Yesaya 40:28

40:28 Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is an eternal God,

the creator of the whole earth. ¹ 

He does not get tired or weary;

there is no limit to his wisdom. ² 

Yesaya 42:5

42:5 This is what the true God, ³  the Lord, says –

the one who created the sky and stretched it out,

the one who fashioned the earth and everything that lives on it, ⁴ 

the one who gives breath to the people on it,

and life to those who live on it: ⁵ 

Yesaya 44:24

The Lord Empowers Cyrus

44:24 This is what the Lord, your protector, ⁶  says,

the one who formed you in the womb:

“I am the Lord, who made everything,

who alone stretched out the sky,

who fashioned the earth all by myself, ⁷ 

Yesaya 45:18

45:18 For this is what the Lord says,

the one who created the sky –

he is the true God, ⁸ 

the one who formed the earth and made it;

he established it,

he did not create it without order, ⁹ 

he formed it to be inhabited –

“I am the Lord, I have no peer.

Yesaya 51:13

51:13 Why do you forget ¹⁰  the Lord, who made you,

who stretched out the sky ¹¹ 

and founded the earth?

Why do you constantly tremble all day long ¹² 

at the anger of the oppressor,

when he makes plans to destroy?

Where is the anger of the oppressor? ¹³ 

Yesaya 51:16

Zion’s Time to Celebrate

51:16 I commission you ¹⁴  as my spokesman; ¹⁵ 

I cover you with the palm of my hand, ¹⁶ 

to establish ¹⁷  the sky and to found the earth,

to say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” ¹⁸ 

Yesaya 65:17

65:17 For look, I am ready to create

new heavens and a new earth! ¹⁹ 

The former ones ²⁰  will not be remembered;

no one will think about them anymore. ²¹ 

[40:28]  ¹ tn Heb “the ends of the earth,” but this is a merism, where the earth’s extremities stand for its entirety, i.e., the extremities and everything in between them.

[40:28]  ² sn Exiled Israel’s complaint (v. 27) implies that God might be limited in some way. Perhaps he, like so many of the pagan gods, has died. Or perhaps his jurisdiction is limited to Judah and does not include Babylon. Maybe he is unable to devise an adequate plan to rescue his people, or is unable to execute it. But v. 28 affirms that he is not limited temporally or spatially nor is his power and wisdom restricted in any way. He can and will deliver his people, if they respond in hopeful faith (v. 31a).

[42:5]  ³ tn Heb “the God.” The definite article here indicates distinctiveness or uniqueness.

[42:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “and its offspring” (so NASB); NIV “all that comes out of it.”

[42:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “and spirit [i.e., “breath”] to the ones walking in it” (NAB, NASB, and NRSV all similar).

[44:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:24]  ⁷ tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has “Who [was] with me?” The marginal reading (Qere) is “from with me,” i.e., “by myself.” See BDB 87 s.v. II אֵת 4.c.

[45:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “he [is] the God.” The article here indicates uniqueness.

[45:18]  ⁹ tn Or “unformed.” Gen 1:2 describes the world as “unformed” (תֹהוּ, tohu) prior to God’s creative work, but God then formed the world and made it fit for habitation.

[51:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and that you forget.”

[51:13]  ¹¹ tn Or “the heavens” (also in v. 16). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[51:13]  ¹² tn Heb “and that you tremble constantly all the day.”

[51:13]  ¹³ tn The question anticipates the answer, “Ready to disappear!” See v. 14.

[51:16]  ¹⁴ tn The addressee (second masculine singular, as in vv. 13, 15) in this verse is unclear. The exiles are addressed in the immediately preceding verses (note the critical tone of vv. 12-13 and the reference to the exiles in v. 14). However, it seems unlikely that they are addressed in v. 16, for the addressee appears to be commissioned to tell Zion, who here represents the restored exiles, “you are my people.” The addressee is distinct from the exiles. The language of v. 16a is reminiscent of 49:2 and 50:4, where the Lord’s special servant says he is God’s spokesman and effective instrument. Perhaps the Lord, having spoken to the exiles in vv. 1-15, now responds to this servant, who spoke just prior to this in 50:4-11.

[51:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I place my words in your mouth.”

[51:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “with the shadow of my hand.”

[51:16]  ¹⁷ tc The Hebrew text has לִנְטֹעַ (lintoa’, “to plant”). Several scholars prefer to emend this form to לִנְטֹת (lintot) from נָטָה (natah, “to stretch out”); see v. 13, as well as 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; cf. NAB, NCV, NRSV. However, since the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, LXX (and Aquila and Symmachus), and Vulgate support the MT reading, there is no need to emend the form. The interpretation is clear enough: Yahweh fixed the sky in its place.

[51:16]  ¹⁸ tn The infinitives in v. 16b are most naturally understood as indicating the purpose of the divine actions described in v. 16a. The relationship of the third infinitive to the commission is clear enough – the Lord has made the addressee (his special servant?) his spokesman so that the latter might speak encouraging words to those in Zion. But how do the first two infinitives relate? The text seems to indicate that the Lord has commissioned the addressee so that the latter might create the universe! Perhaps creation imagery is employed metaphorically here to refer to the transformation that Jerusalem will experience (see 65:17-18).

[65:17]  ¹⁹ sn This hyperbolic statement likens the coming transformation of Jerusalem (see vv. 18-19) to a new creation of the cosmos.

[65:17]  ²⁰ tn Or perhaps, “the former things” (so ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “The events of the past.”

[65:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “and they will not come up on the mind.”