402 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSgloss, and Cornill emended LXX's hymon ("your") to hemi5n ("our"), which
Ziegler incorporated into his LXX text (cf. Becking 1998: 8). This gives an LXX
reading of "she is our prey," which is said to be a corruption of Heb $edenil.
The end result is a sensible rendering (the detractors say about Zion: "she is
our prey"), but the proposed corruption of the Heb is a stretch, to say the least.
As a result, all subsequent commentators (except Holladay) and all modern
Versions (except JB) have read MT's "Zion." And NJB abandoned "our booty"
in the JB, restoring "Zion." The MT, which is now seen to make perfectly good
sense and has the support of T and Vg, should be retained. Rudolph and
Weiser eliminate "Zion" only to accommodate their view that the oracle was
originally spoken to Northern Israel, but this too should be rejected. The or-
acle was spoken from the first to Zion and Judah. In it Yahweh says he will not
hear of Zion's being called an outcast and will answer the taunt by punishing
Zion's foes and restoring her to health in the days ahead.
an outcast. Hebrew niddaba is the N-stem participle of ndb, "be scattered,
dispersed." 4QJd has the spelling ndbf (cf. Ezek 34:4, 16). Some take this as
a disparaging name: "Outcast"; T has "The Exiled One." Zion is empty, and
its survivors are dispersed to Babylon, Egypt, and elsewhere (40:12; 43:5;
46:28; 50: 17).
Whom No One Cares About. Hebrew dares >en lah. For drs meaning "care
about," see v 14. Yahweh finds this taunt offensive because it implies that he
too cares nothing for Zion. The city is likely in ruins, so passersby are mocking
its emptiness. Taunts can be expected not only in the lands where Judahites
will be dispersed (24:9; 29: 18) but now on the road passing Jerusalem. But this
is reversed in Second Isaiah, who says that Zion will experience a future glory
(Isaiah 60), at which time she will be called "Cared About (dernsa), a city not
forsaken" (v 12; Halpern 1998: 639).
MESSAGE AND AUDIENCE
Yahweh says here that the days are coming when all those who consume the
covenant people will themselves be consumed. Zion's foes-all of them-will
go into captivity and, instead of plundering other people's treasures, they will
become plunder. Poetic justice. Judgment on the foes means restoration for
the covenant people, and Yahweh says that he will bring about the very healing
that earlier was said to be impossible. The foes have called them an outcast,
'That Zion Whom No One Cares About.' The audience will perhaps realize
that someone does care, and it is Yahweh.
This oracle by itself may have been spoken to Judahites who had witnessed
the destruction of Jerusalem, at which time a future judgment on Judah's ene-
mies would have been the main point. But when paired with Judah's judgment
in vv 12-15, the message of future healing in v 17a will get the accent. A for-
merly hopeless condition now becomes hopeful. Judah's blow was judged in-
curable, but now Yahweh will heal it. The audience here will be both Israelite
and Judahite exiles (30:4).