1. brushwood. The Hebrew term appears only here, but the context suggests this sense.

to let Your name be known to Your foes. God’s omnipotence is manifested on earth as He descends amid seismic upheavals in all His power.

2. before You the mountains melted. The language is reminiscent of the Song of Deborah. Compare Judges 5:5.

3. He acts for those who wait for Him. The switch from second-person to third-person reference to the same subject is characteristic biblical usage.

4. You struck him who delights in doing justice. This appears to be an abrupt transition on the argument of the poem. In times past, God showed His fearsome power in acting on behalf of Israel. Now, however, even those who pursue justice are the victims of His wrath. This negative construction of the verb pagaʿ, which can mean either “to strike” (usually fatally) or “to encounter,” is supported by the report of divine rage in the next line.

You raged, and so we offended, / when You hid Yourself we transgressed. This line extends the theological understanding of 63:17: Israel’s transgressions are the consequence of God’s rage and the hiding of His face rather than their cause.

5. a filthy rag. The Hebrew ʿidim is another word unique to this text, and the translation simply reflects the understanding of interpretive consensus.

6. gave us over. This translation reads instead of the Masoretic watemugeinu (“you melted us”) watemageinu, a reading reflected in three ancient versions.

10. Our holy house . . . / consumed by fire. The language here clearly indicates that the Temple has not yet been rebuilt, and this poem may well have been written shortly after the destruction of 586 B.C.E. Scholars have noted several points of similarity in the language of this prophecy with Lamentations.

11. For these will You hold back, O LORD. This plea concludes the collective supplication: in light of the terrible devastation—Jerusalem turned into a desolate place, the Temple in ruins, the whole people cast off like a filthy rag—God must surely relent His fury and restore Zion. All this is very far from the upbeat vision of national redemption articulated by Second Isaiah and almost certainly reflects an earlier historical moment.