1Who is this coming from Edom,
in ensanguined garments from Bosra?
striding in His great power.
“I speak out in triumph,
great for granting victory.”
2“Why is there red on your garments
and your clothes like one treading a winepress?”
3“In the vat I have trodden alone—
of the peoples, no one was with Me,
and I trampled them in My wrath,
stomped on them in My fury,
and their lifeblood splattered My garments,
all My clothes I have befouled.
4For it is vengeance day in My heart
and My vindication’s year has come.
5And I looked, and there was no helper,
and I stared—and there was no sustainer.
But My own arm made Me triumph,
and My wrath, it was this sustained Me.
6And I trampled peoples in My wrath
and made them drunk with My fury,
and shed their lifeblood on the ground.”
7The LORD’s acts of kindness I recall,
the praises of the LORD.
As for all that the LORD requited us,
and the great bounty to the house of Israel
whom He requited with His mercy
and with His many acts of kindness.
8And He said, “Why, they are My people,
children who do not betray,”
and He became their rescuer.
9In all their distress was He distressed,
and the agent of His presence rescued them.
In His love and in His compassion He redeemed them,
plucked them up and bore them all the days of yore.
10But they rebelled and pained
His Holy spirit,
and He became an enemy to them,
He fought against them.
11But He recalled the days of yore,
drawing His people out from the water:
Where is He Who brought them up from the sea,
the shepherds of His flock?
Where is He Who put in their midst
His holy spirit?
12Who led at the right hand of Moses
with His glorious arm,
split the waters before them
to make Him an everlasting name,
13leading them through the deep;
like a horse in the desert they did not stumble.
14Like cattle in the valley You guided them,
the LORD’s spirit guided them.
So you led Your people
to make You a glorious name.
15Look from the heavens and see,
from Your holy and glorious abode.
Where are Your zeal and Your might?
Your deep feeling and your compassion
are held back from me.
16Though Abraham did not know us
nor Israel recognize us,
You, LORD, are our Father,
our Redeemer of yore is Your name.
17Why should You make us stray, LORD, from Your ways,
why make our hearts callous to the fear of You?
Turn back for the sake of Your servants,
the tribes of Your estate.
18For a brief time Your holy people had possession—
our foes trampled Your sanctuary.
19We become like ones You never ruled,
on whom Your name was not called.
Would that You tore open the heavens, came down,
that the mountains melted before You,
CHAPTER 63 NOTES
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1. Who is this coming from Edom, / is ensanguined garments from Bosra? The first six verses of this chapter are the most vivid—and grisly—representation in biblical poetry of YHWH as a warrior-god. The image of God trampling the vineyard would be picked up in the Book of Revelation and then would be used at the beginning of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Edom. If one may judge by Psalm 137, Edom took an eager role in collaborating with the Babylonian invaders in 586 B.C.E. and was thus singled out by the Judahites as a particular object of hatred. It is conceivable that this prophecy was composed not long after 586.
ensanguined. The adjective ḥamuts is unusual, and it is not the ordinary word for “red.” It nevertheless refers through the color to the name “Edom,” which is associated with ʾadom, “red,” as one clearly sees in the naming of Esau in Genesis 25:30. In the story of the stealing of the blessing (chapter 27), Jacob puts on the “finery” that belongs to his brother Esau, but Yair Zakovitch proposes that the Hebrew word used for these, ḥamudot, is a scribal or editorial substitution for ḥamatsot, the adjective that occurs here.
glorious in attire. In a provocative leap, the blood-splattered garments are glorious attire.
2. Why is there red on your garments. The form of question and response between an anonymous observer (perhaps the prophet but not necessarily) and God is quite unusual in biblical poetry.
like one treading a winepress. The association between wine and blood is not only because of the color red but also because a kenning for wine in biblical poetry, inherited from the Ugaritic, is “blood of the grape” (see Genesis 49:11).
5. But My own arm made Me triumph. This is a very different view from that of Second Isaiah, in which Cyrus acts as God’s agent in history, but this prophecy may antedate the advent of Cyrus by a century or more.
6. made them drunk with My fury. The metaphor of drunkenness is enhanced by the fact that the word for “fury” has a homonym that means “venom,” a lethal liquid that can be imbibed.
7. The LORD’s acts of kindness I recall. These words signal the beginning of a new poem with an entirely different theme. If we recall that “the LORD’s acts of kindness,” ḥasdey YHWH, is a recurrent motif in Pslams, the composition that begins here looks very much like a psalm—in this instance, a collective supplication that rehearses God’s bounty to Israel in times past and prays for the renewal of divine intervention to save the people.
11. But He recalled the days of yore. The recalling is stated as a completed fact, but that is somewhat confusing because in what follows God is repeatedly asked why He does not now come to the aid of Israel as He once did.
drawing His people out from the water. The Hebrew mosheh ʿamo should not be construed as “Moses his people,” which would make little sense. Instead, mosheh is used as a verb here, the verb with which the name of Moses is etymologized. This usage is clear because of the next line, “Where is He Who brought them up from the sea.” But the poet interprets the Moses story as he invokes the miracle at the Sea of Reeds: the infant Moses drawn from the water is a prefiguration of Israel saved from the waters as the sea is split open.
13. like a horse in the desert. The odd-looking simile again alludes to the story of the Sea of Reeds: the Egyptian horses all drowned in the waters of the sea, whereas a horse on the dry surface of the desert—the antithesis of the sea—does not stumble.
14. Like cattle in the valley You guided them. The Masoretic Text reads “as cattle goes down in the valley,” but three ancient versions have “You guided them” instead of “[it] goes down.”
15. Your deep feeling. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “the stirring [or roaring] of your innards.” The innards or bowels were thought to be the seat of compassion, and for this odd reason, “bowels” in eighteenth-century English came to mean, through the literalism of the King James Version, “compassion.”
16. Though Abraham did not know us. This is a rhetorical hypothesis contrary to fact: even if it were the case that Abraham did not know us, God would still be our Father.
17. Why should You make us stray. The theological reasoning is: since God causes all things, if we have strayed it must be somehow because He has decreed it, and so we are not entirely to blame.
18. For a brief time Your holy people had possession. The meaning of this whole verset is in doubt. Scholars have performed radical surgery on the received text, but their results are equally doubtful.
19. the mountains melted before You. The chapter ends on a comma because this sentence continues through the first verse of chapter 64, and the entire prophecy begun in verse 7 goes on until the end of chapter 64.