Ezra 9:9

9:9 Although we are slaves, our God has not abandoned us in our servitude. He has extended kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, in that he has revived us ¹  to restore the temple of our God and to raise ²  up its ruins and to give us a protective wall in Judah and Jerusalem. ³ 

Mazmur 51:1

Psalm 51 ⁴ 

For the music director; a psalm of David, written when Nathan the prophet confronted him after David’s affair with Bathsheba. ⁵ 

51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of ⁶  your loyal love!

Because of ⁷  your great compassion, wipe away my rebellious acts! ⁸ 

Yesaya 49:8-21

49:8 This is what the Lord says:

“At the time I decide to show my favor, I will respond to you;

in the day of deliverance I will help you;

I will protect you ⁹  and make you a covenant mediator for people, ¹⁰ 

to rebuild ¹¹  the land ¹² 

and to reassign the desolate property.

49:9 You will say ¹³  to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’

and to those who are in dark dungeons, ¹⁴  ‘Emerge.’ ¹⁵ 

They will graze beside the roads;

on all the slopes they will find pasture.

49:10 They will not be hungry or thirsty;

the sun’s oppressive heat will not beat down on them, ¹⁶ 

for one who has compassion on them will guide them;

he will lead them to springs of water.

49:11 I will make all my mountains into a road;

I will construct my roadways.”

49:12 Look, they come from far away!

Look, some come from the north and west,

and others from the land of Sinim! ¹⁷ 

49:13 Shout for joy, O sky! ¹⁸ 

Rejoice, O earth!

Let the mountains give a joyful shout!

For the Lord consoles his people

and shows compassion to the ¹⁹  oppressed.

The Lord Remembers Zion

49:14 “Zion said, ‘The Lord has abandoned me,

the sovereign master ²⁰  has forgotten me.’

49:15 Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ²¹ 

Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ²² 

Even if mothers ²³  were to forget,

I could never forget you! ²⁴ 

49:16 Look, I have inscribed your name ²⁵  on my palms;

your walls are constantly before me.

49:17 Your children hurry back,

while those who destroyed and devastated you depart.

49:18 Look all around you! ²⁶ 

All of them gather to you.

As surely as I live,” says the Lord,

“you will certainly wear all of them like jewelry;

you will put them on as if you were a bride.

49:19 Yes, your land lies in ruins;

it is desolate and devastated. ²⁷ 

But now you will be too small to hold your residents,

and those who devoured you will be far away.

49:20 Yet the children born during your time of bereavement

will say within your hearing,

‘This place is too cramped for us, ²⁸ 

make room for us so we can live here.’ ²⁹ 

49:21 Then you will think to yourself, ³⁰ 

‘Who bore these children for me?

I was bereaved and barren,

dismissed and divorced. ³¹ 

Who raised these children?

Look, I was left all alone;

where did these children come from?’”

Yesaya 61:4

61:4 They will rebuild the perpetual ruins

and restore the places that were desolate; ³² 

they will reestablish the ruined cities,

the places that have been desolate since ancient times.

[9:9]  ¹ tn Heb “has granted us reviving.”

[9:9]  ² tn Heb “to cause to stand.”

[9:9]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[51:1]  ⁴ sn Psalm 51. The psalmist confesses his sinfulness to God and begs for forgiveness and a transformation of his inner character. According to the psalm superscription, David offered this prayer when Nathan confronted him with his sin following the king’s affair with Bathsheba (see 2 Sam 11-12). However, the final two verses of the psalm hardly fit this situation, for they assume the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed and that the sacrificial system has been temporarily suspended. These verses are probably an addition to the psalm made during the period of exile following the fall of Jerusalem in 586 b.c. The exiles could relate to David’s experience, for they, like him, and had been forced to confront their sin. They appropriated David’s ancient prayer and applied it to their own circumstances.

[51:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “a psalm by David, when Nathan the prophet came to him when he had gone to Bathsheba.”

[51:1]  ⁶ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ⁷ tn Or “according to.”

[51:1]  ⁸ tn Traditionally “blot out my transgressions.” Because of the reference to washing and cleansing in the following verse, it is likely that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to wiping an object clean (note the use of the verb מָחָה (makhah) in the sense of “wipe clean; dry” in 2 Kgs 21:13; Prov 30:20; Isa 25:8). Another option is that the psalmist is comparing forgiveness to erasing or blotting out names from a register (see Exod 32:32-33). In this case one might translate, “erase all record of my rebellious acts.”

[49:8]  ⁹ tn The translation assumes the verb is derived from the root נָצָר (natsar, “protect”). Some prefer to derive it from the root יָצָר (yatsar, “form”).

[49:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a covenant of people.” A person cannot literally be a covenant; בְּרִית (bÿrit) is probably metonymic here, indicating a covenant mediator. Here עָם (’am, “people”) appears to refer to Israel. See the note at 42:6.

[49:8]  ¹¹ tn The Hiphil of קוּם (qum, “arise”) is probably used here in the sense of “rebuild.”

[49:8]  ¹² tn The “land” probably stands by metonymy for the ruins within it.

[49:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “to say.” In the Hebrew text the infinitive construct is subordinated to what precedes.

[49:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in darkness” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “the prisoners of darkness.”

[49:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “show yourselves” (so ASV, NAB, NASB).

[49:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and the heat and the sun will not strike them.” In Isa 35:7, its only other occurrence in the OT, שָׁרָב (sharav) stands parallel to “parched ground” and in contrast to “pool.” In later Hebrew and Aramaic it refers to “dry heat, heat of the sun” (Jastrow 1627 s.v.). Here it likely has this nuance and forms a hendiadys with “sun.”

[49:12]  ¹⁷ tc The MT reads “Sinim” here; the Dead Sea Scrolls read “Syene,” a location in Egypt associated with modern Aswan. A number of recent translations adopt this reading: “Syene” (NAB, NRSV); “Aswan” (NIV); “Egypt” (NLT).

[49:12]  sn The precise location of the land of Sinim is uncertain, but since the north and west are mentioned in the previous line, it was a probably located in the distant east or south.

[49:13]  ¹⁸ tn Or “O heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[49:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[49:14]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[49:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “her suckling”; NASB “her nursing child.”

[49:15]  ²² tn Heb “so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb?”

[49:15]  ²³ tn Heb “these” (so ASV, NASB).

[49:15]  ²⁴ sn The argument of v. 15 seems to develop as follows: The Lord has an innate attachment to Zion, just like a mother does for her infant child. But even if mothers were to suddenly abandon their children, the Lord would never forsake Zion. In other words, the Lord’s attachment to Zion is like a mother’s attachment to her infant child, but even stronger.

[49:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “you.” Here the pronoun is put by metonymy for the person’s name.

[49:18]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see.”

[49:19]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Indeed your ruins and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction.” This statement is abruptly terminated in the Hebrew text and left incomplete.

[49:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “me.” The singular is collective.

[49:20]  ²⁹ tn Heb “draw near to me so I can dwell.”

[49:21]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and you will say in your heart.”

[49:21]  ³¹ tn Or “exiled and thrust away”; NIV “exiled and rejected.”

[61:4]  ³² tn Heb “and the formerly desolate places they will raise up.”