Isaiah 47:12-15

47:12 Persist ¹  in trusting ²  your amulets

and your many incantations,

which you have faithfully recited ³  since your youth!

Maybe you will be successful ⁴  –

maybe you will scare away disaster. ⁵ 

47:13 You are tired out from listening to so much advice. ⁶ 

Let them take their stand –

the ones who see omens in the sky,

who gaze at the stars,

who make monthly predictions –

let them rescue you from the disaster that is about to overtake you! ⁷ 

47:14 Look, they are like straw,

which the fire burns up;

they cannot rescue themselves

from the heat ⁸  of the flames.

There are no coals to warm them,

no firelight to enjoy. ⁹ 

47:15 They will disappoint you, ¹⁰ 

those you have so faithfully dealt with since your youth. ¹¹ 

Each strays off in his own direction, ¹² 

leaving no one to rescue you.”

[47:12]  ¹ tn Heb “stand” (so KJV, ASV); NASB, NRSV “Stand fast.”

[47:12]  ² tn The word “trusting” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See v. 9.

[47:12]  ³ tn Heb “in that which you have toiled.”

[47:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “maybe you will be able to profit.”

[47:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “maybe you will cause to tremble.” The object “disaster” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See the note at v. 9.

[47:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “you are tired because of the abundance of your advice.”

[47:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “let them stand and rescue you – the ones who see omens in the sky, who gaze at the stars, who make known by months – from those things which are coming upon you.”

[47:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “hand,” here a metaphor for the strength or power of the flames.

[47:14]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “there is no coal [for?] their food, light to sit before it.” Some emend לַחְמָם (lakhmam, “their food”) to לְחֻמָּם (lÿkhummam, “to warm them”; see HALOT 328 s.v. חמם). This statement may allude to Isa 44:16, where idolaters are depicted warming themselves over a fire made from wood, part of which was used to form idols. The fire of divine judgment will be no such campfire; its flames will devour and destroy.

[47:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “So they will be to you”; NIV “That is all they can do for you.”

[47:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “that for which you toiled, your traders from your youth.” The omen readers and star gazers are likened to merchants with whom Babylon has had an ongoing economic relationship.

[47:15]  ¹² tn Heb “each to his own side, they err.”