1. the divorce writ of your mother, / whom I have sent away. The trope of the people of Israel as God’s bride is now extended to the alienation of Israel from God, which is represented as divorce. The wife has been “sent away” (the technical verb used for divorcing a woman) because she has misbehaved—implicitly, because she has betrayed YHWH with other lovers, other gods. As the metaphor is developed, we see that she has been not only divorced but sold into slavery, a condition that jibes with that of the subjugated exiles.

2. Why, when I roar, I dry up the sea. Out of context, it may appear unseemly that God should boast of His divine powers. In the present context, the point is that Israel somehow has failed to take note of God’s all-powerful nature: He certainly would have been able to save them, had they been worthy of it, and He also has the power to wreak devastating destruction, turning rivers into dry desert and enveloping the bright sky with darkness.

4. has given me / a skilled tongue. The prophet now speaks autobiographically. He has been granted the gift of language—he is after all a fine poet, and he is surely conscious of his ability. The phrase “a skilled tongue” is literally “the disciples’ tongue,” that is, a tongue that has been rigorously trained. The same Hebrew word appears in conjunction with “testimony” at the end of this verse, where it has been translated as “disciples.”

to proffer. The anomalous Hebrew verb is understood only by context here.

5. for I, I did not rebel. Having been vouchsafed revelation (“the Master, the LORD, has opened my ear”), the prophet does not shirk the burden of his mission, even if he knows that his message will encounter harsh resistance.

6. My back I gave to the floggers. There is a long tradition of Christian interpretation that refers this entire verse to Christ. What the prophet is speaking about is his own experience: while most of his prophetic message has been a discourse of consolation, it is easy enough to imagine that his soaring vision of a splendid restoration to Zion would have been seen by many in his audiences as an outrageous pipe dream, an insult to their continuing plight as exiles, and some would have responded by mocking, insulting, even roughing up the prophet as he tried to address them.

plucked my beard. “Beard” is merely implied in the Hebrew by the verb used and the reference in the Hebrew to “cheeks.”

7. and so I was not disgraced. The prophet, knowing that he speaks for God and is supported by God, does not feel really shamed even in the midst of public humiliation, and he can set his face hard as flint even as it is spat upon and his beard torn.

8. My Vindicator is close. The prophet now represents his suffering vilification at the hands of his audience through a legal metaphor: whoever accuses him will be found wrong in a court of law.

10. Who among you fears the LORD. Now, in a kind of peroration to this prophecy, the prophet turns back to his audience.

who has walked in darkness. Darkness and light are obviously archetypal images, but this prophet is especially fond of them and rings the changes on them in his poetry. This particular verset might be a deliberate allusion to Isaiah 9:1: “The people walking in darkness / have seen a great light.”

radiance. The Hebrew nogah is strictly poetic diction and suggests something grander than mere “light,” which is the English equivalent used in most previous translations.

11. But all you who glow hot with fire. The poet now turns around the imagery of the light 180 degrees. Instead of the radiance God provides that liberates from darkness, there are those who prefer the light generated by their own fire. Whether this is simply arrogant self-reliance or the false light of fabricated gods is not clear. But this is a destructive source of light, its burning rather than its illumination salient in the language of these lines.