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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 54

1 “Shout for joy, O barren one who has not given birth! Give a joyful shout and cry out, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate one are more numerous than the children of the married woman,”⁠ says the Lord. 2 Make your tent larger, stretch your tent curtains farther out! Spare no effort, lengthen your ropes, and pound your stakes deep. 3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your children will conquer nations and will resettle desolate cities. 4 Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame. Don’t be intimidated, 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. 5 For your husband is the one who made you—the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name. He is your Protector, the Holy One of Israel. He is called “God of the entire earth.” 6 “Indeed, the Lord will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, like a young wife when she has been rejected,”⁠ says your God. 7 “For a short time I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you.⁠ 8 In a burst of anger I rejected you momentarily, but with lasting devotion I will have compassion on you,” says your Protector, the Lord. 9 “As far as I am concerned, this is like in Noah’s time, when I vowed that the waters of Noah’s flood would never again cover the earth.⁠ In the same way I have vowed that I will not be angry at you or shout at you.⁠ 10 Even if the mountains are removed and the hills displaced, my devotion will not be removed from you, nor will my covenant of friendship be displaced,” says the Lord, the one who has compassion on you. 11 “O afflicted one, driven away, and unconsoled! Look, I am about to set your stones in antimony and lay your foundation with lapis lazuli.⁠ 12 I will make your pinnacles out of gems, your gates out of beryl, and your outer wall out of beautiful stones. 13 All your children will be followers of the Lord, and your children will enjoy great prosperity.⁠ 14 You will be reestablished when I vindicate you. You will not experience oppression; indeed, you will not be afraid. You will not be terrified, for nothing frightening will come near you. 15 If anyone dares to challenge you, it will not be my doing! Whoever tries to challenge you will be defeated. 16 Look, I create the craftsman, who fans the coals into a fire and forges a weapon. I create the destroyer so he might devastate.⁠ 17 No weapon forged to be used against you will succeed; you will refute everyone who tries to accuse you. This is what the Lord will do for his servants—I will vindicate them,” says the Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 54:6 and Malachi 2:14

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Isaiah 54 and Malachi use the image of a wife from youth to describe commitment and abandonment. In Isaiah it depicts Zion as a wife briefly rejected and later restored, and in Malachi it describes broken faith within a covenant marriage.

Passages

Isaiah 54:6

Hebrew Bible
4 Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame. Don’t be intimidated, 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. 5 For your husband is the one who made you—the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name. He is your Protector, the Holy One of Israel. He is called “God of the entire earth.” 6 “Indeed, the Lord will call you back like a wife who has been abandoned and suffers from depression, like a young wife when she has been rejected,” says your God. 7 “For a short time I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. 8 In a burst of anger I rejected you momentarily, but with lasting devotion I will have compassion on you,” says your Protector, the Lord.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Malachi 2:14

Hebrew Bible
12 May the Lord cut off from the community of Jacob every last person who does this, as well as the person who presents improper offerings to the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! 13 You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you. 14 Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. 15 No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. What did our ancestor do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. 16 “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Malachi

References

"... In Proverbs 5:18 and Malachi 2:14, the “wife of one’s youth” describes a spouse to whom a man should be intimately committed. Conversely, Proverbs 2:17 rebukes the immoral woman who abandons the partner of her youth. The deserted spouse of one’s youth is thereby regarded as the innocent party. The description of the forsaken wife in Isaiah 54:6-8 also alludes to Lamentations 5. The words reused in Isaiah 54:6-8 are indicated in Lamentations 5:20-22 ... Willey points out that [these words] appear together nowhere else except in Lamentations 5:22 and Isaiah 54:4, 6-8 ... The appearance of this unique cluster of words in practically the same order shows that Deutero-Isaiah again alludes to Lamentations 5:20-22. Also, the theme of these two texts concerns YHWH abandoning the people / Zion in anger during the exile. However, in Lamentations 5, the abandoned people admit their culpability (Lamentations 5:7, 16), while Zion is portrayed by Deutero-Isaiah simply as the abandoned and possibly wronged wife of YHWH’s youth ..."
Maggie Low, Mother Zion in Deutero-Isaiah: A Metaphor for Zion Theology, StBibLit 155 (New York: Peter Lang, 2013), 104–105.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 54:6 and Malachi 2:14

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