Discovery BoxIsaiah 54:4-6 
Context54:4 Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame!
Don’t be intimidated, 1 for you will not be humiliated!
You will forget about the shame you experienced in your youth;
you will no longer remember the disgrace of your abandonment. 2
54:5 For your husband is the one who made you –
the Lord who commands armies is his name.
He is your protector, 3 the Holy One of Israel. 4
He is called “God of the entire earth.”
54:6 “Indeed, the Lord will call you back
like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, 5
like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God.
1 tn Or “embarrassed”; NASB “humiliated…disgraced.”
2 tn Another option is to translate, “the disgrace of our widowhood” (so NRSV). However, the following context (vv. 6-7) refers to Zion’s husband, the Lord, abandoning her, not dying. This suggests that an אַלְמָנָה (’almanah) was a woman who had lost her husband, whether by death or abandonment.
3 tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.
4 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
5 tn Heb “like a woman abandoned and grieved in spirit.”
