1Hear this, house of Jacob,
who are called by the name of Israel
and came out from Judah’s womb,
and who invoke the God of Israel
neither in truth nor in righteousness.
2For from the holy city they have been called
and on Israel’s God they have leaned—
the LORD of Armies is His name.
3The first things of old have I told,
from My mouth they issued, I announced them,
of a sudden I did it and they came about.
4For I knew that you were hard,
and your neck was iron sinews
and your forehead brazen.
5And I told you of old,
before it came, I announced it to you,
lest you should say, “My idol did these.
My carved and molten images ordained them.”
6You have heard—behold it all,
and you, will you not tell?
I announced to you new things from hence
and hidden things you did not know.
7Now are they created and not long ago,
before this day, and you have not heard.
Thus you say, “Why, I did not know them.”
8You have never heard, you have never known,
of old, your ear was never open.
For I knew you would surely betray,
and from the womb you were called a rebel.
9For My name’s sake I will hold back My wrath
and for My glory I will be restrained toward you
so as not to cut you off.
10Look, I have refined you but not as silver,
I have purged you in the forge of affliction.
11For My sake, for My sake, I do it,
And My glory I will not give to another.
12Listen to Me, O Jacob,
and Israel, whom I have called.
I am He, I am the first,
and I am the last as well.
13Indeed, My hand founded the earth,
and My right hand spread out the heavens
I summon them,
they stand together.
14Gather, all of you, and listen!
Who among you has told these things?
The LORD loves him, shall do his desire.
against Babylonia, and his arm against the Chaldeans.
15I, I have spoken, even called him,
I have brought him and made his way prosper.
16Draw close to me, and hear this:
Not from the first did I speak in secret,
from when it came into being, there I was.
And now, the Master, the LORD,
17Thus said the LORD, your Redeemer,
Israel’s Holy One:
I am the LORD your God,
Who teaches you to avail,
guides you on the way you should go.
18Had you heeded My commands,
your well-being would have been like a river
and your bounty like the waves of the sea.
19And your seed beyond number like sand
and the offspring of your loins like its grains.
Its name before Me
would not be cut off and not be destroyed.
20Go out from Babylonia,
flee from the Chaldeans.
With a sound of glad song tell,
make this heard:
They have brought him out to the end of the earth.
Say—the LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob.
21And they did not thirst in the parched land where He led them.
Water from a rock He made flow for them.
There is no well-being, said the LORD, for the wicked.
CHAPTER 48 NOTES
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
1. house of Jacob, / who are called by the name of Israel. Although it is a regular procedure in poetic parallelism to use “Jacob” (the primary term) in the first verset and “Israel” (the name to which “Jacob” was changed) in the second verset, the wording here looks as if it may be a gloss on the two names. Formerly “Israel” designated the northern kingdom, but since that kingdom was destroyed, the name has been attached to the Judahites as well, who now constitute the entire people. This adoption of the national name is further explained by the third verset, “who came out from Judah’s womb.”
and who invoke the God of Israel / neither in truth nor in righteousness. The end of this whole two-line sentence is a barbed reversal: the people of Judah, now calling itself “Israel,” invokes the God of Israel—but falsely and hypocritically.
3. The first things of old have I told. As earlier, YHWH’s authenticity as the one overmastering God is manifested in His power to foretell what will happen in the future through His prophets.
4. For I knew that you were hard. The essential element of God’s knowledge is His recognition of Israel’s stubborn recalcitrance to live up to its covenantal obligations, which will inexorably bring about the national disasters predicted by the prophets.
7. Now are they created. The historical eventualities long predicted by the prophets are even now being shaped and happening.
8. your ear was never open. The reiterated theme of spiritual deafness and blindness is a notion that this prophet appears to have picked up from Isaiah 6.
9. For My name’s sake I will hold back My wrath. The prophet invokes a recurrent biblical idea: that God’s reputation in the world would suffer if He allowed Israel to be utterly destroyed, and for that reason He in the end spares Israel, despite its disloyalty.
10. I have purged you in the forge of affliction. This is the other component of God’s plan for Israel: the people’s treacherous behavior earns it punishment, and the punishment has a purging function, bringing the people to its senses about what it has done and leading it to change its ways.
11. for how could I be profaned. This whole line picks up the idea of verse 9: if God were to allow Israel to perish in exile, His name would be profaned, His glory surrendered, and so He is now prepared to intercede on behalf of his people.
14. The LORD loves him. The pronominal object of the verb here is Cyrus. It may seem extravagant to say that the LORD loves a foreign emperor, but the sense in context is that God, using Cyrus as the instrument in a divine historical plan, has chosen to give full support to Cyrus’s imperial ambitions and to enable him to subdue Babylonia.
15. even called him. As often in biblical Hebrew, the multipurpose verb “call” has the sense of “summon,” “single out for a mission.”
16. Not from the first did I speak in secret. While there is no introductory formula, the next line of poetry makes it clear that the speaker of these words is the prophet, not God. From the moment of his dedication as prophet, he has spoken openly and plainly about what God has set out to do in history. These two lines of poetry constitute a kind of coda or closing frame to the prophecy spoken by God that begins in verse 12.
has sent me with His spirit. The Masoretic Text reads “has sent me and His spirit,” emended in this translation by substituting for the initial particle we (“and”) the particle be (“with” or “in”). More elaborate emendations have been proposed but seem unnecessary.
18. bounty. The Hebrew tsedaqah has at least three meanings: “righteousness,” “victory,” and “bounty.” In the present context, the third of these seems most likely.
19. beyond number. This idiom, often attached to “sand,” is merely implied in the Hebrew.
20. Go out from Babylonia. This new prophecy makes explicit the vision of a return to Zion. That event in fact did not occur until almost a century later, and many of the exiles chose not to return.
21. Water from a rock He made flow for them. Though this line clearly invokes the miraculous providing of water to the Israelites in their wanderings in the wilderness, that divine intervention long ago is envisaged here as a miracle to be reenacted when the exiles make the long trek back from Babylonia to Judah.
There is no well-being, said the LORD, for the wicked. The logical link of this third verset to the two preceding ones is weaker, and this may well be an interpolated sentence.