The wild beasts will honor me: The wild beasts are the wild animals of the desert. Honor may be rendered “praise.” The wild animals will praise Yahweh for what he is about to do. Even though they will not literally praise him, they will be grateful. In poetry most cultures are able to speak about animals and inanimate things as though they are human, able to do things that humans do.

The jackals and the ostriches: This line identifies two specific desert animals that will praise Yahweh. The verb honor is implied here. For jackals and ostriches, see the comments on 13.21-22 and 34.13. For languages that do not have these animals, translators may combine this line with the previous one, saying “The wild animals in the deserts will praise me.”

For I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people: The desert animals will praise God because of the water they receive from him, but primarily they will praise him because of the water he provides for his people as they return from exile. Traveling through the desert requires access to reliable sources of water along the way. I give water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert are parallel lines, so I give is implied in the latter one. Good News Translation combines them by saying “I make rivers flow in the desert,” which may be a helpful model for other languages. For wilderness and desert, see the previous verse. The expression my chosen people occurs only here in Isaiah, but it clearly refers to Israel (see 41.8).

Verses 20-21 are one long sentence in Hebrew. Good News Translation divides it into two sentences by beginning a new one at the beginning of verse 21, which other languages may find helpful (see also our second examples for both verses).

Translation examples for this verse are:

• Wild animals will praise me,
including jackals and owls,
because I supply water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to provide water for my chosen people to drink….

• Wild animals that live in those dry places will honor me,
because I provide water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
so that my chosen people may drink.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .