Isaiah

This is the vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw about Judah and Jerusalem. It came during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

1The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Note"Vision" is the standard technical term for a message a prophet received; it does not necessarily mean something seen with the eyes. The four kings named reigned over roughly 790–686 BC, so the heading covers a working life of some fifty years. Judah was the southern of the two Hebrew kingdoms, with Jerusalem as its capital; the northern kingdom, called Israel, had split from it about 930 BC.

2Listen, heavens. Pay attention, earth. The LORD has spoken: "I raised children and brought them up, but they have turned against me."

2Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

NoteSummoning heaven and earth as witnesses was a fixed legal formula in the ancient Near East: treaties and formal accusations were sworn before witnesses who could not be bribed or die. The opening announces a court case, not a sermon. "LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH, which readers traditionally did not pronounce aloud.

3An ox knows who owns it, and a donkey knows the feeding box of its master. But Israel does not know me. My people do not understand.

3The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

NoteThe point of the comparison rests on a common ancient assumption that the ox and the donkey were the dullest of domestic animals. Even they know where their food comes from.

4What a sinful nation, a people loaded down with guilt, a family line of evildoers, children who ruin everything! They have walked away from the LORD. They have spurned the Holy One of Israel, and they have turned their backs on him.

4Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.

Note"The Holy One of Israel" is a title for God that Isaiah uses about twenty-five times and that is rare anywhere else in the Bible; it becomes something like the book's signature phrase. "Israel" here means the whole covenant people, not only the separate northern kingdom.

5Why do you want to be beaten again? You only keep rebelling more and more. Your whole head is injured, and your whole heart is weak.

5Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

NoteThe beating in view is judicial flogging, a standard punishment meant to correct an offender. The question is why anyone would keep earning more strokes.

6From the bottom of your foot to the top of your head, nothing is healthy. There are only wounds, welts, and raw sores. They have not been cleaned, or bandaged, or softened with oil.

6From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

NoteOlive oil was the ordinary medical treatment for wounds, rubbed on to soften and soothe them; the three stages named here (washing, bandaging, oiling) were the whole of common first aid. To have had none of them done means the body has simply been left.

7Your country lies empty. Your cities are burned down. Strangers eat up what your fields produce while you watch. The land is a wasteland, torn down by strangers.

7Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

Note"Strangers" means foreigners, in practice invading armies living off the land they have overrun. Isaiah worked during the years when Assyria repeatedly campaigned through this territory, most severely in 701 BC.

8The daughter of Zion, the city of Jerusalem, is left standing alone like a hut in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a city with an army surrounding it.

8And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

NoteZion was the ridge on which Jerusalem stood, and "daughter of Zion" is a standard idiom personifying the city and its people as a woman. The huts and shacks were flimsy shelters thrown up in a field so a watchman could guard the crop; once the harvest was over they were abandoned, and one left standing in an empty field was the picture of something forlorn and alone.

9If the LORD of Armies had not left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom. We would have ended up like Gomorrah.

9Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

NoteSodom and Gomorrah were the cities destroyed by fire in Genesis 19, remembered as the standard example of total obliteration with no survivors. "LORD of hosts", rendered here "LORD of Armies", is a military title; the hosts are the heavenly forces at God's command.

10Listen to what the LORD says, you rulers of Sodom. Pay attention to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

10Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

NoteThe insult is deliberate and shocking: the leaders of Jerusalem are addressed with the names of the two cities every hearer thought of as beyond saving. "Law" translates the Hebrew word torah, which means instruction or teaching generally, not only legislation.

11"What good to me are all your many sacrifices?" says the LORD. "I have had my fill of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed animals. I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, or lambs, or male goats.

11To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

NoteIn a burnt offering the whole animal was consumed on the fire rather than shared as a meal. The fat was considered the choicest part and was reserved for God in other kinds of sacrifice. The animals listed (rams, well-fed cattle, bulls, lambs, male goats) are the expensive ones, the offerings of people doing the ritual generously.

12When you come to appear before me, who asked you to do this, to trample through the courtyards of my temple?

12When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?

Note"To appear before me" is the set phrase for attending the temple at the pilgrimage festivals, which Israelite men were expected to do three times a year. The courts are the open courtyards of the Jerusalem temple, as far in as ordinary worshipers could go; "tread" or "trample" turns that traffic into something like livestock churning up ground.

13Stop bringing me offerings that mean nothing. Your incense disgusts me. New Moon festivals, Sabbath days, the calling of meetings, I cannot stand them. Your solemn gatherings are full of wrongdoing.

13Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

NoteIncense was burned as a regular part of temple worship. The New Moon was the first day of each lunar month, marked as a festival with its own sacrifices; the Sabbath was the seventh day of each week, kept free of work. These were the fixed points of the religious calendar, not optional extras.

14I hate your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts. They have become a load I have to carry. I am tired of putting up with them.

14Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.

Note"Appointed feasts" are the set annual festivals (chiefly Passover, Weeks, and Booths) laid down in the law with fixed dates.

15When you spread out your hands to pray, I will hide my eyes from you. Even if you pray again and again, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.

15And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

NoteStanding with hands spread out and palms upward was the ordinary posture for prayer, the way kneeling or folded hands is for later readers. "Hands full of blood" is an idiom for guilt in violent crime, and it sets up a deliberate clash: the same lifted hands are both praying and bloodstained.

16Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Get your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong.

16Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

Note"Wash" and "make clean" are borrowed from the vocabulary of ritual purification, the physical washing required before approaching the temple. The demand transfers those words to conduct.

17Learn to do good. Look for justice. Help people who are being crushed. Defend children who have no father. Speak up for the widow in her case."

17Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

NoteA child without a father and a woman without a husband had no male relative to speak for them in a legal dispute, and in a society where cases were argued in person at the city gate that left them effectively defenseless. "Judge the fatherless" means give them their day in court, not condemn them; "plead for the widow" means argue her case. These two groups are the standard shorthand in Hebrew law for those most easily robbed of justice.

18"Come now, let us talk this over," says the LORD. "Even if your sins are bright red, they will be as white as snow. Even if they are deep red like crimson, they will be like wool.

18Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Note"Let us reason together" is legal language for arguing a case out to a settlement, continuing the courtroom scene begun in verse 2. Scarlet and crimson were made from an expensive insect-derived dye famous for being fast: it did not wash out. Wool and snow stand for the natural, undyed white the fabric can no longer return to.

19If you are willing to listen and obey, you will eat the best food the land produces.

19If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

20But if you refuse and rebel, you will be eaten up by the sword." The mouth of the LORD has said it.

20But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

21Look how the faithful city has turned into a prostitute! She was once full of justice. Right living made its home in her. But now murderers live there.

21How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

NoteDescribing a city as a woman was conventional, and the charge of prostitution is the standard prophetic figure for breaking a bond of loyalty, a wife's unfaithfulness stands for the people's abandonment of their God, often with the added sense of hiring oneself out to whoever pays.

22Your silver has turned into worthless waste. Your wine has been watered down.

22Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:

NoteDross is the worthless scum that rises to the surface when ore or metal is melted and has to be skimmed off. Watering wine was a known commercial fraud. Both images are of something valuable secretly adulterated so that it still looks like the real thing.

23Your leaders are rebels and friends of thieves. Every one of them loves bribes and chases after payoffs. They do not defend children who have no father, and the widow's case never reaches them.

23Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

NoteThe Hebrew word behind "gifts" means bribes in a legal setting. These leaders were the men who heard cases, so their taking of payments and their failure to hear the fatherless and the widow are the same fact stated twice.

24So this is what the Lord, the LORD of Armies, the Mighty One of Israel, says: "I will get relief from those who stand against me. I will pay back my enemies.

24Therefore saith the LORD, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:

25I will turn my hand against you. I will burn away your worthless waste completely and remove everything impure mixed in you.

25And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

NoteThis continues the metalworking image from verse 22. Refining meant heating the metal until the impurities separated so they could be skimmed away. "Tin" translates a word for the base metal alloyed in to bulk out or cheapen silver; the process destroys the additive in order to keep the silver.

26I will give you judges like the ones you had at first, and advisers like those at the beginning. After that you will be called The City Where Right Living Is Done, The Faithful City."

26And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.

Note"As at the first" points back to an earlier, idealised era of honest judges, either the period before there were kings or the founding days of the monarchy. The text does not specify which, and both were read into it.

27Zion will be bought back by justice, and the people in her who turn back to God will be bought back by right living.

27Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

Note"Redeem" is a family and commercial term: buying back a relative sold into debt-slavery, or reclaiming land the family had been forced to sell. It carries the sense of a price paid by someone under obligation to act. "Her converts" translates a word meaning those who turn back or return.

28But rebels and sinners will be broken together, and those who abandon the LORD will be destroyed.

28And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

29You will be ashamed of the oak trees you wanted so much. You will be humiliated over the gardens you chose.

29For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.

NoteLarge solitary trees and enclosed garden plots were used as open-air worship sites, associated with rites the Jerusalem authorities regarded as foreign. "Desired" and "chosen" hint at the erotic overtones such shrines had for their critics. The Hebrew shifts here between speaking of these people as "they" and addressing them as "you"; translations differ on which to follow.

30You will be like an oak whose leaves dry up and die, like a garden with no water.

30For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.

31The strong man will be like dry flax fiber, and his work will be the spark. Both will burn together, and no one will put the fire out.

31And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

NoteTow is the short, coarse fiber left over when flax is combed for linen-making, notoriously quick to catch fire. "The maker of it" is ambiguous in the Hebrew and has been read both as the strong man's own handiwork, meaning what he has achieved, and as an idol he has manufactured; either way, maker and thing made burn in the same fire.