Isaiah 48: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

God speaks to the people of Israel in exile, reminding them that he announced events in advance so they could not credit their idols. He says he is holding back his anger for the sake of his own name, that he alone made the earth and sky, and that he has called a man to act against Babylon. The chapter closes with a call to leave Babylon with shouts of joy, a reminder of water from the rock in the desert, and the line that there is no peace for the wicked.

Claim by Claim

1. 48:1
   • The house of Jacob is commanded to hear this.
   • The house of Jacob is called by the name of Israel.
   • They came forth out of the waters of Judah.
   • They swear by the name of the LORD.
   • They make mention of the God of Israel.
   • They do not do so in truth.
   • They do not do so in righteousness.
2. 48:2
   • They call themselves after the holy city.
   • They lean on the God of Israel.
   • The LORD of hosts is his name.
3. 48:3
   • The LORD declared the former things from long ago.
   • Those things went forth out of his mouth.
   • He made them heard.
   • He acted suddenly.
   • The things came to pass.
4. 48:4
   • The LORD knew that the addressee is obstinate.
   • The addressee's neck is an iron sinew.
   • The addressee's forehead is bronze.
5. 48:5
   • The LORD declared it to the addressee from long ago.
   • He announced it to the addressee before it came to pass.
   • He did so lest the addressee say that his idol did these things.
   • He did so lest the addressee say that his carved image and his molten image commanded them.
6. 48:6
   • The addressee has heard.
   • The addressee is told to look at all of it.
   • The LORD asks whether they will not declare it.
   • The LORD has announced new things to the addressee from this time.
   • These are hidden things.
   • The addressee did not know them.
7. 48:7
   • The things are created now, not long ago.
   • Before today the addressee had not heard them.
   • This was so lest the addressee say that he already knew them.
8. 48:8
   • The addressee did not hear.
   • The addressee did not know.
   • From long ago the addressee's ear was not opened.
   • The LORD knew that the addressee would deal very treacherously.
   • The addressee was called a transgressor from the womb.
9. 48:9
   • For the sake of his name the LORD will defer his anger.
   • For the sake of his praise he will restrain himself toward the addressee.
   • He does this so as not to cut the addressee off.
10. 48:10
    • The LORD has refined the addressee, but not with silver.
    • The LORD has chosen the addressee in the furnace of affliction.
11. 48:11
    • For his own sake, for his own sake, the LORD will act.
    • The LORD asks how his name should be profaned.
    • The LORD will not give his glory to another.
12. 48:12
    • Jacob is commanded to listen to the LORD.
    • Israel is called by the LORD.
    • The LORD says, I am he.
    • The LORD is the first.
    • The LORD is also the last.
13. 48:13
    • The LORD's hand laid the foundation of the earth.
    • The LORD's right hand spread out the heavens.
    • When the LORD calls to them, they stand up together.
14. 48:14
    • All of them are commanded to assemble.
    • All of them are commanded to hear.
    • The LORD asks which among them has declared these things.
    • The LORD has loved him.
    • He will do his pleasure on Babylon.
    • His arm shall be on the Chaldeans.
15. 48:15
    • The LORD says, I, even I, have spoken.
    • The LORD has called him.
    • The LORD has brought him.
    • He shall make his way prosperous.
16. 48:16
    • The hearers are commanded to come near to the LORD.
    • The hearers are commanded to hear this.
    • The LORD has not spoken in secret from the beginning.
    • From the time that it was, the LORD is there.
    • Now the Lord GOD and his Spirit have sent the speaker.
17. 48:17
    • Thus says the LORD, the addressee's Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
    • The LORD is the addressee's God.
    • The LORD teaches the addressee to profit.
    • The LORD leads the addressee in the way he should go.
18. 48:18
    • The LORD wishes the addressee had hearkened to his commandments.
    • Then the addressee's peace would have been like a river.
    • Then the addressee's righteousness would have been like the waves of the sea.
19. 48:19
    • Then the addressee's seed would have been like the sand.
    • Then the offspring of the addressee's body would have been like its grains.
    • His name would not have been cut off.
    • His name would not have been destroyed from before the LORD.
20. 48:20
    • They are commanded to go out of Babylon.
    • They are commanded to flee from the Chaldeans.
    • They are commanded to declare this with a voice of singing.
    • They are commanded to make this heard.
    • They are commanded to send it out to the end of the earth.
    • They are commanded to say that the LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob.
21. 48:21
    • They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts.
    • He made water flow from the rock for them.
    • He split the rock.
    • Water gushed out.
22. 48:22
    • The LORD says there is no peace for the wicked.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

48:1

Jacob was the ancestor whose name was changed to Israel; "house of Jacob" and "Israel" both mean his descendants, the nation. Judah was one of the twelve tribes descended from him, and by Isaiah's day the southern kingdom around Jerusalem, the survivors this chapter addresses, was simply called Judah. "LORD" printed in capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters often written Yahweh, which readers avoided pronouncing aloud. To "swear by the name" is to stake a promise on that name, calling God as guarantor.

48:2

The holy city is Jerusalem, where the temple stood; claiming to be its citizens was a claim to the standing that went with it. "LORD of hosts" is a military title (the hosts are armies, both Israel's and the heavenly ones) roughly "the LORD who commands the armies."

48:3

"The former things" is a set phrase in these chapters of Isaiah: earlier announcements that have already come true, offered as evidence. It is set against "new things" in verse 6, which have not happened yet.

48:4

Both images are ordinary Hebrew insults. A stiff neck is an ox that will not turn when the yoke pulls; a hard forehead is a face that will not blush, that is, someone past shame.

48:5

Two standard ways of making an image of a god: carving it from wood or stone, and casting it by pouring molten metal into a mold. The point of naming both is to cover every kind of idol.

48:8

"Your ear has not been open" is an idiom for refusing to take something in, not for deafness. The Hebrew of this line is compressed and can also be read as "I did not open your ear", translations differ. "A rebel since birth" refers to the nation's whole history from its beginning, not to an individual's childhood.

48:9

"For the sake of my name" means for the sake of his reputation among the watching nations, since a god was judged by what happened to his people. To "cut off" is a standard idiom for wiping out a family or nation so that no descendants remain.

48:10

Refining means melting metal in a furnace so the impurities separate out. The Hebrew of "but not with silver" is disputed: it may mean "not as thoroughly as silver is refined," or "not producing silver," or "not for the price of silver." The image of the furnace of affliction is exile and disaster treated as a smelting fire.

48:11

The Hebrew word behind "dragged down" is the one used for defiling something sacred. "Glory" here is public honor or credit, the concern is that another god be given the credit for what happens.

48:12

"The first and the last" is a way of saying nothing existed before God and nothing will be left after him. He was there at the start and will still be there at the end.

48:13

Spreading out the heavens pictures stretching a tent-cloth over its poles. "They stand up together" pictures earth and sky as servants who rise to attention when their master summons them.

48:14

"Which of them" means which of the idols and their gods, who are being cross-examined like witnesses in a trial through these chapters. The unnamed "him" whom the LORD loves and calls is generally taken to be Cyrus, the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BC and let the exiles go home; Isaiah names him at 44:28 and 45:1. The Hebrew is ambiguous enough that some read the phrase as a title, "the one the LORD loves," and a few take the figure to be Israel instead. Chaldeans is another name for the Babylonians, after the people whose dynasty then ruled Babylon.

48:16

The speaker changes in mid-verse without warning: through the chapter it is God speaking, and here someone says he has been sent by God. Who this "me" is (the prophet, or the servant figure of the surrounding chapters) is left unresolved in the Hebrew. "Lord GOD" with GOD in capitals renders a double name, roughly "my Master, Yahweh."

48:17

A redeemer, in Hebrew law, was the nearest male relative, whose duty it was to buy a family member out of slavery, buy back land the family had lost, or avenge a killing. Calling God "your Redeemer" borrows that family obligation. "The Holy One of Israel" is Isaiah's characteristic title for God, used dozens of times in this book and almost nowhere else.

48:18

"Peace" translates shalom, which is wider than the absence of war: safety, health, prosperity, everything being as it should be. A river and the sea's waves are images of steady, inexhaustible supply in a country where most streams dried up for half the year.

48:19

Descendants as countless as sand echoes the promise made to Abraham in Genesis. For a name to be "cut off" is for a family line to die out entirely, which in this culture meant being forgotten as well as ended.

48:20

Judah's leading families had been deported to Babylon after Jerusalem fell in 586 BC; this is a summons to walk out when the moment comes. Chaldeans is another name for the Babylonians. "Redeemed" is the same legal word as in verse 17: bought back, the price paid by a kinsman.

48:21

This recalls the escape from Egypt, when according to Exodus 17 and Numbers 20 water came out of a rock for the people in the desert. The return from Babylon is being described as a second such journey.

48:22

"The wicked" means people who keep choosing to do wrong on purpose. Peace here is the same full word used earlier: safe, whole, everything as it should be.