41:5 The coastlands 1 see and are afraid;
the whole earth 2 trembles;
they approach and come.
41:6 They help one another; 3
one says to the other, ‘Be strong!’
41:21 “Present your argument,” says the Lord.
“Produce your evidence,” 4 says Jacob’s king. 5
43:9 All nations gather together,
the peoples assemble.
Who among them announced this?
Who predicted earlier events for us? 6
Let them produce their witnesses to testify they were right;
let them listen and affirm, ‘It is true.’
1 tn Or “islands” (NIV, CEV); NCV “faraway places”; NLT “lands beyond the sea.”
2 tn Heb “the ends of the earth,” but this is a merism, where the earth’s extremities stand for its entirety, i.e., the extremities and everything in between them.
3 tn Heb “each his neighbor helps”; NCV “The workers help each other.”
4 tn Heb “strong [words],” see HALOT 870 s.v. *עֲצֻמוֹת.
5 sn Apparently this challenge is addressed to the pagan idol gods, see vv. 23-24.
6 tn Heb “and the former things was causing us to hear?”