1Be still for me, you coastlands,
and let nations renew their vigor.
Let them draw near, then let them speak.
Together let us come to trial.
2Who has stirred up victory from the east
called it to His feet?
He sets down before Him nations
and holds sway over kings,
turns their sword into dust,
like driven chaff their bow.
3He pursues them, moves on safe and sound,
He touches no path with His feet.
4Who has enacted and done it,
calling the generations from the first?—
“I the LORD am the first,
and with the last ones it is I.”
5The coastlands have seen and feared,
the ends of the earth have trembled,
they have drawn near and have come.
6[Each man helps his fellow
and to his brother says, “Be strong.”
7And the craftsman strengthens the smith,
the hammer wielder—the anvil pounder.
He says to the glue, “It is good,”
and strengthens it with nails that it not totter.]
8As for you, O Israel, My servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
seed of Abraham My friend,
9whom I took up from the ends of the earth
and called forth from its nobles
and said to you, “You are My servant,
I have chosen you and have not despised you.
10Do not fear, for I am with you,
do not be frightened, for I am your God.
I have sustained you, also have helped you,
also have stayed you up with My triumphant right hand.
11Look, they shall be shamed and disgraced,
all who are incensed against you,
they shall be as naught and shall perish,
those who contend with you.
12You shall seek them and shall not find them,
those who battle with you.
They shall be as naught and as nothing,
those who war against you.
13For I am the LORD your God,
holding your right hand,
saying to you, Do not fear,
I am helping you.
14Do not fear, O worm of Jacob,
men of Israel.
I am helping you, says the LORD,
and your Redeemer, Israel’s Holy One.
15Look, I have made you a threshing board
You shall thresh mountains and grind them to dust,
and turn hills into chaff.
16You shall winnow them—the wind shall bear them off,
and the storm shall scatter them.
But you shall be glad in the LORD,
in Israel’s Holy One you shall exult.
17The poor and the needy seek water and there is none,
their tongues are parched with thirst.
I the LORD will answer them,
God of Israel, I will not forsake them.
18I will open rivers on the peaks
and wellsprings in the valleys.
I will turn desert into ponds of water
and parched land into water sources.
19I will put cedars in the desert,
acacia and myrtle and wild olive tree.
I will put cypress in the wilderness,
20So they may see and know
and take to heart and grasp together,
that the hand of the LORD has done this,
and Israel’s Holy One has created it.”
21Bring out your case, says the LORD,
make your brief, says Jacob’s King.
22Let them bring out and tell us
that which will come about,
the first things, what are they, tell,
that we may pay heed and know the future,
what is to come make us hear.
23Tell the signs in advance
that we may know that you are gods.
Do either good or evil,
that we may be frightened and fear as well.
24Why, you are as naught
and your deeds are as nothing—
an abhorrence, who would choose you?
25I have roused him from the north, he has come,
from sunrise he invokes my name,
and he stomps on governors like mud,
as a potter tramples clay.
26Who has told from the first that we might know,
from beforehand that we might say, he is right?
But none has told, none has announced,
but none has heard Your sayings.
27First for Zion, here they are,
and for Jerusalem will I set a herald.
28I looked but there was no man,
whom I could ask and have them answer.
Their deeds are nothing,
mere wind and void their idols.
CHAPTER 41 NOTES
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1. and let nations renew their vigor. This second verset is scarcely a parallel member to the first verset of this line. The general scholarly hypothesis that this is an inadvertent scribal duplication of 40:31a seems quite likely. Perhaps this was originally a triadic line, that is, “Be still for me, you coastlands,” directly followed by “Let them draw near” and then “Together let us come. . . .”
come to trial. The trial, which is between advocates of the pagan gods and the one true God, runs through the chapter but will be followed explicitly in verses 21–24.
2. Who has stirred up victory from the east. Because of what is said in verse 4, this translation understands the reference to be to God, not to a king whom God is using as His instrument. But in all likelihood the historical event in view is the conquest of the Medes by Cyrus II in the years leading up to Persia’s capture of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. That imminent victory is something this prophet would have looked forward to eagerly.
4. calling the generations from the first. This somewhat unusual characterization of God establishes an important theological theme for the whole prophecy: God has been present from the very beginnings of history; nations, caught up in their internecine struggles in what is no more than a fleeting historical moment, have by comparison no value or substance. Thus God goes on to make the ringing declaration of the next line: “I the LORD am the first, / and with the last ones it is I.”
6–7. Each man helps . . . it not totter. The evocation of the enterprise of idol manufacture in this verse and the next seems out of place, and it is plausible that these lines were scribally misplaced from 40:18–20. These verses therefore are enclosed with brackets here.
9. whom I took up from the ends of the earth. Abraham was called by God to make his way from his native Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. The prophet envisages a similar trajectory for the descendants of Abraham, exiled to Mesopotamia.
10. My triumphant right hand. The noun tsedeq, which usually means “righteousness” in either the judicial sense (the just cause in court) or the ethical sense, here and in verse 2 means “triumph” or “victory.” In verse 2 the term is linked with God’s feet, here with His mighty arm.
12. as naught and as nothing. These prophecies abound in synonyms for nothingness to represent the nonentity of both nations and their gods—ʾayin, ʾefes, tohu, and ʾefa (verse 24)—although the anomalous last term may be a scribal error for ʾefes (in modern Hebrew, “zero”).
14. worm of Jacob. This ostensibly insulting designation is used to represent Israel in defeat and exile as lowly and downtrodden.
15. double edges. The Hebrew term is commonly used to characterize a double-edged sword (a sickle-shaped sword with only one cutting edge was more common), and so this word turns the threshing board into a weapon.
17. The poor and the needy. This verset is too long metrically (it has five accents where the general limit is four), and so it seems likely that one of these two synonyms is a scribal interpolation.
18. I will open rivers on the peaks. The desert landscape envisioned here that is about to be transformed into a verdant garden is probably not the wilderness to be crossed on the return to Zion but rather the land of Judah itself, devastated by the Babylonian conquerors and then at least partly left uncultivated because much of the population was exiled.
19. box tree and elm. The identification of these botanical items is a matter of guesswork.
20. created. The choice of verb is somewhat surprising, but “create” is probably used to suggest that the renewal of the land, after it has reverted to a state of chaos, is a kind of new creation.
21. your brief. The Hebrew noun derives from a root suggesting strength, so it might be taken to mean something like “strong arguments.”
22. Let them bring out and tell us / that which will come about. What is at issue in this court case is a conflict between false, pagan prophets and the true prophets that God alone can inspire.
that we may pay heed and know the future. This is sarcastic, a jibe directed at the false prophets: if you really have the gift of prophecy, tell us what the future will be.
24. as naught / . . . as nothing. A more literal reading would be “from naught . . . from nothing.”
25. I have roused him from the north. This new prophecy introduces a set of more strictly historical references. The Persian army threatening Babylonia in the sixth decade of the sixth century B.C.E. was advancing from the north, and the “he” in question is Cyrus II, the Persian emperor.
from sunrise. This could be a geographical indication, but since the east conflicts with the just mentioned north, it is perhaps used in a temporal sense: from the beginning of each day this king invokes God’s name.
26. Who has told from the first. These lines appear to pick up the theme of the failure of pagan prophecy from verses 21–24.
27. First for Zion, here they are. The Hebrew is rather cryptic here and may reflect a faulty text.
28. among them none gave counsel. This last verse continues the theme of the impotence and the abysmal ignorance of all pagan facsimiles of prophecy.
mere wind. The use of “wind” to designate what is without body or substance is close to an anticipation of Qohelet (“herding the wind”).