1:26 I will reestablish honest judges as in former times,
wise advisers as in earlier days. 1
Then you will be called, ‘The Just City,
Faithful Town.’”
19:12 But where, oh where, are your wise men? 2
Let them tell you, let them find out
what the Lord who commands armies has planned for Egypt.
29:14 Therefore I will again do an amazing thing for these people –
an absolutely extraordinary deed. 3
Wise men will have nothing to say,
the sages will have no explanations.” 4
44:25 who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers 5
and humiliates 6 the omen readers,
who overturns the counsel of the wise men 7
and makes their advice 8 seem foolish,
1 tn Heb “I will restore your judges as in the beginning; and your counselors as in the beginning.” In this context, where social injustice and legal corruption are denounced (see v. 23), the “judges” are probably government officials responsible for making legal decisions, while the “advisers” are probably officials who helped the king establish policies. Both offices are also mentioned in 3:2.
2 tn Heb “Where are they? Where are your wise men?” The juxtaposition of the interrogative pronouns is emphatic. See HALOT 38 s.v. אֶי.
3 tn Heb “Therefore I will again do something amazing with these people, an amazing deed, an amazing thing.” This probably refers to the amazing transformation predicted in vv. 17-24, which will follow the purifying judgment implied in vv. 15-16.
4 tn Heb “the wisdom of their wise ones will perish, the discernment of their discerning ones will keep hidden.”
5 tc The Hebrew text has בַּדִּים (baddim), perhaps meaning “empty talkers” (BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד). In the four other occurrences of this word (Job 11:3; Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30; 50:36) the context does not make the meaning of the term very clear. Its primary point appears to be that the words spoken are meaningless or false. In light of its parallelism with “omen readers,” some have proposed an emendation to בָּרִים (barim, “seers”). The Mesopotamian baru-priests were divination specialists who played an important role in court life. See R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 93-98. Rather than supporting an emendation, J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:189, n. 79) suggests that Isaiah used בַּדִּים purposively as a derisive wordplay on the Akkadian word baru (in light of the close similarity of the d and r consonants).
6 tn Or “makes fools of” (NIV, NRSV); NAB and NASB both similar.
7 tn Heb “who turns back the wise” (so NRSV); NIV “overthrows the learning of the wise”; TEV “The words of the wise I refute.”
8 tn Heb “their knowledge” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).