Isaiah predicts a day of judgment against Babel (13:6, 9, 13; cf. 13:22)l but that same day will be rest for the people of God (14:3). When Yahweh judges Babel, Israel will enjoy Sabbath ( shabat , “cease,” is used twice in v. 4); they will be Noahs, resting ( noach , 14:3) after the flood.
What are they resting from? 14:3 has three min phrases that describe the triple affliction “from” which Yahweh delivers them. First “sorrow” ( otzeb ), a word that can also mean refer to the idols that bring sorrow (cf. Isaiah 48:5). Then fear ( rogen ), and finally hard service ( abodah haqqashah ), the very phrase used for the hard service of Israel in Egypt (Exodus 1:14). On His day, Yahweh will deliver Israel from Egypti-like taskmasters and oppressors (14:4; cf. Exodus 3:7; 5:6).
The triple affliction is also fourfold: sorrow, fear, service, hard. And the affliction is also described in seven key words: sorrow, fear, service, hard, which, serve, in-it. It is an affliction that fills Israel to the four corners, an affliction that persists through seven days. But from all that, the Lord will deliver in His day.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Letters
Joshua T. Katz’s (“Pure Episcopalianism,” May 2025) reason for a theologically conservative person joining a theologically liberal…
The Revival of Patristics
On May 25, 1990, the renowned patristics scholar Charles Kannengiesser, S.J., delivered a lecture at the annual…
The Enduring Legacy of the Spanish Mystics
Last autumn, I spent a few days at my family’s coastal country house in northwestern Spain. The…
