Discovery BoxIsaiah 58:7-12 
Context58:7 I want you 1 to share your food with the hungry
and to provide shelter for homeless, oppressed people. 2
When you see someone naked, clothe him!
Don’t turn your back on your own flesh and blood! 3
58:8 Then your light will shine like the sunrise; 4
your restoration will quickly arrive; 5
your godly behavior 6 will go before you,
and the Lord’s splendor will be your rear guard. 7
58:9 Then you will call out, and the Lord will respond;
you will cry out, and he will reply, ‘Here I am.’
You must 8 remove the burdensome yoke from among you
and stop pointing fingers and speaking sinfully.
58:10 You must 9 actively help the hungry
and feed the oppressed. 10
Then your light will dispel the darkness, 11
and your darkness will be transformed into noonday. 12
58:11 The Lord will continually lead you;
he will feed you even in parched regions. 13
He will give you renewed strength, 14
and you will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring that continually produces water.
58:12 Your perpetual ruins will be rebuilt; 15
you will reestablish the ancient foundations.
You will be called, ‘The one who repairs broken walls,
the one who makes the streets inhabitable again.’ 16
1 tn Heb “Is it not?” The rhetorical question here expects a positive answer, “It is!”
2 tn Heb “and afflicted [ones], homeless [ones] you should bring [into] a house.” On the meaning of מְרוּדִים (mÿrudim, “homeless”) see HALOT 633 s.v. *מָרוּד.
3 tn Heb “and from your flesh do not hide yourself.”
4 tn Heb “will burst out like the dawn.”
sn Light here symbolizes God’s favor and restored blessing, as the immediately following context makes clear.
5 tn Heb “prosper”; KJV “spring forth speedily.”
6 tn Or “righteousness.” Their godly behavior will be on display for all to see.
7 sn The nation will experience God’s protective presence.
8 tn Heb “if you.” In the Hebrew text vv. 9b-10 are one long conditional sentence. The protasis (“if” clauses appear in vv. 9b-10a), with the apodosis (“then” clause) appearing in v. 10b.
9 tn Heb “if you.” See the note on “you must” in v. 9b.
10 tn Heb “If you furnish for the hungry [with] your being, and the appetite of the oppressed you satisfy.”
11 tn Heb “will rise in the darkness.”
12 tn Heb “and your darkness [will be] like noonday.”
13 tn Heb “he will satisfy in parched regions your appetite.”
14 tn Heb “and your bones he will strengthen.”
15 tn Heb “and they will build from you ancient ruins.”
16 tc The Hebrew text has “the one who restores paths for dwelling.” The idea of “paths to dwell in” is not a common notion. Some have proposed emending נְתִיבוֹת (nÿtivot, “paths”) to נְתִיצוֹת (nÿtitsot, “ruins”), a passive participle from נָתַץ (natats, “tear down”; see HALOT 732 s.v. *נְתִיצָה), because tighter parallelism with the preceding line is achieved. However, none of the textual sources support this emendation. The line may mean that paths must be repaired in order to dwell in the land.
