Isaiah 63 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
Addressed to the period around 540 to 500 BC, with a long backward look to the exodus from Egypt centuries earlier
Location
Jerusalem and Judah, with the opening scene set on the road from Edom and its city Bozrah, southeast of the Dead Sea
Audience
Judean Jews living with the memory of national defeat and hoping for God to act against those who had profited from it
Situation
A watchman sees a figure coming from Edom in bloodstained clothing, and the figure explains that he has trodden the nations like grapes in a winepress with no one to help. The chapter then turns into a communal prayer that recalls God's care during the exodus and asks why he now seems distant.
Key Background
Edom, Judah's neighbor to the southeast, was remembered bitterly for taking advantage of Jerusalem's fall to Babylon, so it stands here for hostile nations in general rather than as a random target. The winepress image comes from the actual harvest practice of treading grapes barefoot in a stone vat, which splashed red juice up over the treader's clothing, a picture any farming audience would recognize instantly. The prayer's appeal to God as father and to the days of Moses uses the standard shape of ancient communal lament, where a people recites past rescues as grounds for demanding a new one, and its complaint that the temple has been trampled reflects the still unrepaired damage from the Babylonian destruction of 587 BC.
Who is this coming from Edom, from with garments stained crimson? This one, magnificent in his clothing, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? "It is I — the one who speaks what is right, mighty to
Why are your garments red, your clothes like someone treading in a
"I have trodden the winepress alone — not one from any nation was with me. I trampled them in my fury, I crushed them in my rage. Their spattered my garments and stained everything I wore."
"The day of was in my heart, and my year of had arrived."
"I looked, but there was no one to help. I was — not a single one to support me. So my own brought about the victory, and my own fury sustained me."
"I trampled peoples in my fury, I made them with my rage, and I poured out their lifeblood on the ground."
I will call to mind the acts of from Yahweh, the praiseworthy deeds of Yahweh — for everything Yahweh has done for us, and the immense goodness he has shown to the house of Israel according to his compassion and the abundance of his
He said, "Surely they are my people, children who will not falsely." And so he became their
In all their distress, he too was distressed. The of rescued them. In love and in mercy he them back; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.
But they rebelled and the of God. So he turned against them as their enemy; he himself fought against them.
Then his people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea with the of his flock? Where is the one who placed the Breath of God among them?
The one who sent his arm at the right hand of Moses, who split the waters before them to make for himself a that would last forever?
The one who led them through the waters? Like a horse in open country, they did not stumble.
Like cattle going down into the valley, the Breath of Yahweh gave them rest. This is how you led your people, to make for yourself a
Look down from the heavens and see, from where you live, the that to you, with splendor. Where is Where is might? The of gut, your compassion toward me, are you holding them back?
Because you are Father. Even if Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize us — you, Yahweh, are Father. "Our from is your name.
Why do you let us wander from your ways, Yahweh? Why do you let our hearts so we do not in of you? Turn back — for the sake of your servants, the tribes that are your
The who to you held the land only a little while; now our enemies have trampled the for you.
We have become like those you never ruled over, like those who were never by name. If only you would the and come down — the mountains would before you!