Discovery BoxIsaiah 1:2 
Context1:2 Listen, O heavens,
pay attention, O earth! 1
For the Lord speaks:
“I raised children, 2 I brought them up, 3
but 4 they have rebelled 5 against me!
Isaiah 13:18
Context13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; 6
they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, 7
they will not 8 look with pity on children.
Isaiah 48:19
Context48:19 Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand, 9
and your children 10 like its granules.
Their name would not have been cut off
and eliminated from my presence. 11
Isaiah 54:3
Context54:3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your children will conquer 12 nations
and will resettle desolate cities.
Isaiah 57:4-5
Context57:4 At whom are you laughing?
At whom are you opening your mouth
and sticking out your tongue?
You are the children of rebels,
the offspring of liars, 13
57:5 you who practice ritual sex 14 under the oaks and every green tree,
who slaughter children near the streams under the rocky overhangs. 15
1 sn The personified heavens and earth are summoned to God’s courtroom as witnesses against God’s covenant people. Long before this Moses warned the people that the heavens and earth would be watching their actions (see Deut 4:26; 30:19; 31:28; 32:1).
2 tn Or “sons” (NAB, NASB).
sn “Father” and “son” occur as common terms in ancient Near Eastern treaties and covenants, delineating the suzerain and vassal as participants in the covenant relationship. The prophet uses these terms, the reference to heavens and earth as witnesses, and allusions to deuteronomic covenant curses (1:7-9, 19-20) to set his prophecy firmly against the backdrop of Israel’s covenantal relationship with Yahweh.
3 sn The normal word pair for giving birth to and raising children is יָלַד (yalad, “to give birth to”) and גָּדַל (gadal, “to grow, raise”). The pair גָּדַל and רוּם (rum, “to raise up”) probably occur here to highlight the fact that Yahweh made something important of Israel (cf. R. Mosis, TDOT 2:403).
4 sn Against the backdrop of Yahweh’s care for his chosen people, Israel’s rebellion represents abhorrent treachery. The conjunction prefixed to a nonverbal element highlights the sad contrast between Yahweh’s compassionate care for His people and Israel’s thankless rebellion.
5 sn To rebel carries the idea of “covenant treachery.” Although an act of פֶּשַׁע (pesha’, “rebellion”) often signifies a breach of the law, the legal offense also represents a violation of an existing covenantal relationship (E. Carpenter and M. Grisanti, NIDOTTE 3:707).
6 tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.
7 tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”
8 tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.
9 tn Heb “like sand”; NCV “as many as the grains of sand.”
10 tn Heb “and the issue from your inner parts.”
11 tn Heb “and his name would not be cut off and would not be destroyed from before me.”
12 tn Or “take possession of”; NAB “shall dispossess.”
13 tn Heb “Are you not children of rebellion, offspring of a lie?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “Of course you are!”
14 tn Heb “inflame yourselves”; NRSV “burn with lust.” This verse alludes to the practice of ritual sex that accompanied pagan fertility rites.
15 sn This apparently alludes to the practice of child sacrifice (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).
