1:5 1 Why do you insist on being battered?
Why do you continue to rebel? 2
Your head has a massive wound, 3
your whole body is weak. 4
59:1 Look, the Lord’s hand is not too weak 5 to deliver you;
his ear is not too deaf to hear you. 6
1 sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).
2 tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”
3 tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”
4 tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).
5 tn Heb “short” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
6 tn Heb “or his ear too heavy [i.e., “dull”] to hear.”