1. your Creator . . . and your Fashioner. The prophet picks up the two terms for creation used, respectively, in the P version of the Creation story (Genesis 1–2:3), and in the J version (Genesis 2:4ff), the first, a word for creation tout court, the second a more anthropomorphic term for the fashioning of clay by a potter.

2. Should you pass through water . . . / Should you walk through fire. This image of coming out unscathed from extreme dangers speaks to the plight of an audience that has undergone the trauma of exile and captivity. The continuing power of these words of assurance is attested by Shmuel Hanagid, the great eleventh-century Hebrew poet of Granada, who was addressed with this verse in a dream and held it close as a kind of talisman during his dangerous campaigns as commander of Granada’s army.

3. For I am the LORD, your God. This prophecy abounds in declarations like this one of God’s name and identity as the only God. These may be a deliberate echoing of God’s declaration to Moses at the burning bush.

I have made Egypt your ransom, / Nubia and Saba in your stead. The people of Israel until now has been captive to Babylonia. The prophet anticipates that the conquering Cyrus will liberate them now and that these other peoples will be taken captive in their stead. This idea of one prisoner substituted for another is continued in the next verse: “I put people in your stead / and nations instead of your life.”

5–6. From the east / . . . from the west / . . . / to the north / . . . to the south. Attempts to give these lines a set of precise historical referents are misplaced. It is true that there were diaspora communities not only in Mesopotamia to the east but also in Egypt and elsewhere. But the point of invoking the four points of the compass is the sweep of poetic hyperbole: wherever God’s people have been scattered, even at “the end of the earth,” He will now gather them in.

8. blind / . . . the deaf. The metaphorical use of these terms is consistent with their previous use (see 42:16, 18–20); their figurative sense is made explicit here by the addition of “that yet has eyes / . . . that yet have ears.”

10. I am the One. This could also be rendered as “I am He.” It is perhaps the strongest of God’s declarations of His uncontested status as God because of its sheer directness and simplicity.

11. I, I am the LORD, / and besides Me there is no rescuer. God is said to prove His divinity by rescuing His downtrodden people.

12. I Myself told and rescued and made it heard. These verbs indicate a process that probably refers in the first instance to the exodus from Egypt: God first assured Moses, “I am with you” (the verb “told” here), then carried out His promise by rescuing the Israelites from Egypt, then made sure that the story of liberation would be passed on to future generations.

14. brought down all the bars. The meaning of the Hebrew noun barihim is disputed, but given the fact that exile is repeatedly represented by this prophet as imprisonment, the most likely sense is the bars that bolt the doors of a prison. Although the verbal stem b-r-h does mean “to flee,” there is no attested use in the Bible of bariah as “fugitive” (a mere grammatical possibility), a sense claimed by some for the word here.

turned the glad song of Chaldeans to laments. The Masoretic Text has ʾoniyot, “ships,” which does not make much sense, and the Chaldeans were scarcely a seafaring people. The translation revocalizes that noun as ʾaniyot, “laments.”

16. Who makes a way in the sea / and a path in fierce waters. This is clearly a reference to the parting of the Sea of Reeds in Exodus 14–15. That recollection is continued in the next verse in God’s leading chariot and horse to destruction.

17. to destruction. The Hebrew says only “leads out” (or “brings out”), but with the background of the story in Exodus, destruction is surely implied.

flickered out like a wick, were extinguished. In Exodus 15, the Egyptians sink in the water like a stone or like lead. Here the poet appears to be playing with similes, likening the sinking of the Egyptian in water to the contrasting image of a smoldering wick going out.

18. Do not recall the first things. Given the immediate context, these may be the events that occurred at the Sea of Reeds. Those were, it is implied, great signs and wonders, but the miracle God is about to perform is a wholly new thing.

19. I will make a way in the desert. The great highway in the desert that God will lay down for the return from exile is a symmetrical antithesis to the “way in the sea” (v. 16) He made for Israel in its first liberation from servitude. History is thus seen in a pattern of cyclical recurrences, with differences.

20. The beast of the field shall honor Me. That is, the miraculous nature of the return to Zion through the desert is to be confirmed by the fact that the very beasts of the wilderness will look in awe as God causes water sources to spring up in parched land for the sake of His people, and predators will not attack the returning exiles.

22. But not Me did you invoke, O Jacob. These words of castigation mark the beginning of a new prophecy.

23. You have not brought Me sheep for your burnt offerings. This statement would most plausibly refer to the time when the Temple was still standing. But it is an unusual reference: more characteristic of the prophets in the idea (see 1:11–15) that the people offer sacrifices mechanically while persisting in acts of turpitude.

I did not burden you with grain offerings. Grain offerings and incense would be the easiest kind of offering. God has not imposed anything burdensome on the people in requiring sacrifices, and yet they have neglected all these obligations.

24. cane. This is aromatic cane, qaneh, mentioned as an element of the incense used in the temple cult and also as one of the fragrances in the Song of Songs.

25. I wipe away your transgressions. This declaration of absolute remission of sins contradicts the castigation in the verses that precede and follow it. Conceivably, an editor introduced this line in an effort to mitigate the harshness of the condemnation. The contrast between “I do not recall” and the immediately following “Help me recall” might signal such an editorial effort.

27. Your first father offended. The reference is probably meant to be general and not to invoke Abraham: from as far back as can be recalled, your people has offended.

spokesmen. The term probably means advocates in a trial.

28. the sanctuary’s princes. These would be the priests in the national cult. What the entire line recalls is the destruction of Jerusalem.