16:23 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you.
12:17 He 8 leads 9 counselors away stripped 10
and makes judges 11 into fools. 12
12:20 He deprives the trusted advisers 13 of speech 14
and takes away the discernment 15 of elders.
12:24 He deprives the leaders of the earth 16
of their understanding; 17
he makes them wander
in a trackless desert waste. 18
44:25 who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers 19
and humiliates 20 the omen readers,
who overturns the counsel of the wise men 21
and makes their advice 22 seem foolish,
1 sn A quotation from Isa 29:14.
2 map For location see JP1-C2; JP2-C2; JP3-C2; JP4-C2.
3 tn Grk “theirs and ours.”
4 tn Or, more literally, “I swear by the boasting in you.”
5 tc ‡ Although the witnesses for the shorter reading (Ì46 D F G Ψ 075 0243 1739 1881 Ï) are not as strong as for the addition of ἀδελφοί (adelfoi, “brothers”) at this juncture (א A B K P 33 81 104 365 1175 2464 lat sy co), it is difficult to find a reason why scribes would either intentionally or unintentionally drop the address here. Thus, the shorter reading is slightly preferred.
6 tc The oldest and most important witnesses to this text, as well as a few others (א* B 6 1739 sams bopt), lack the words τῷ θεῷ (tw qew, “God”), while the rest have them. An accidental omission could well account for the shorter reading, especially since θεῷ would have been written as a nomen sacrum (eucaristwtwqMw). However, one might expect to see, in some
7 tn Or “Messiah”; Grk “preach Christ [Messiah] crucified,” giving the content of the message.
8 tn The personal pronoun normally present as the subject of the participle is frequently omitted (see GKC 381 §119.s).
9 tn GKC 361-62 §116.x notes that almost as a rule a participle beginning a sentence is continued with a finite verb with or without a ו (vav). Here the participle (“leads”) is followed by an imperfect (“makes fools”) after a ו (vav).
10 tn The word שׁוֹלָל (sholal), from the root שָׁלַל (shalal, “to plunder; to strip”), is an adjective expressing the state (and is in the singular, as if to say, “in the state of one naked” [GKC 375 §118.o]). The word is found in military contexts (see Mic 1:8). It refers to the carrying away of people in nakedness and shame by enemies who plunder (see also Isa 8:1-4). They will go away as slaves and captives, deprived of their outer garments. Some (cf. NAB) suggest “barefoot,” based on the LXX of Mic 1:8; but the meaning of that is uncertain. G. R. Driver wanted to derive the word from an Arabic root “to be mad; to be giddy,” forming a better parallel.
11 sn The judges, like the counselors, are nobles in the cities. God may reverse their lot, either by captivity or by shame, and they cannot resist his power.
12 tn Some translate this “makes mad” as in Isa 44:25, but this gives the wrong connotation today; more likely God shows them to be fools.
13 tn The Hebrew נֶאֱמָנִים (ne’emanim) is the Niphal participle; it is often translated “the faithful” in the Bible. The Rabbis rather fancifully took the word from נְאֻם (nÿ’um, “oracle, utterance”) and so rendered it “those who are eloquent, fluent in words.” But that would make this the only place in the Bible where this form came from that root or any other root besides אָמַן (’aman, “confirm, support”). But to say that God takes away the speech of the truthful or the faithful would be very difficult. It has to refer to reliable men, because it is parallel to the elders or old men. The NIV has “trusted advisers,” which fits well with kings and judges and priests.
14 tn Heb “he removes the lip of the trusted ones.”
15 tn Heb “taste,” meaning “opinion” or “decision.”
16 tn Heb “the heads of the people of the earth.”
17 tn Heb “heart.”
18 tn The text has בְּתֹהוּ לֹא־דָרֶךְ (bÿtohu lo’ darekh): “in waste – no way,” or “in a wasteland [where there is] no way,” thus, “trackless” (see the discussion of negative attributes using לֹא [lo’] in GKC 482 §152.u).
19 tc The Hebrew text has בַּדִּים (baddim), perhaps meaning “empty talkers” (BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד). In the four other occurrences of this word (Job 11:3; Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30; 50:36) the context does not make the meaning of the term very clear. Its primary point appears to be that the words spoken are meaningless or false. In light of its parallelism with “omen readers,” some have proposed an emendation to בָּרִים (barim, “seers”). The Mesopotamian baru-priests were divination specialists who played an important role in court life. See R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 93-98. Rather than supporting an emendation, J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:189, n. 79) suggests that Isaiah used בַּדִּים purposively as a derisive wordplay on the Akkadian word baru (in light of the close similarity of the d and r consonants).
20 tn Or “makes fools of” (NIV, NRSV); NAB and NASB both similar.
21 tn Heb “who turns back the wise” (so NRSV); NIV “overthrows the learning of the wise”; TEV “The words of the wise I refute.”
22 tn Heb “their knowledge” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).
23 tn The participle φάσκοντες (faskonte") is used concessively here.