Isaiah 59:1

Injustice Brings Alienation from God

59:1 Look, the Lord’s hand is not too weak ¹  to deliver you;

his ear is not too deaf to hear you. ² 

Genesis 18:14

18:14 Is anything impossible ³  for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.” ⁴ 

Numbers 11:23

11:23 And the Lord said to Moses, “Is the Lord’s hand shortened? ⁵  Now you will see whether my word to you will come true ⁶  or not!”

[59:1]  ¹ tn Heb “short” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[59:1]  ² tn Heb “or his ear too heavy [i.e., “dull”] to hear.”

[18:14]  ³ tn The Hebrew verb פָּלָא (pala’) means “to be wonderful, to be extraordinary, to be surpassing, to be amazing.”

[18:14]  ⁴ sn Sarah will have a son. The passage brings God’s promise into clear focus. As long as it was a promise for the future, it really could be believed without much involvement. But now, when it seemed so impossible from the human standpoint, when the Lord fixed an exact date for the birth of the child, the promise became rather overwhelming to Abraham and Sarah. But then this was the Lord of creation, the one they had come to trust. The point of these narratives is that the creation of Abraham’s offspring, which eventually became Israel, is no less a miraculous work of creation than the creation of the world itself.

[11:23]  ⁵ sn This anthropomorphic expression concerns the power of God. The “hand of the Lord” is idiomatic for his power, what he is able to do. The question is rhetorical; it is affirming that his hand is not shortened, i.e., that his power is not limited. Moses should have known this, and so this is a rebuke for him at this point. God had provided the manna, among all the other powerful acts they had witnessed. Meat would be no problem. But the lack of faith by the people was infectious.

[11:23]  ⁶ tn Or “will happen” (TEV); KJV “shall come to pass unto thee.”