Discovery BoxIsaiah 49:18-23 
ContextAll of them gather to you.
As surely as I live,” says the Lord,
“you will certainly wear all of them like jewelry;
you will put them on as if you were a bride.
49:19 Yes, your land lies in ruins;
it is desolate and devastated. 2
But now you will be too small to hold your residents,
and those who devoured you will be far away.
49:20 Yet the children born during your time of bereavement
will say within your hearing,
‘This place is too cramped for us, 3
make room for us so we can live here.’ 4
49:21 Then you will think to yourself, 5
‘Who bore these children for me?
I was bereaved and barren,
dismissed and divorced. 6
Who raised these children?
Look, I was left all alone;
where did these children come from?’”
49:22 This is what the sovereign Lord says:
“Look I will raise my hand to the nations;
I will raise my signal flag to the peoples.
They will bring your sons in their arms
and carry your daughters on their shoulders.
49:23 Kings will be your children’s 7 guardians;
their princesses will nurse your children. 8
With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you
and they will lick the dirt on 9 your feet.
Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;
those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.
1 tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see.”
2 tn Heb “Indeed your ruins and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction.” This statement is abruptly terminated in the Hebrew text and left incomplete.
3 tn Heb “me.” The singular is collective.
4 tn Heb “draw near to me so I can dwell.”
5 tn Heb “and you will say in your heart.”
6 tn Or “exiled and thrust away”; NIV “exiled and rejected.”
7 tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).
8 tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.
9 tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”
