Add parallel Print Page Options

11 Disaster will overtake you;
you will not know how to charm it away.[a]
Destruction will fall on you;
you will not be able to appease it.
Calamity will strike you suddenly,
before you recognize it.[b]
12 Persist[c] in trusting[d] your amulets
and your many incantations,
which you have faithfully recited[e] since your youth!
Maybe you will be successful[f]
maybe you will scare away disaster.[g]
13 You are tired out from listening to so much advice.[h]
Let them take their stand—
the ones who see omens in the sky,
who gaze at the stars,
who make monthly predictions—
let them rescue you from the disaster that is about to overtake you![i]

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 47:11 tc The Hebrew text has שַׁחְרָהּ (shakhrah), which is either a suffixed noun (“its dawning,” i.e., origin) or infinitive (“to look early for it”). Some have suggested an emendation to שַׁחֲדָהּ (shakhadah), a suffixed infinitive from שָׁחַד (shakhad, “[how] to buy it off”; see BDB 1005 s.v. שָׁחַד). This forms a nice parallel with the following couplet. The above translation is based on a different etymology of the verb in question. HALOT 1466 s.v. III שׁחר references a verbal root with these letters (שׁחד) that refers to magical activity.
  2. Isaiah 47:11 tn Heb “you will not know”; NIV “you cannot foresee.”
  3. Isaiah 47:12 tn Heb “stand” (so KJV, ASV); NASB, NRSV “Stand fast.”
  4. Isaiah 47:12 tn The word “trusting” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See v. 9.
  5. Isaiah 47:12 tn Heb “in that which you have toiled.”
  6. Isaiah 47:12 tn Heb “maybe you will be able to profit.”
  7. Isaiah 47:12 tn Heb “maybe you will cause to tremble.” The object “disaster” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See the note at v. 9.
  8. Isaiah 47:13 tn Heb “you are tired because of the abundance of your advice.”
  9. Isaiah 47:13 tn Heb “let them stand and rescue you—the ones who see omens in the sky, who gaze at the stars, who make known by months—from those things which are coming upon you.”