Isaiah 49:16-26
Context49:16 Look, I have inscribed your name 1 on my palms;
your walls are constantly before me.
49:17 Your children hurry back,
while those who destroyed and devastated you depart.
All of them gather to you.
As surely as I live,” says the Lord,
“you will certainly wear all of them like jewelry;
you will put them on as if you were a bride.
49:19 Yes, your land lies in ruins;
it is desolate and devastated. 3
But now you will be too small to hold your residents,
and those who devoured you will be far away.
49:20 Yet the children born during your time of bereavement
will say within your hearing,
‘This place is too cramped for us, 4
make room for us so we can live here.’ 5
49:21 Then you will think to yourself, 6
‘Who bore these children for me?
I was bereaved and barren,
dismissed and divorced. 7
Who raised these children?
Look, I was left all alone;
where did these children come from?’”
49:22 This is what the sovereign Lord says:
“Look I will raise my hand to the nations;
I will raise my signal flag to the peoples.
They will bring your sons in their arms
and carry your daughters on their shoulders.
49:23 Kings will be your children’s 8 guardians;
their princesses will nurse your children. 9
With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you
and they will lick the dirt on 10 your feet.
Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;
those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.
49:24 Can spoils be taken from a warrior,
or captives be rescued from a conqueror? 11
49:25 Indeed,” says the Lord,
“captives will be taken from a warrior;
spoils will be rescued from a conqueror.
I will oppose your adversary
and I will rescue your children.
49:26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;
they will get drunk on their own blood, as if it were wine. 12
Then all humankind 13 will recognize that
I am the Lord, your deliverer,
[49:16] 1 tn Heb “you.” Here the pronoun is put by metonymy for the person’s name.
[49:18] 2 tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see.”
[49:19] 3 tn Heb “Indeed your ruins and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction.” This statement is abruptly terminated in the Hebrew text and left incomplete.
[49:20] 4 tn Heb “me.” The singular is collective.
[49:20] 5 tn Heb “draw near to me so I can dwell.”
[49:21] 6 tn Heb “and you will say in your heart.”
[49:21] 7 tn Or “exiled and thrust away”; NIV “exiled and rejected.”
[49:23] 8 tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).
[49:23] 9 tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.
[49:23] 10 tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”
[49:24] 11 tc The Hebrew text has צָדִיק (tsadiq, “a righteous [one]”), but this makes no sense in the parallelism. The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa reads correctly עריץ (“violent [one], tyrant”; see v. 25).
[49:26] 12 sn Verse 26a depicts siege warfare and bloody defeat. The besieged enemy will be so starved they will their own flesh. The bloodstained bodies lying on the blood-soaked battle site will look as if they collapsed in drunkenness.
[49:26] 13 tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, NASB).