Yesaya 48:1-5

The Lord Appeals to the Exiles

48:1 Listen to this, O family of Jacob, ¹ 

you who are called by the name ‘Israel,’

and are descended from Judah, ² 

who take oaths in the name of the Lord,

and invoke ³  the God of Israel –

but not in an honest and just manner. ⁴ 

48:2 Indeed, they live in the holy city; ⁵ 

they trust in ⁶  the God of Israel,

whose name is the Lord who commands armies.

48:3 “I announced events beforehand, ⁷ 

I issued the decrees and made the predictions; ⁸ 

suddenly I acted and they came to pass.

48:4 I did this ⁹  because I know how stubborn you are.

Your neck muscles are like iron

and your forehead like bronze. ¹⁰ 

48:5 I announced them to you beforehand;

before they happened, I predicted them for you,

so you could never say,

‘My image did these things,

my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

[48:1]  ¹ tn Heb “house of Jacob”; TEV, CEV “people of Israel.”

[48:1]  ² tc The Hebrew text reads literally “and from the waters of Judah came out.” מִמֵּי (mimme) could be a corruption of מִמְּעֵי (mimmÿ’e, “from the inner parts of”; cf. NASB, NIV, NLT, NRSV) as suggested in the above translation. Some translations (ESV, NKJV) retain the MT reading because the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, which corrects a similar form to “from inner parts of” in 39:7, does not do it here.

[48:1]  ³ tn Heb “cause to remember”; KJV, ASV “make mention of.”

[48:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “not in truth and not in righteousness.”

[48:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “they call themselves [or “are called”] from the holy city.” The precise meaning of the statement is uncertain. The Niphal of קָרָא (qara’) is combined with the preposition מִן (min) only here. When the Qal of קָרָא is used with מִן, the preposition often indicates the place from which one is summoned (see 46:11). So one could translate, “from the holy city they are summoned,” meaning that they reside there.

[48:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “lean on” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB, NIV “rely on.”

[48:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “the former things beforehand I declared.”

[48:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “and from my mouth they came forth and I caused them to be heard.”

[48:4]  ⁹ tn The words “I did this” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text v. 4 is subordinated to v. 3.

[48:4]  ¹⁰ sn The image is that of a person who has tensed the muscles of the face and neck as a sign of resolute refusal.