51:6 Get out of Babylonia quickly, you foreign people. 1
Flee to save your lives.
Do not let yourselves be killed because of her sins.
For it is time for the Lord to wreak his revenge.
He will pay Babylonia 2 back for what she has done. 3
51:50 You who have escaped the sword, 4
go, do not delay. 5
Remember the Lord in a faraway land.
Think about Jerusalem. 6
48:20 Leave Babylon!
Flee from the Babylonians!
Announce it with a shout of joy!
Make this known!
Proclaim it throughout the earth! 7
Say, ‘The Lord protects 8 his servant Jacob.
52:11 Leave! Leave! Get out of there!
Don’t touch anything unclean!
Get out of it!
Stay pure, you who carry the Lord’s holy items! 9
52:12 Yet do not depart quickly
or leave in a panic. 10
For the Lord goes before you;
the God of Israel is your rear guard.
2:6 “You there! 11 Flee from the northland!” says the Lord, “for like the four winds of heaven 12 I have scattered you,” says the Lord. 2:7 “Escape, Zion, you who live among the Babylonians!” 13
1 tn The words “you foreign people” are not in the text and many think the referent is the exiles of Judah. While this is clearly the case in v. 45 the referent seems broader here where the context speaks of every man going to his own country (v. 9).
2 tn Heb “her.”
3 tn Heb “paying to her a recompense [i.e., a payment in kind].”
4 sn God’s exiled people are told to leave doomed Babylon (see v. 45).
5 tn Heb “don’t stand.”
6 tn Heb “let Jerusalem go up upon your heart.” The “heart” is often viewed as the seat of one’s mental faculties and thought life.
7 tn Heb “to the end of the earth” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV).
8 tn Heb “redeems.” See the note at 41:14.
9 tn Heb “the vessels of the Lord” (so KJV, NAB).
10 tn Heb “or go in flight”; NAB “leave in headlong flight.”
11 sn These are the scattered Jews of eschatological times (as the expression four winds of heaven makes clear) and not those of Zechariah’s time who have, for the most part, already returned by 520
12 tn Or “of the sky.” The same Hebrew term, שָׁמַיִם (shamayim), may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
13 tn Heb “live in [or “with” (cf. NASB), i.e., “among”] the daughter of Babylon” (so NIV; NAB “dwell in daughter Babylon”).