and thematic background here), means “all humankind.” The objects, then, of divine fury in this passage are by no means restricted to the paganizers in the Judahite population but extend to all the nations that have violated God’s law, whether by oppressing Israel or in other ways.
17. Those who consecrate themselves. As the text moves from poetry to prose, the objects of God’s wrath again are those who engage in pagan rituals. One suspects that this verse did not originally belong with what precedes it. “Consecrate” means to prepare oneself ritually—perhaps through ablution and other acts of purification—to engage in the pagan worship.
following one in the center. Though “one” in the consonantal text is masculine, the Masoretic marginal note changes it to a feminine. This might be a priestess ministering in the cult, or it might be a vision of Asherah, the Canaanite fertility goddess, here worshipped by those gathered round her in the sacred gardens.
19. I will … send from them survivors to the nations. In Second Isaiah, there is a vision of acceptance of proselytes. This prophecy at the end goes a step further, imagining that those among the nations who have finally seen God’s glory wish to be sent out to the far reaches of the known earth, as far as North Africa (Lud) and Greece (Javan) to bring the good news of YHWH’s universal dominion. This comes close to the project of a mission of conversion in Acts and in the Pauline Epistles.
20. they shall bring your brothers … as an offering. “Offering,” minhaḥ, which means either “grain offering” or “tribute,” is used here metaphorically: the gentiles who bring back the exiles to Zion will be as if bringing an offering to the Temple.
as the Israelites bring a grain offering. This clause explains the metaphor.
21. I shall take to be priests and Levites. This declaration, unless it is somehow figurative, is a radical departure from earlier tradition, in which it is stipulated that only men from the tribe of Levi are allowed to perform these functions, and certainly not proselytes.
22. For as the new heavens and the new earth. The book now concludes with an eschatological prophecy, again in poetry, that reprises the idea of a new creation put forth in 65:17.
23. all flesh. Once again, this expression means “all humankind,” and so we have a universalist vision of all humanity coming to Jerusalem to worship God there. The precursor to this prophecy is Isaiah 2:2–5.
24. And they shall go out and see / the corpses of the people who rebelled against Me. This gloating—a sense implied by the verb “to see” followed in the Hebrew, as here, by the preposition that means “in”—over the corpses of God’s enemies, whether they are Judahite paganizers or those of the nations who resisted God’s word, is hardly an edifying note on which to conclude the Book of Isaiah, as various commentators have noted. When these verses were taken up as the prophetic reading or haftarah for the sabbath that falls on the new moon, verse 23 was repeated after verse 24, in part to stress the conjunction of sabbath and new moon but probably also to conclude the reading on an upbeat.
