NRSV

[1] The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 

[2] In days to come, the mountain of the LORD’s house 

shall be established as the highest of the mountain,

And shall be raised above the hills;

All the nations shall stream to it.

[3] Many people shall come and say, 

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, 

To the house of the God of Jacob;

That he may teach us his ways

And that we may walk in his paths.”

[4] He shall judge between the nations

And shall arbitrate for many peoples;

They shall beat their swords into plowshares

And their spears into pruning hooks;

Nation shall not lift up sword against nations,

Neither shall they learn war anymore. 

LXX

[1] The word which happened from the Lord to Isaiah son of Amos around Judah and around Jerusalem.

[2] Because the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest in the last days 

And the house of God up the highest of mountains

And and it shall be elevated above the hills;

And all the nations shall come up on it,

[3] And many nations will go and will say

Come hither and ascend unto the mountain of the Lord and unto the house of the God of Jacob,

And he shall announce to us his path, and we shall proceed in it;

For from Zion the law and word of God shall go out from Jerusalem.

[4] And he shall judge from the middle of the nations and he shall reproach many people,

And they will beat down their swords into plowshares

And their spears into sickles, 

And  nation shall no longer take up a sword against nation

And they will most certainly not learn war anymore. 

Notes on Text

Obviously this passage is quite famous solely because of the beauty of its poetry and the resonance of the idea that weapons would be repurposed and we would not longer pursue violence against each other. The imagery of God’s holy mountain ascending to tower over the other hills is also quite lovely, and I think is a counterargument to the imagery with proud trees that we discussed in our last post.  Whereas trees can be withered or laid low, mountains are eternal, and the image is quite clearly of God’s preeminence being reflected in the physical geography.  This ascendance also is political: the nations subordinate themselves to God and his word and law are supremely sovereign.  I have said this before and will likely say it many times again, but this idea that no, it is actually God who is the supreme power to which we owe fidelity rather than worldly rulers is an oft-repeated motif in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.  

Once the nations subordinate themselves to God’s law, they also subordinate themselves to God’s judgment. This parallels the replacement of a king with judges in Isaiah 1:26. In both instances lesser worldly justice is replaced with more perfect divine justice.  

The language of vv. 4 is also similar to the language of judgment we have discussed in Isaiah’s first chapter.  The verb for “judge” is again κρίνω krinō. There is an interesting divergence between the NRSV and LXX texts in vv. 4, in which the NRSV reads “And shall arbitrate for many peoples,” whereas the LXX has a more severe phrasing of “and he shall reproach many people.”  In the NETS version of the LXX, this passage is actually translated even more several still, as “and he shall convict any people.” The actual verb in question here is ἐλέγχω elevxō, and can mean “to reproach” or “to convict”, but also “to test,” “to prove,” “to refute,” “to shame,” or “to dishonor.” I’ve translated this as “to reproach” because the primary meaning of this word and several related words sees to be something along the lines “to put in a position wherein you’re shamed because of what people are saying to you,” and definitions like “to refute,” “to rebuke,” or “to convict” seem like they are secondary to this core meaning.  

Obviously the pairing “to judge” and “to convict” intuitively makes sense as well, but here I think the overall imagery of the nations pursuing the path of God, being rebuked, and then reforming themselves and turning to peace is more consistent than the image of a conviction occurring. The Greek here also physically places God in the middle of the nations to judge among them, and this to me reads as a role that arbitrates their disputes and possesses political supremacy over them, rather than a purely judicial role.