18:17 I will scatter them before their enemies
like dust blowing in front of a burning east wind.
I will turn my back on them and not look favorably on them 1
when disaster strikes them.”
32:20 He said, “I will reject them, 14
I will see what will happen to them;
for they are a perverse generation,
children 15 who show no loyalty.
1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I look the other way; 16
when you offer your many prayers,
I do not listen,
because your hands are covered with blood. 17
1:16 18 Wash! Cleanse yourselves!
Remove your sinful deeds 19
from my sight.
Stop sinning!
8:17 I will wait patiently for the Lord,
who has rejected the family of Jacob; 20
I will wait for him.
64:7 No one invokes 21 your name,
or makes an effort 22 to take hold of you.
For you have rejected us 23
and handed us over to our own sins. 24
3:4 Someday these sinners will cry to the Lord for help, 27
but he will not answer them.
He will hide his face from them at that time,
because they have done such wicked deeds.”
1 tc Heb “I will show them [my] back and not [my] face.” This reading follows the suggestion of some of the versions and some of the Masoretes. The MT reads “I will look on their back and not on their faces.”
2 tn Heb “oracle of the
3 tn Heb “I have set my face against this city for evil [i.e., disaster] and not for good [i.e., well-being].” For the use of the idiom “set one’s face against/toward” see, e.g., usage in 1 Kgs 2:15; 2 Kgs 2:17; Jer 42:15, 17 and note the interesting interplay of usage in Jer 44:11-12.
4 tn Heb “he will burn it with fire.”
5 tn Heb “on that day.” This same expression also appears later in the verse and in v. 18.
6 tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.
7 tn Heb “find,” “encounter.”
8 tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.
9 tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.
10 tn Heb “evils.”
11 tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.
12 tn Heb “my.”
13 tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.
14 tn Heb “I will hide my face from them.”
15 tn Heb “sons” (so NAB, NASB); TEV “unfaithful people.”
16 tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”
17 sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.
18 sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.
19 sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).
20 tn Heb “who hides his face from the house of Jacob.”
21 tn Or “calls out in”; NASB, NIV, NRSV “calls on.”
22 tn Or “rouses himself”; NASB “arouses himself.”
23 tn Heb “for you have hidden your face from us.”
24 tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and you caused us to melt in the hand of our sin.” The verb וַתְּמוּגֵנוּ (vattÿmugenu) is a Qal preterite 2nd person masculine singular with a 1st person common plural suffix from the root מוּג (mug, “melt”). However, elsewhere the Qal of this verb is intransitive. If the verbal root מוּג (mug) is retained here, the form should be emended to a Polel pattern (וַתְּמֹגְגֵנוּ, vattÿmogÿgenu). The translation assumes an emendation to וַתְּמַגְּנֵנוּ (vattÿmaggÿnenu, “and you handed us over”). This form is a Piel preterite 2nd person masculine singular with a 1st person common plural suffix from the verbal root מִגֵּן (miggen, “hand over, surrender”; see HALOT 545 s.v. מגן and BDB 171 s.v. מָגָן). The point is that God has abandoned them to their sinful ways and no longer seeks reconciliation.
25 tn Or “in their punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity/punishment” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment” for iniquity or “guilt” of iniquity.
26 sn See Ezek 11:19; 37:14.
27 tn Heb “then they will cry out to the