414 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS
Note for 7:23). This formula has also turned up in the Qumran Temple Scroll
(llQT 59:13;Yadin 1983: 268).
to all the tribes of Israel. Hebrew mispebot ("tribes") can also be translated
"families" (10:25; 33:24); here it has the inclusive meaning of Israelites both
North and South (see Note for 2:4). The LXX has "to the nation" singular (to
genei) and lacks "all." This could simply be a misreading (mspbt) or misunder-
standing (Giesebrecht), but the absence of "all" is likely a loss attributable to
haplography (homoeoteleuton: l ... l). The term is present in 4QJer°, Aq, T,
and Vg.
- It found grace in the wilderness, a people, survivors of the sword. The
present bicolon translates without difficulty once it is recognized that 'am
("people") is a delayed subject doing double duty for both colons. A construc-
tion of the same type is found in Hos 8:5, where a delayed )appf ("my anger")
is subject for the entire bicolon (Lundbom l 975a). Here the masculine 'am is
predicated by the third masculine singular ma$a) ("it found"). An even more
anticipated "Israel" is delayed to the very end of the verse. The LXX (euron)
and Symm (eurisko) contain a first person singular verb, which may betray influ-
ence from Hos 9: 10: "Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel." But Yahweh
here is not the speaker. The LXX continues with a series of mistranslations: "I
found him warm (thermon) in the wilderness with (meta) those who were de-
stroyed by the sword." Hebrew born ("heat, warm") is misread for ben ("grace"),
'im ("with") is misread for 'am ("people"), and ird ("escape") is turned into its
opposite with ollumi ("destroy" = sdd?).
Hebrew ben ("grace, favor") is an important theological term in the OT, de-
noting here Yahweh's freely bestowed favor on his people Israel (Freedman,
Lundbom, "l.mn" in TDOT 5: 30-35). This grace recalls the liberation from
slavery in Egypt and anticipates a new covenant for the future when Yahweh
will forgive the people's sins. Here also appear to be echoes of Exod 33:12-17,
where the talk is about Moses and the people having "found favor" (m$J +
ben) in the eyes of Yahweh (Rudolph). Duhm and K. Gross (1931: 334-36) see
influence as well from Hos 2:16-17[Eng 2:14-15], where Yahweh says he will
bring Israel back to the wilderness and there speak to her heart, and she, for her
part, will answer him as in the days of her youth (cf. Jer 2:2). Echoes of the an-
cient Wilderness trek are evident enough in the verse (Rashi; Kim]:ii) but are
being combined with Northern Israel's more recent "wilderness" experience in
Assyrian exile (Giesebrecht; Streane; Skinner 1926: 304). Added later will be a
company of Babylonian exiles who "escaped from the sword" (51 :50), at which
point the verb will become a prophetic perfect ( = "shall find"; Moffatt; AmT;
NIV). We see here the beginning of the "new Exodus" theme that so domi-
nates the thought of Second Isaiah (Isa 40:3-5; 43:18-21; 48:20-21; 51:10-11).
Going to find his rest is Israel. Hebrew halok lehargf'o yisra)el. "Israel" is an-
other delayed subject-both for the colon and for the verse as a whole-and
rg' is an internal H-stem meaning "to (find) rest" (GKC §53e; Deut 28:65; Isa
34:14). The H-stem usage of rg' in 50:34 is transitive: "to give rest." The infini-
tive absolute halok translates here as a conjugated verb, "is going" (Rashi and
