Isaiah 32

Look: a king will reign and do what is right, and rulers under him will govern with justice.

1Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.

Note"Judgment" in the King James English means justice, the fair decision of a case, not condemnation. "Righteousness" and "justice" are a standard Hebrew word‑pair for society rightly ordered, and in the prophets they refer above all to honest courts and fair treatment of the poor. Neither the king nor the time is identified here.

2Each of these rulers will be like a place to hide from the wind, and a shelter from the storm. They will be like streams of water in dry ground, like the shade of a huge rock in a land that wears you out.

2And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

NoteThe Hebrew begins simply "a man will be like…" It can mean each of the rulers just mentioned, or the king himself, or any person in that restored society; the rendering picks the first, but the Hebrew leaves it open. The four images are all of relief in a hostile climate: wind, storm, drought, and the killing heat of open country, where a boulder's shadow was the only shade for miles.

3Then the eyes of those who can see will no longer be shut, and the ears of those who can hear will really listen.

3And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken.

Note"Dim" translates a Hebrew verb meaning sealed or pasted shut. Isaiah 6:9–10 had described a people whose eyes were shut and ears dulled so they could not perceive; the wording here deliberately reverses that picture.

4The mind of the person who rushes ahead without thinking will understand and know. The tongue that stumbles over words will speak clearly and easily.

4The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.

Note"The rash" are the hasty or reckless, those who act before thinking. "Stammerers" may mean people with a speech impediment, or (as the same root is used elsewhere in Isaiah) people who mutter and babble without sense.

5A foolish, worthless person will no longer be called generous, and a greedy, mean man will no longer be spoken of as openhanded.

5The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful.

NoteThree King James words have shifted since 1611. "Liberal" meant generous or openhanded, nothing to do with politics. A "churl" was a miser or a low, grasping man. The "vile person" translates Hebrew *nabal*, the fool, not someone unintelligent but someone morally senseless, brutal and shameless (the same word is the name of the churlish Nabal in 1 Samuel 25). The verse is about titles being restored to their true owners: flatterers will no longer call such men noble.

6For the foolish person speaks foolish, worthless things, and his mind plans evil. He acts in ways that ignore God and says false things about the LORD. He leaves the hungry with empty stomachs, and he holds back drink from the thirsty.

6For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.

Note"Hypocrisy" here does not mean pretending to be good; the Hebrew word means godlessness or profanity, behavior that pollutes. "To make empty the soul of the hungry": the Hebrew word for soul, *nephesh*, also means throat or appetite, so the line is about literally leaving a hungry man's stomach empty.

7The methods of the greedy man are harmful too. He works out schemes to ruin poor people with lies, even when what the needy person asks for is fair.

7The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right.

Note"Instruments" means tools or weapons, his equipment, his stock in trade. The setting is a lawcourt: the needy man's case is just ("speaketh right"), and the scoundrel uses lies to defeat it.

8But a generous person makes generous plans, and by those generous acts he stands firm.

8But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.

NoteThe Hebrew word behind "liberal" (*nadib*) means both noble-born and generous, the two senses were assumed to go together. The verse turns on that double meaning: the truly noble man is the one whose plans are generous.

9Get up, you women who live at ease; listen to what I say. Pay attention to my words, you daughters who feel so sure of yourselves.

9Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech.

Note"Careless" in King James English means free from care, untroubled, complacent, not negligent. Prophets often addressed the women of a city as the visible face of its prosperity and leisure; the following verses tie their comfort directly to the harvest that is about to fail.

10In a little more than a year you will shake with fear, you women who feel safe. The grape harvest will fail, and the gathering of fruit will never come.

10Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come.

NoteThe Hebrew is literally "days upon a year", an idiom for a year and a bit, which is why modern translations read "in a little more than a year" rather than the King James "many days and years." "Vintage" is the grape harvest, gathered in late summer; "the gathering" is the fruit harvest that follows it. Losing both meant losing the year's wine and stored food.

11Shake with fear, you women who live at ease. Tremble, you who feel so sure. Strip off your clothes, leave yourselves bare, and tie rough cloth around your waists as a sign of grief.

11Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins.

NoteStripping off ordinary clothing and putting on sackcloth (coarse, dark cloth woven from goat hair, worn tied around the waist) was the standard public sign of grief and self-abasement in mourning or disaster. It was a recognized ritual gesture, not nakedness for its own sake.

12Beat your chests in grief for the pleasant fields and for the fruitful vine.

12They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

NoteThe Hebrew says "beating upon the breasts," which the King James translators rendered literally as "teats." Striking the chest was a customary mourning gesture. Some readers take the breasts here as an image of the fields that once fed the people, so the line can be heard both ways at once.

13Thorns and prickly bushes will grow up over the land of my people. They will cover every house where people once celebrated, in the city that was full of parties.

13Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city:

NoteThorns and briers taking over is Isaiah's recurring picture of farmland gone back to waste for lack of anyone to work it (compare Isaiah 5:6, 7:23–25). "Houses of joy" are the places where feasting and drinking went on.

14For the palace will be deserted and the crowded city left empty. The stronghold and the watchtower will become caves forever, a place wild donkeys enjoy and a pasture where flocks feed.

14Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks;

NoteThe two words behind "forts and towers" are more specific in Hebrew: *ophel*, the name of the fortified southern ridge of Jerusalem, and the watchtower built on it. "Dens" means caves or bare hillsides. Wild asses were untamable desert animals; their presence, along with grazing flocks, marks a place that has reverted from city to open country.

15This lasts until the Spirit is poured out on us from above. Then the desert will become farmland with crops, and that farmland will look as thick and full as a forest.

15Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.

NoteThe Hebrew word *ruach* means wind, breath, and spirit all at once, so translations differ between "the spirit" and "the Spirit"; the text does not settle it. "Fruitful field" translates *karmel*, cultivated garden land or orchard. The line is a two-step reversal: waste ground becomes orchard, and orchard grows so dense it counts as forest.

16Then justice will live even in the empty wilderness, and right living will stay in the fertile fields.

16Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field.

17What right living produces is peace. What it brings about is quiet confidence and safety that lasts.

17And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.

18My people will live in a peaceful home, in houses that are safe, in quiet places of rest.

18And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places;

19Hail will come down and flatten the forest, and the city will be brought down low.

19When it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low place.

NoteOne of the most difficult verses in the book, and translations diverge sharply. "The forest" may pick up the forest of verse 15, or stand for an enemy army, and "the city" may be a hostile city rather than Jerusalem. Hail flattening a forest is a standard image of sudden ruin from above.

20You are well off, you who plant seed beside plenty of water, and who let your ox and your donkey roam freely there.

20Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.

NoteA picture of security and plenty. Land beside water could be sown without waiting on rain, and letting the ox and the donkey range loose over it (rather than penning them for fear of raiders, or needing every animal harnessed to work) meant the fields were both safe and abundant.