Yesaya 48:18

48:18 If only you had obeyed my ¹  commandments,

prosperity would have flowed to you like a river, ² 

deliverance would have come to you like the waves of the sea. ³ 

Yesaya 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ⁴ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ⁵  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ⁶ 

[48:18]  ¹ tn Heb “paid attention to” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “had listened to.”

[48:18]  ² tn Heb “like a river your peace would have been.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom) probably refers here to the peace and prosperity which God promised in return for obedience to the covenant.

[48:18]  ³ tn Heb “and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah) probably refers here to divine deliverance from enemies. See v. 19.

[55:3]  ⁴ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  sn To live here refers to covenantal blessing, primarily material prosperity and national security (see vv. 4-5, 13, and Deut 30:6, 15, 19-20).

[55:3]  ⁵ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”