Good News Translation makes it clear that there is a change in speaker here from verse 14 by adding “So the LORD answers” (similarly Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).
Yahweh’s response to Zion’s complaint builds on the verb “forget,” but the response is indirect. He asks a rhetorical question that appears unrelated to what Zion said. But the underlying meaning of the question is as follows: Is God really able to forsake his commitment to the city? The implied answer is “No!” which is the same answer to the rhetorical question about whether a mother can forget her child. The negative answer is reenforced by stating that even in the highly unlikely case that a woman might forget her baby, Yahweh will never forget Zion.
Can a woman forget her sucking child…? is a question that expects a strong negative answer: “No, she cannot!” A woman could never forget the child to which she gave birth and is feeding at her breast. Her sucking child renders a Hebrew noun for an infant, a newborn child. This noun comes from the same root as the verb meaning “to suck.” Many versions maintain a reference to a baby that is still breast-feeding; for example, New International Version has “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast…?” (similarly Revised English Bible), and Bible en français courant says “Does a woman forget the child she is nursing?” Good News Translation is shorter with “Can a woman forget her own baby…?”
That she should have no compassion on the son of her womb completes the question. It reads literally “from having compassion on the son of her womb,” which means “Is there any way in which that woman can exclude compassion from her son?” For the Hebrew verb rendered have … compassion, see the comments on verse 10, where the same verb is translated “has pity.” Son has the general sense of “child” here. The added phrase of her womb underlines the intimate link between the mother and her child that makes a lack of compassion on the part of the mother impossible. The noun womb occurred earlier in verses 1 and 5. Like Good News Translation, New International Version omits a reference to the womb by rendering this line as “and have no compassion on the child she has borne.”
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you: The LORD states that even if it were possible for a woman to forget her child, he will not forget his people. Even if a mother dismissed her child from her mind, Yahweh is not like that. Even may be rendered “Even if” to mark a possible but unlikely condition. The plural demonstrative pronoun these is unexpected since it refers back to the mother in the first half of the verse. The Septuagint renders this pronoun as “a woman.” Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version are similar with “a mother.” New International Version and Bible en français courant use the pronoun “she.” I will not forget you is a forceful conclusion since the pronoun I is emphatic in Hebrew. This pronoun occurs both independently and as a verbal affix in the Hebrew text. To reflect this emphasis the clause may be rendered “I, I will not forget you” or even “as for me, I will never….” The verb forget is used three times in this response, emphasizing rhetorically that God has not forgotten his city and its people.
Translation examples for this verse are:
• “Can a woman forget her newborn infant,
and show no love for the child she bore?”
Even if these [or, she] could forget,
I in no way could forget you.
• “Can a woman forget her newborn child,
and fail to love the one to whom she gave birth?”
Perhaps a mother could forget her child,
but there is no way that I could forget you.
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 .