57:15 For this is what the high and exalted one says,
the one who rules 1 forever, whose name is holy:
“I dwell in an exalted and holy place,
but also with the discouraged and humiliated, 2
in order to cheer up the humiliated
and to encourage the discouraged. 3
66:2 My hand made them; 4
that is how they came to be,” 5 says the Lord.
I show special favor 6 to the humble and contrite,
who respect what I have to say. 7
34:18 The Lord is near the brokenhearted;
he delivers 8 those who are discouraged. 9
51:17 The sacrifices God desires are a humble spirit 10 –
O God, a humble and repentant heart 11 you will not reject. 12
147:3 He heals 13 the brokenhearted,
and bandages their wounds.
6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!
He himself has torn us to pieces,
but he will heal us!
He has injured 14 us,
but he will bandage our wounds!
6:2 He will restore 15 us in a very short time; 16
he will heal us in a little while, 17
so that we may live in his presence.
1 tn Heb “the one who dwells forever.” שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) is sometimes translated “the one who lives forever,” and understood as a reference to God’s eternal existence. However, the immediately preceding and following descriptions (“high and exalted” and “holy”) emphasize his sovereign rule. In the next line, he declares, “I dwell in an exalted and holy [place],” which refers to the place from which he rules. Therefore it is more likely that שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) means “I dwell [in my lofty palace] forever” and refers to God’s eternal kingship.
2 tn Heb “and also with the crushed and lowly of spirit.” This may refer to the repentant who have humbled themselves (see 66:2) or more generally to the exiles who have experienced discouragement and humiliation.
3 tn Heb “to restore the lowly of spirit and to restore the heart of the crushed.”
4 tn Heb “all these.” The phrase refers to the heavens and earth, mentioned in the previous verse.
5 tn Heb “and all these were.” Some prefer to emend וַיִּהְיוּ (vayyihyu, “and they were”) to וְלִי הָיוּ (vÿli hayu, “and to me they were”), i.e., “and they belong to me.”
6 tn Heb “and to this one I look” (KJV and NASB both similar).
7 tn Heb “to the humble and the lowly in spirit and the one who trembles at my words.”
8 tn The Hebrew imperfect verbal form highlights the generalizing statement and draws attention to the fact that the
9 tn Heb “the crushed in spirit.”
10 tn Heb “a broken spirit.”
11 tn Heb “a broken and crushed heart.”
12 tn Or “despise.”
13 tn Heb “the one who heals.”
14 tn “has struck”; NRSV “struck down.”
15 tn The Piel of חָיָה (khayah) may mean: (1) to keep/preserve persons alive from the threat of premature death (1 Kgs 20:31; Ezek 13:18; 18:27); (2) to restore the dead to physical life (Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; cf. NCV “will put new life in us”); or (3) to restore the dying back to life from the threat of death (Ps 71:20; BDB 311 s.v. חָיָה).
16 tn Heb “after two days” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV). The expression “after two days” is an idiom meaning “after a short time” (see, e.g., Judg 11:4; BDB 399 s.v. יוֹם 5.a).
17 tn Heb “on the third day” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV), which parallels “after two days” and means “in a little while.” The “2-3” sequence is an example of graded numerical parallelism (Prov 30:15-16, 18-19, 21-23, 24-28, 29-31). This expresses the unrepentant overconfidence of Israel that the
18 tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
19 tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.