45:5 I am the Lord, I have no peer, 1
there is no God but me.
I arm you for battle, 2 even though you do not recognize 3 me.
45:18 For this is what the Lord says,
the one who created the sky –
he is the true God, 4
the one who formed the earth and made it;
he established it,
he did not create it without order, 5
he formed it to be inhabited –
“I am the Lord, I have no peer.
45:21 Tell me! Present the evidence! 6
Let them consult with one another!
Who predicted this in the past?
Who announced it beforehand?
Was it not I, the Lord?
I have no peer, there is no God but me,
a God who vindicates and delivers; 7
there is none but me.
45:22 Turn to me so you can be delivered, 8
all you who live in the earth’s remote regions!
For I am God, and I have no peer.
53:6 All of us had wandered off like sheep;
each of us had strayed off on his own path,
but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. 9
1 tn Heb “and there is none besides.” On the use of עוֹד (’od) here, see BDB 729 s.v. 1.c.
2 tn Heb “gird you” (so NASB) or “strengthen you” (so NIV).
3 tn Or “know” (NAB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT); NIV “have not acknowledged.”
4 tn Heb “he [is] the God.” The article here indicates uniqueness.
5 tn Or “unformed.” Gen 1:2 describes the world as “unformed” (תֹהוּ, tohu) prior to God’s creative work, but God then formed the world and made it fit for habitation.
6 tn Heb “Declare! Bring near!”; NASB “Declare and set forth your case.” See 41:21.
7 tn Or “a righteous God and deliverer”; NASB, NIV, NRSV “a righteous God and a Savior.”
8 tn The Niphal imperative with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose after the preceding imperative. The Niphal probably has a tolerative sense, “allow yourselves to be delivered, accept help.”
9 tn Elsewhere the Hiphil of פָגַע (paga’) means “to intercede verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25) or “to intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16), but neither nuance fits here. Apparently here the Hiphil is the causative of the normal Qal meaning, “encounter, meet, touch.” The Qal sometimes refers to a hostile encounter or attack; when used in this way the object is normally introduced by the preposition -בְּ (bet, see Josh 2:16; Judg 8:21; 15:12, etc.). Here the causative Hiphil has a double object – the Lord makes “sin” attack “him” (note that the object attacked is introduced by the preposition -בְּ. In their sin the group was like sheep who had wandered from God’s path. They were vulnerable to attack; the guilt of their sin was ready to attack and destroy them. But then the servant stepped in and took the full force of the attack.
10 tn Heb “there,” referring to the foreign nations to which they were exiled. The translation makes the referent clear.