Isaiah 12:6

12:6 Cry out and shout for joy, O citizens of Zion,

for the Holy One of Israel ¹  acts mightily ²  among you!”

Isaiah 49:14-26

The Lord Remembers Zion

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

the sovereign master ³  has forgotten me.’

49:15 Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ⁴ 

Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ⁵ 

Even if mothers ⁶  were to forget,

I could never forget you! ⁷ 

49:16 Look, I have inscribed your name ⁸  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! ⁹ 

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. ¹⁰ 

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, ¹¹ 

make room for us so we can live here.’ ¹² 

49:21 Then you will think to yourself, ¹³ 

‘Who bore these children for me?

I was bereaved and barren,

dismissed and divorced. ¹⁴ 

Who raised these children?

Look, I was left all alone;

where did these children come from?’”

49:22 This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“Look I will raise my hand to the nations;

I will raise my signal flag to the peoples.

They will bring your sons in their arms

and carry your daughters on their shoulders.

49:23 Kings will be your children’s ¹⁵  guardians;

their princesses will nurse your children. ¹⁶ 

With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you

and they will lick the dirt on ¹⁷  your feet.

Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;

those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

49:24 Can spoils be taken from a warrior,

or captives be rescued from a conqueror? ¹⁸ 

49:25 Indeed,” says the Lord,

“captives will be taken from a warrior;

spoils will be rescued from a conqueror.

I will oppose your adversary

and I will rescue your children.

49:26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;

they will get drunk on their own blood, as if it were wine. ¹⁹ 

Then all humankind ²⁰  will recognize that

I am the Lord, your deliverer,

your protector, ²¹  the powerful ruler of Jacob.” ²² 

Isaiah 54:2-10

54:2 Make your tent larger,

stretch your tent curtains farther out! ²³ 

Spare no effort,

lengthen your ropes,

and pound your stakes deep. ²⁴ 

54:3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;

your children will conquer ²⁵  nations

and will resettle desolate cities.

54:4 Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame!

Don’t be intimidated, ²⁶  for you will not be humiliated!

You will forget about the shame you experienced in your youth;

you will no longer remember the disgrace of your abandonment. ²⁷ 

54:5 For your husband is the one who made you –

the Lord who commands armies is his name.

He is your protector, ²⁸  the Holy One of Israel. ²⁹ 

He is called “God of the entire earth.”

54:6 “Indeed, the Lord will call you back

like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, ³⁰ 

like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God.

54:7 “For a short time I abandoned ³¹  you,

but with great compassion I will gather you.

54:8 In a burst ³²  of anger I rejected you ³³  momentarily,

but with lasting devotion I will have compassion on you,”

says your protector, ³⁴  the Lord.

54:9 “As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah’s time, ³⁵ 

when I vowed that the waters of Noah’s flood ³⁶  would never again cover the earth.

In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you.

54:10 Even if the mountains are removed

and the hills displaced,

my devotion will not be removed from you,

nor will my covenant of friendship ³⁷  be displaced,”

says the Lord, the one who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 59:20-21

59:20 “A protector ³⁸  comes to Zion,

to those in Jacob who repent of their rebellious deeds,” ³⁹  says the Lord.

59:21 “As for me, this is my promise to ⁴⁰  them,” says the Lord. “My spirit, who is upon you, and my words, which I have placed in your mouth, will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children and descendants from this time forward,” ⁴¹  says the Lord.

[12:6]  ¹ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[12:6]  ² tn Or “is great” (TEV). However, the context emphasizes his mighty acts of deliverance (cf. NCV), not some general or vague character quality.

[49:14]  ³ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[49:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “her suckling”; NASB “her nursing child.”

[49:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb?”

[49:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “these” (so ASV, NASB).

[49:15]  ⁸ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “you.” Here the pronoun is put by metonymy for the person’s name.

[49:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see.”

[49:19]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹³ tn Heb “me.” The singular is collective.

[49:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “draw near to me so I can dwell.”

[49:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and you will say in your heart.”

[49:21]  ¹⁶ tn Or “exiled and thrust away”; NIV “exiled and rejected.”

[49:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).

[49:23]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.

[49:23]  ¹⁹ tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”

[49:24]  ¹⁹ tc The Hebrew text has צָדִיק (tsadiq, “a righteous [one]”), but this makes no sense in the parallelism. The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads correctly עריץ (“violent [one], tyrant”; see v. 25).

[49:26]  ²¹ sn Verse 26a depicts siege warfare and bloody defeat. The besieged enemy will be so starved they will their own flesh. The bloodstained bodies lying on the blood-soaked battle site will look as if they collapsed in drunkenness.

[49:26]  ²² tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, NASB).

[49:26]  ²³ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[49:26]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the powerful [one] of Jacob.” See 1:24.

[54:2]  ²³ tn Heb “the curtains of our dwelling places let them stretch out.”

[54:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “your stakes strengthen.”

[54:3]  ²⁵ tn Or “take possession of”; NAB “shall dispossess.”

[54:4]  ²⁷ tn Or “embarrassed”; NASB “humiliated…disgraced.”

[54:4]  ²⁸ tn Another option is to translate, “the disgrace of our widowhood” (so NRSV). However, the following context (vv. 6-7) refers to Zion’s husband, the Lord, abandoning her, not dying. This suggests that an אַלְמָנָה (’almanah) was a woman who had lost her husband, whether by death or abandonment.

[54:5]  ²⁹ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[54:5]  ³⁰ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[54:6]  ³¹ tn Heb “like a woman abandoned and grieved in spirit.”

[54:7]  ³³ tn Or “forsook” (NASB).

[54:8]  ³⁵ tn According to BDB 1009 s.v. שֶׁטֶף the noun שֶׁצֶף here is an alternate form of שֶׁטֶף (shetef, “flood”). Some relate the word to an alleged Akkadian cognate meaning “strength.”

[54:8]  ³⁶ tn Heb “I hid my face from you.”

[54:8]  ³⁷ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[54:9]  ³⁷ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “For [or “indeed”] the waters of Noah [is] this to me.” כִּי־מֵי (ki-me, “for the waters of”) should be emended to כְּמֵי (kÿmey, “like the days of”), which is supported by the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a and all the ancient versions except LXX.

[54:9]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the waters of Noah” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[54:10]  ³⁹ tn Heb “peace” (so many English versions); NLT “of blessing.”

[59:20]  ⁴¹ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[59:20]  ⁴² tn Heb “and to those who turn from rebellion in Jacob.”

[59:21]  ⁴³ tn Or “my covenant with” (so many English versions); NCV “my agreement with.”

[59:21]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “from now and on into the future.”