Text -- Isaiah 48:16-22 (NET)

48:16 Approach me! Listen to this! From the very first I have not spoken in secret; when it happens, I am there.” So now, the sovereign Lord has sent me, accompanied by his spirit. 48:17 This is what the Lord, your protector, says, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you how to succeed, who leads you in the way you should go. 48:18 If only you had obeyed my commandments, prosperity would have flowed to you like a river, deliverance would have come to you like the waves of the sea. 48:19 Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand, and your children like its granules. Their name would not have been cut off and eliminated from my presence. 48:20 Leave Babylon! Flee from the Babylonians! Announce it with a shout of joy! Make this known! Proclaim it throughout the earth! Say, ‘The Lord protects his servant Jacob. 48:21 They do not thirst as he leads them through dry regions; he makes water flow out of a rock for them; he splits open a rock and water flows out.’ 48:22 There will be no prosperity for the wicked,” says the Lord.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Isa 48:16

¹ tn Heb “from the time of its occurring.”

² sn The speaker here is not identified specifically, but he is probably Cyrus, the Lord’s “ally” mentioned in vv. 14-15.

NET Notes: Isa 48:17

¹ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

² sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

NET Notes: Isa 48:18

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

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.

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.

NET Notes: Isa 48:19

¹ tn Heb “like sand”; NCV “as many as the grains of sand.”

² tn Heb “and the issue from your inner parts.”

³ tn Heb “and his name would not be cut off and would not be destroyed from before me.”

NET Notes: Isa 48:20

¹ tn Heb “to the end of the earth” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV).

² tn Heb “redeems.” See the note at 41:14.

NET Notes: Isa 48:21

¹ sn The translation above (present tense) assumes that this verse describes God’s provision for returning Babylonian exiles (see v. 20; 35:6; 49:10) in terms reminiscent of the Exodus from Egypt (see Exod 17:6).