Logos Bible Study

Isaiah 40:18–25

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40:18To whom can you compare God?

To what image can you liken him?

40:19A craftsman casts40 an idol;

a metalsmith overlays it with gold

and forges silver chains for it.

40:20To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot;41

he then seeks a skilled craftsman

to make42 an idol that will not fall over.

40:21Do you not know?

Do you not hear?

Has it not been told to you since the very beginning?

Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made?

40:22He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon;43

its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him.44

He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain,45

and spreads it out46 like a pitched tent.47

40:23He is the one who reduces rulers to nothing;

he makes the earth’s leaders insignificant.

40:24Indeed, they are barely planted;

yes, they are barely sown;

yes, they barely take root in the earth,

and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up,

and the wind carries them away like straw.

40:25“To whom can you compare me? Whom do I resemble?”

says the Holy One.48

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Footnotes

  1. 40 Heb “pours out”; “melteth.”
  2. 41 The first two words of the verse (הַמְסֻכָּן תְּרוּמָה, hamsukan térumah) are problematic. Some take מְסֻכָּן as an otherwise unattested Pual participle from סָכַן (sakhan, “be poor”) and translate “the one who is impoverished.” תְּרוּמָה (térumah, “contribution”) can then be taken as an adverbial accusative, “with respect to a contribution,” and the entire line translated, “the one who is too impoverished for such a contribution [i.e., the metal idol of v. 19?] selects wood that will not rot.” However, מְסֻכָּן is probably the name of a tree used in idol manufacturing (cognate with Akkadian musukkanu, cf. H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [], 133). מְסֻכָּן may be a scribal interpretive addition attempting to specify עֵץ (’ets) or עֵץ may be a scribal attempt to categorize מְסֻכָּן. How an idol constitutes a תְּרוּמָה (“contribution”) is not entirely clear.
  3. 42 Or “set up” (, , , ); , “to prepare.”
  4. 43 Heb “the circle of the earth” (so , , , ).
  5. 44 The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
  6. 45 The otherwise unattested noun דֹּק (doq), translated here “thin curtain,” is apparently derived from the verbal root דקק (“crush”) from which is derived the adjective דַּק (daq, “thin”; see דקק). The nuance “curtain” is implied from the parallelism (see “tent” in the next line).
  7. 46 The meaning of the otherwise unattested verb מָתַח (matakh, “spread out”) is determined from the parallelism (note the corresponding verb “stretch out” in the previous line) and supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic cognates. See *מתה.
  8. 47 Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; , “like a tent to dwell (live , ) in.”
  9. 48 See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in .

The NET Bible First Edition, Copyright 1996-2005 by Biblical Studies Press