מַדּ֨וּעַ בָּ֜אתִי וְאֵ֣ין אִ֗ישׁ קָרָֽאתִי֮ וְאֵ֣ין עוֹנֶה֒ הֲקָצ֨וֹר קָצְרָ֤ה יָדִי֙ מִפְּד֔וּת וְאִם־אֵֽין־בִּ֥י כֹ֖חַ לְהַצִּ֑יל הֵ֣ן בְּגַעֲרָתִ֞י אַחֲרִ֣יב יָ֗ם אָשִׂ֤ים נְהָרוֹת֙ מִדְבָּ֔ר תִּבְאַ֤שׁ דְּגָתָם֙ מֵאֵ֣ין מַ֔יִם וְתָמֹ֖ת בַּצָּמָֽא׃
2Why was no one there when I came?
Why did no one answer when I called?
Is my arm powerless to redeem?
Or have I no strength to deliver?
By my rebuke I dry up the sea;
I make the rivers a desert,
so that their fish stink for lack of water
and die of thirst.
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “thirst” or “thirsty” in English is translated in Kituba as “hungry for water” (source: Donald Deer in The Bible Translator 1973, p. 207ff. ) and in Mairasi as “water pain” (source: Enggavoter 2004).
See also thirst (figuratively).
In Gbaya, the notion of a body of water has completely dried up is emphasized with ta̧i̧-ta̧i̧, an ideophone that refers to the fact that a body of water is completely dry.
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
The Greek, Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Latin that is translated as “desert” or “wilderness” in English is translated in a number of ways:
Note that in Luke 15:4, usually a term is used that denotes pastoral land, such as “eating/grazing-place,” in Tagbanwa (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation).
See also wilderness and desolate wilderness.
The Hebrew that is typically translated in English as “power” or “might” or “force” is translated in the English translation by Goldingay (2018) as energy or energetic.
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Isaiah 50:2:
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
See also pronoun for “God”.
The various Greek, Aramaic, Ge’ez, and Latin and Hebrew terms that are translated as “sea,” “ocean,” or “lake” in English are all translated in Chichewa with one term: nyanja. Malawi, where Chichewa is spoken, has a lot of lakes but does not share a border with the ocean. (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
The LORD asks four more rhetorical questions here and follows them with a response introduced by Behold. So the pattern of verse 1 is repeated. The structure of the questions in Hebrew shows another literary feature. The first two questions are ruled by the single interrogative word Why, followed by two clauses using the pattern of a verb plus an expression that is literally “there was not….” (The fourth question also has “there was not….”) The third and fourth questions are ruled by a general interrogative marker. Thus each interrogative marker serves two questions. The marker is explicit in the first question of each pair, and understood in the second question.
Why, when I came, was there no man? When I called, was there no one to answer?: The first question is rather vague since it does not give any reason for why God came nor what the man might have been expected to be or to do. The second question clarifies what is meant by the first one. It tells us that the man was expected to be present in order to answer or respond. He was to respond to God who had come to rescue him, which is implied in the third and fourth questions. Good News Translation makes clear the meaning of the first two questions by identifying the man as “my people” and by stating the purpose of the LORD’s coming: it was to save his people. The prophet, coming as God’s spokesman, told the people in exile that their exile was about to end (40.1-2). But they did not believe his message of impending rescue (see 45.9-13; 46.12; 48.1-11). The theme of God coming to his people but finding nobody there is a motif that appears elsewhere in the latter part of this book (see 65.1; 66.4).
Bible en français courant translates the first two questions less explicitly than Good News Translation, saying “When I came, why didn’t I find anyone? When I called, why did no one answer me?” New International Version and Revised English Bible are very similar to New Revised Standard Version, which has “Why was no one there when I came? Why did no one answer when I called?” In languages that avoid rhetorical questions in favor of the strong statements they imply, these questions may be rendered “I [really] would like to know why there was no one there when I came! I [really] would like to know why no one answered when I called!”
Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver?: This second pair of questions implies that the people thought God was powerless to save them, so they failed to respond to the prophet’s words. Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? uses the picture of a man whose hand is too short to do anything useful. It is a Hebrew idiom for being powerless. In Hebrew the verb rendered Is … shortened is repeated for emphasis (first as an infinitive and then as a finite verb). This emphasis may be expressed by adding an adverb, such as “truly” or “really” (see the first example below). Earlier the noun hand also occurred as a metaphor for power (see, for example, 1.25; 5.25; 9.12; 10.13; 43.13). So God asks rhetorically whether the people think he lacks the power to rescue (redeem) them. He denies lacking the power to do so. Translators should retain the idiom here if it will be understood correctly. The Hebrew has hand, but several translations use “arm” because it fits the idiom in their language better. Good News Translation and Contemporary English Version combine both questions into one, expressing them nonfiguratively. Good News Translation says “Am I too weak to save them?” and Contemporary English Version has “Have I lost my power to rescue and save?”
As with the first pair of questions, Or have I no power to deliver? sheds light on the previous question: do the people really think that God has no power to bring the people back to Jerusalem? The Hebrew is literally “and is/was there not in me strength to deliver?” The time reference of this question in Hebrew is not clear. It is present tense in New International Version with “Do I lack the strength to rescue you?” and it is past tense in Revised English Bible with “Do you think I lacked the power to save?” Bible en français courant uses a conditional: “Would I lack the power to deliver?” All these are possible, and translators are advised to choose the verb tenses in this verse that allow for a smooth, natural translation throughout.
The implied answer to the third and fourth questions is “No, of course I can redeem/deliver.” For languages that avoid rhetorical questions, they may be rendered “I certainly have power to come and rescue my people! I am certainly strong enough to set you free!”
As in verse 1, God responds to the questions by beginning with the word Behold, calling the people’s attention to certain facts in verses 2b-3. Those facts are about God’s power over nature, but they also relate back to the power God showed in rescuing Israel long ago from Egypt during the first Exodus (see Exo 7–11 and 14). To make clear that verses 2b-3 speak of God’s power rather than about what he did or does, Good News Translation and Bible en français courant use the auxiliary verb “can.” This is a valid option. However, Revised English Bible uses the past tense, indicating that these verses refer to events that once happened during the time of Exodus. This is also valid.
By my rebuke I dry up the sea contains ideas similar to those in Psa 18.15. By God’s strong rebuke the sea becomes dry. This could be a general claim, but it could also be an allusion or an indirect reference to the fact that God dried up the Reed Sea (or, Red Sea) allowing the Israelites to walk across on dry land during the Exodus. The Hebrew word for rebuke refers to scolding or reprimanding. It is a way of addressing a rebellious person or a disobedient child and is intended to correct some fault. Here it is used with the sea, an inanimate object, so by my rebuke may be rendered “by a simple threat” or “with a command.”
I make the rivers a desert is parallel to the previous line. God’s powerful word can also turn rivers into deserts. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “and rivers dry out.”
Their fish stink for lack of water, and die of thirst is the result of God drying up the sea and rivers. The order of these two events in the Hebrew text is not logical since the fish would first die from a lack of water, then begin to stink. Good News Translation clarifies this by saying “so that the fish in them die for lack of water.” However, it omits the ideas of stink and thirst. Bible en français courant is better with “Then, through lack of water, the fish die of thirst and begin to rot.”
Translation examples for this verse are:
• When I came to you, why was nobody there?
When I called you, why did nobody respond?
Is my arm really so short that it cannot rescue you?
Or am I powerless to save you?
Look, I dry up the sea by rebuking it,
I turn rivers into deserts,
so the fish in them die for lack of water,
they die of thirst and stink.
• Why did nobody respond when I came to rescue you,
or when I came calling for you?
Did you think I was powerless to bring you back,
unable to rescue you?
See, I speak and the sea dries up,
rivers become deserts.
Their fish die because there is no water,
they die of thirst and stink.
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 .
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