Isaiah 11:4

11:4 He will treat the poor fairly, ¹ 

and make right decisions ²  for the downtrodden of the earth. ³ 

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, ⁴ 

and order the wicked to be executed. ⁵ 

Isaiah 61:1

The Lord Will Rejuvenate His People

61:1 The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me,

because the Lord has chosen ⁶  me. ⁷ 

He has commissioned ⁸  me to encourage ⁹  the poor,

to help ¹⁰  the brokenhearted,

to decree the release of captives,

and the freeing of prisoners,

Jeremiah 5:4-5

5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ¹¹ 

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ¹² 

They do not know what their God requires of them. ¹³ 

5:5 I will go to the leaders ¹⁴ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ¹⁵ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ¹⁶ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ¹⁷ 

Zephaniah 3:12

3:12 I will leave in your midst a humble and meek group of people, ¹⁸ 

and they will find safety in the Lord’s presence. ¹⁹ 

Matthew 11:5

11:5 The blind see, the ²⁰  lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them.

Mark 12:37

12:37 If David himself calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” ²¹  And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.

James 2:5

2:5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters! ²²  Did not God choose the poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?

[11:4]  ¹ tn Heb “with justice” (so NAB) or “with righteousness” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[11:4]  ² tn Heb “make decisions with rectitude”; cf. ASV, NRSV “and decide with equity.”

[11:4]  ³ tn Or “land” (NAB, NCV, CEV). It is uncertain if the passage is picturing universal dominion or focusing on the king’s rule over his covenant people. The reference to God’s “holy mountain” in v. 9 and the description of renewed Israelite conquests in v. 14 suggest the latter, though v. 10 seems to refer to a universal kingdom (see 2:2-4).

[11:4]  ⁴ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and he will strike the earth with the scepter of his mouth.” Some have suggested that in this context אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) as an object of judgment seems too broad in scope. The parallelism is tighter if one emends the word to ץ(י)עָרִ (’arits, “potentate, tyrant”). The phrase “scepter of his mouth” refers to the royal (note “scepter”) decrees that he proclaims with his mouth. Because these decrees will have authority and power (see v. 2) behind them, they can be described as “striking” the tyrants down. Nevertheless, the MT reading may not need emending. Isaiah refers to the entire “earth” as the object of God’s judgment in several places without specifying the wicked as the object of the judgment (Isa 24:17-21; 26:9, 21; 28:22; cf. 13:11).

[11:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “and by the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked.” The “breath of his lips” refers to his speech, specifically in this context his official decrees that the wicked oppressors be eliminated from his realm. See the preceding note.

[61:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “anointed,” i.e., designated to carry out an assigned task.

[61:1]  ⁷ sn The speaker is not identified, but he is distinct from the Lord and from Zion’s suffering people. He possesses the divine spirit, is God’s spokesman, and is sent to release prisoners from bondage. The evidence suggests he is the Lord’s special servant, described earlier in the servant songs (see 42:1-4, 7; 49:2, 9; 50:4; see also 51:16).

[61:1]  ⁸ tn Or “sent” (NAB); NCV “has appointed me.”

[61:1]  ⁹ tn Or “proclaim good news to.”

[61:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to bind up [the wounds of].”

[5:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.

[5:4]  ¹² tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ¹⁴ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.

[3:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “needy and poor people.” The terms often refer to a socioeconomic group, but here they may refer to those who are humble in a spiritual sense.

[3:12]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and they will take refuge in the name of the Lord.”

[11:5]  ²⁰ tn Grk “and the,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more. Two other conjunctions are omitted in this series.

[12:37]  ²¹ tn Grk “David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ So how is he his son?” The conditional nuance, implicit in Greek, has been made explicit in the translation (cf. Matt 22:45).

[2:5]  ²² tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.