2:8 Their land is full of worthless idols;
they worship 1 the product of their own hands,
what their own fingers have fashioned.
28:11 For with mocking lips and a foreign tongue
he will speak to these people. 2
41:29 Look, all of them are nothing, 3
their accomplishments are nonexistent;
their metal images lack any real substance. 4
46:2 Together they bend low and kneel down;
they are unable to rescue the images; 5
they themselves 6 head off into captivity. 7
1 tn Or “bow down to” (NIV, NRSV).
2 sn This verse alludes to the coming Assyrian invasion, when the people will hear a foreign language that sounds like gibberish to them. The Lord is the subject of the verb “will speak,” as v. 12 makes clear. He once spoke in meaningful terms, but in the coming judgment he will speak to them, as it were, through the mouth of foreign oppressors. The apparent gibberish they hear will be an outward reminder that God has decreed their defeat.
3 tc The Hebrew text has אָוֶן (’aven, “deception,” i.e., “false”), but the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has אין (“nothing”), which forms a better parallel with אֶפֶס (’efes, “nothing”) in the next line. See also 40:17 and 41:12.
4 tn Heb “their statues are wind and nothing”; NASB “wind and emptiness”; NIV “wind and confusion.”
5 tn Heb “[the] burden,” i.e., their images, the heavy burden carried by the animals.
6 tn נַפְשָׁם (nafsham, “their souls/lives”) is equivalent here to a third masculine plural suffix, but the third feminine singular verb הָלָכָה (halakhah, “they go”) agrees with the feminine noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, life”).
7 sn The downfall of Babylon is depicted here. The idols are carried off by the victorious enemy; the gods are likened to defeated captives who cower before the enemy and are taken into exile.