Text -- Isaiah 51:4-23 (NET)

51:4 Pay attention to me, my people! Listen to me, my people! For I will issue a decree, I will make my justice a light to the nations. 51:5 I am ready to vindicate, I am ready to deliver, I will establish justice among the nations. The coastlands wait patiently for me; they wait in anticipation for the revelation of my power. 51:6 Look up at the sky! Look at the earth below! For the sky will dissipate like smoke, and the earth will wear out like clothes; its residents will die like gnats. But the deliverance I give is permanent; the vindication I provide will not disappear. 51:7 Listen to me, you who know what is right, you people who are aware of my law! Don’t be afraid of the insults of men; don’t be discouraged because of their abuse! 51:8 For a moth will eat away at them like clothes; a clothes moth will devour them like wool. But the vindication I provide will be permanent; the deliverance I give will last.” 51:9 Wake up! Wake up! Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord! Wake up as in former times, as in antiquity! Did you not smash the Proud One? Did you not wound the sea monster? 51:10 Did you not dry up the sea, the waters of the great deep? Did you not make a path through the depths of the sea, so those delivered from bondage could cross over? 51:11 Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return; they will enter Zion with a happy shout. Unending joy will crown them, happiness and joy will overwhelm them; grief and suffering will disappear. 51:12 “I, I am the one who consoles you. Why are you afraid of mortal men, of mere human beings who are as short-lived as grass? 51:13 Why do you forget the Lord, who made you, who stretched out the sky and founded the earth? Why do you constantly tremble all day long at the anger of the oppressor, when he makes plans to destroy? Where is the anger of the oppressor? 51:14 The one who suffers will soon be released; he will not die in prison, he will not go hungry. 51:15 I am the Lord your God, who churns up the sea so that its waves surge. The Lord who commands armies is his name!

Zion’s Time to Celebrate

51:16 I commission you as my spokesman; I cover you with the palm of my hand, to establish the sky and to found the earth, to say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” 51:17 Wake up! Wake up! Get up, O Jerusalem! You drank from the cup the Lord passed to you, which was full of his anger! You drained dry the goblet full of intoxicating wine. 51:18 There was no one to lead her among all the children she bore; there was no one to take her by the hand among all the children she raised. 51:19 These double disasters confronted you. But who feels sorry for you? Destruction and devastation, famine and sword. But who consoles you? 51:20 Your children faint; they lie at the head of every street like an antelope in a snare. They are left in a stupor by the Lord’s anger, by the battle cry of your God. 51:21 So listen to this, oppressed one, who is drunk, but not from wine! 51:22 This is what your sovereign master, the Lord your God, says: “Look, I have removed from your hand the cup of intoxicating wine, the goblet full of my anger. You will no longer have to drink it. 51:23 I will put it into the hand of your tormentors who said to you, ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you.’ You made your back like the ground, and like the street for those who walked over you.”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Isa 51:4

¹ tn Or “certainly.”

² tn Heb “instruction [or “a law”] will go out from me.”

³ tn Heb “and my justice for a light to the nations I will cause to rest.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:5

¹ tn Heb “my righteousness [or “vindication”] is near.”

² tn Heb “my deliverance goes forth.”

³ tn Heb “and my arms will judge [on behalf of] nations.”

⁴ tn Or “islands” (NIV); TEV “Distant lands.”

⁵ tn Heb “for my arm” (so NIV, NRSV).

NET Notes: Isa 51:6

¹ tn Heb “will be torn in pieces.” The perfect indicates the certitude of the event, from the Lord’s rhetorical perspective.

² tn Heb “my deliverance.” The same Hebrew word can also be translated “salvation” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); cf. CEV “victory.”

³ tn Heb “my righteousness [or “vindication”].”

⁴ tn Heb “will not be shattered [or “dismayed”].”

NET Notes: Isa 51:7

¹ tn Heb “people (who have) my law in their heart.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:8

¹ tn Heb “my vindication”; many English versions “my righteousness”; NRSV, TEV “my deliverance”; CEV “my victory.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:9

¹ tn The arm of the Lord is a symbol of divine military power. Here it is personified and told to arouse itself from sleep and prepare for action.

² tn Heb “Are you not the one who smashed?” The feminine singular forms agree grammatically with the feminine noun “arm.” The Hebrew text has ַהמַּחְצֶבֶת (hammakhtsevet), from the verbal root חָצַב (khatsav, “hew, chop”). The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has, probably correctly, המחצת, from the verbal root מָחַץ (makhats, “smash”) which is used in Job 26:12 to describe God’s victory over “the Proud One.”

³ tn This title (רַהַב, rahav, “proud one”) is sometimes translated as a proper name: “Rahab” (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). It is used here of a symbolic sea monster, known elsewhere in the Bible and in Ugaritic myth as Leviathan. This sea creature symbolizes the forces of chaos that seek to destroy the created order. In the Bible “the Proud One” opposes God’s creative work, but is defeated (see Job 26:12; Ps 89:10). Here the title refers to Pharaoh’s Egyptian army that opposed Israel at the Red Sea (see v. 10, and note also Isa 30:7 and Ps 87:4, where the title is used of Egypt).

⁴ tn The words “did you not” are understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line). The rhetorical questions here and in v. 10 expect the answer, “Yes, you certainly did!”

⁵ tn Hebrew תַּנִּין (tannin) is another name for the symbolic sea monster. See the note at 27:1. In this context the sea creature represents Egypt. See the note on the title “Proud One” earlier in this verse.

NET Notes: Isa 51:10

¹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made…?”

² tn Heb “the redeemed” (so ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV “the ransomed.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:11

¹ tn Heb “[will be] on their head[s].” “Joy” may be likened here to a crown (cf. 2 Sam 1:10). The statement may also be an ironic twist on the idiom “earth/dust on the head” (cf. 2 Sam 1:2; 13:19; 15:32; Job 2:12), referring to a mourning practice.

² tn Heb “overtake” (so NIV); NASB “they will obtain.”

³ tn Heb “grief and groaning will flee.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:12

¹ tc The plural suffix should probably be emended to the second masculine singular (which is used in v. 13). The final mem (ם) is probably dittographic; note the mem at the beginning of the next word.

² tn Heb “Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, and of the son of man who [as] grass is given up?” The feminine singular forms should probably be emended to the masculine singular (see v. 13). They have probably been influenced by the construction אַתְּ־הִיא (’at-hi’) in vv. 9-10.

NET Notes: Isa 51:13

¹ tn Heb “and that you forget.”

² tn Or “the heavens” (also in v. 16). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

³ tn Heb “and that you tremble constantly all the day.”

⁴ tn The question anticipates the answer, “Ready to disappear!” See v. 14.

NET Notes: Isa 51:14

¹ tn Heb “who is stooped over” (under a burden).

² tn Heb “the pit” (so KJV); ASV, NAB “die and go down into the pit”; NASB, NIV “dungeon”; NCV “prison.”

³ tn Heb “he will not lack his bread.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:16

¹ tn The addressee (second masculine singular, as in vv. 13, 15) in this verse is unclear. The exiles are addressed in the immediately preceding verses (note the critical tone of vv. 12-13 and the reference to the exiles in v. 14). However, it seems unlikely that they are addressed in v. 16, for the addressee appears to be commissioned to tell Zion, who here represents the restored exiles, “you are my people.” The addressee is distinct from the exiles. The language of v. 16a is reminiscent of 49:2 and 50:4, where the Lord’s special servant says he is God’s spokesman and effective instrument. Perhaps the Lord, having spoken to the exiles in vv. 1-15, now responds to this servant, who spoke just prior to this in 50:4-11.

² tn Heb “I place my words in your mouth.”

³ tn Heb “with the shadow of my hand.”

⁴ tc The Hebrew text has לִנְטֹעַ (lintoa’, “to plant”). Several scholars prefer to emend this form to לִנְטֹת (lintot) from נָטָה (natah, “to stretch out”); see v. 13, as well as 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; cf. NAB, NCV, NRSV. However, since the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, LXX (and Aquila and Symmachus), and Vulgate support the MT reading, there is no need to emend the form. The interpretation is clear enough: Yahweh fixed the sky in its place.

⁵ tn The infinitives in v. 16b are most naturally understood as indicating the purpose of the divine actions described in v. 16a. The relationship of the third infinitive to the commission is clear enough – the Lord has made the addressee (his special servant?) his spokesman so that the latter might speak encouraging words to those in Zion. But how do the first two infinitives relate? The text seems to indicate that the Lord has commissioned the addressee so that the latter might create the universe! Perhaps creation imagery is employed metaphorically here to refer to the transformation that Jerusalem will experience (see 65:17-18).

NET Notes: Isa 51:17

¹ tn Heb “[you] who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his anger.”

² tn Heb “the goblet, the cup [that causes] staggering, you drank, you drained.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:19

¹ tc The Hebrew text has אֲנַחֲמֵךְ (’anakhamekh), a first person form, but the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads correctly יִנַחֲמֵךְ (yinakhamekh), a third person form.

NET Notes: Isa 51:20

¹ tn Heb “those who are full of the anger of the Lord, the shout [or “rebuke”] of your God.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:22

¹ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

² tn Heb “the cup of [= that causes] staggering” (so ASV, NAB, NRSV); NASB “the cup of reeling.”

³ tn Heb “the goblet of the cup of my anger.”

NET Notes: Isa 51:23

¹ tn That is, to make them drink it.