Isaiah 59 — Hebrew and Greek compared
Disparate in this chapter: 59:5, 59:20
Each card keeps the independently rendered source readings above their shared comparison and reception notes. The badge records the source’s governing classification; disparate readings are marked in red. Each reading retains its original reference.
Chapter 59
Iniquity confessed and the arriving deliverer
Verse 59:1 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:1 Look, YHWH's hand is not too short to save, nor His ear too heavy to hear.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:1 Is the Lord's hand unable to save? Or has His ear grown heavy so that He cannot hear?
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Greek frames questions about strength and hearing where Hebrew asserts that the hand is not short and the ear not heavy. Both deny divine incapacity as the explanation.
Verse 59:2 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:2 Instead, your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so He does not hear.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:2 Instead, your offenses stand between you and God, and because of your sins He has turned His face away from you so as not to show mercy.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek explicitly makes God turn His face and withhold mercy. Hebrew makes sins hide the face and speaks of withheld hearing. Separation through wrongdoing agrees.
Verse 59:3 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:3 For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips speak lies; your tongue mutters injustice.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:3 For your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with sins. Your lips spoke lawlessness, and your tongue meditates on injustice.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Bloodstained hands and wrongful speech agree. Greek lawlessness replaces the specific Hebrew falsehood; meditation replaces muttering.
Verse 59:4 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:4 No one calls for justice, and no one pleads truthfully. They trust emptiness and speak vanity, conceiving trouble and giving birth to iniquity.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:4 No one speaks just things, nor is there true judgment. They trust vain things and speak emptiness, for they conceive trouble and give birth to lawlessness.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both describe absent honest justice and the conception of wrongdoing. Greek true judgment replaces Hebrew truthful pleading, whose legal setting is implicit in the verb.
Verse 59:5 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:5 They hatch vipers' eggs and weave spiders' webs. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and an egg crushed open hatches a viper.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:5 They broke open asps' eggs and weave a spider's web. Whoever was about to eat their eggs broke one and found a wind-egg, and in it a basilisk.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew explicitly kills the eater; Greek instead describes an opened wind-egg containing a basilisk. Wind-egg ordinarily suggests an infertile or empty egg, making the Greek image difficult; the paradox is retained. The Hebrew final action can also refer to incubating rather than crushing the egg. Rashi connects it with the emergence of a dangerous hatchling [RASHI59].
Verse 59:6 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:6 Their webs will not become clothing, nor will they cover themselves with their works. Their works are works of iniquity, and violent deeds are in their hands.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:6 Their web will not become clothing, nor will they clothe themselves from their works, for their works are works of lawlessness.
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: The futile clothing and wrongful works agree. Greek lacks the final Hebrew clause about violence in their hands.
Verse 59:7 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:7 Their feet run to evil, hurrying to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; plunder and destruction lie on their highways.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:7 Their feet run to wickedness, quick to shed blood. Their thoughts are the thoughts of fools; destruction and misery lie in their ways.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek omits innocent, calls the thoughts foolish rather than iniquitous, and has misery rather than plunder. Romans three fifteen–seventeen incorporates the bloodshed, destruction, misery, and unknown way of peace into a composite indictment of sin [NA28ROM3].
Verse 59:8 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:8 They do not know the way of peace; there is no justice in their tracks. They have made their paths crooked; whoever walks on one does not know peace.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:8 They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their ways. For the paths they travel are twisted, and they do not know peace.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Unknown peace and distorted conduct agree. Hebrew extends the warning to anyone walking their paths; Greek continues describing the same wrongdoers.
Verse 59:9 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We wait for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:9 Therefore judgment withdrew from them, and righteousness will not reach them. While they waited for light, darkness came to them; waiting for dawn, they walked in an untimely darkness.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew communal confession uses us and we; Greek keeps them and they. Greek dawn and the unusual untimely darkness replace brightness and gloom, preserving the frustrated expectation.
Verse 59:10 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:10 We grope along a wall like the blind; like people without eyes we grope. We stumble at noon as at twilight, like the dead in dark places.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:10 They will grope along a wall like the blind, and as though without eyes they will grope. They will fall at noon as at midnight; like people dying, they will groan.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek they continues rather than Hebrew we, midnight replaces twilight, and groaning as people die replaces being like the dead in dark places. Dark places follows Rashi; he also reports interpretations involving robust people or confinement [RASHI59].
Verse 59:11 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:11 We all growl like bears and moan continually like doves. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:11 Like a bear and like a dove they will travel together. We waited for judgment, but there is none; salvation has withdrawn far from us.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek bears and doves travel together instead of making distressed sounds. It then shifts from they to we, where Hebrew maintains communal confession throughout. Absent justice and distant salvation agree.
Verse 59:12 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:12 For our transgressions are many before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities:
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:12 For our lawlessness is great before You, and our sins have opposed us. Our lawless deeds are within us, and we have recognized our wrongs:
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Acknowledged and incriminating wrongdoing agrees. Greek sins oppose rather than testify and lawlessness is within rather than with the confessors.
Verse 59:13 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:13 rebelling and lying against YHWH, turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and rebellion, sending forth and uttering lying words from the heart.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:13 We acted impiously and lied and withdrew from following our God. We spoke unjust things and disobeyed; we conceived and meditated on unjust words from our heart.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both enumerate faithlessness and dishonest speech. Hebrew sending forth and uttering follows Rashi's arrow-and-speech explanation; conceiving and murmuring is another reading [RASHI59]. Greek uses conceiving and meditating explicitly and lacks a separate YHWH phrase.
Verse 59:14 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:14 Justice is pushed back, and righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:14 We drove judgment backward, and righteousness has withdrawn far away, for truth was consumed in their ways, and they could not go straight through.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek expressly makes we drive justice back. Truth is consumed in their ways rather than stumbling in the square, and people cannot proceed straight rather than uprightness being unable to enter. The loss of just public life agrees.
Verse 59:15 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:15 Truth is missing, and anyone turning from evil is considered mad. YHWH saw, and it was evil in His eyes that there was no justice.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:15 Truth has been taken away, and they turned their mind away from understanding. The Lord saw, and it did not please Him that there was no judgment.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek describes a withdrawal from understanding, without Hebrew's person avoiding evil. Considered mad follows Rashi; made a prey is another interpretation of the Hebrew form [RASHI59]. Divine displeasure at absent justice agrees.
Verse 59:16 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:16 He saw that there was no one and was astounded that no one interceded. His own arm brought Him salvation, and His righteousness supported Him.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:16 He saw, and there was no man; He considered, and there was no one to help. He defended them with His arm and steadied Himself by mercy.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek consideration replaces astonishment, helper replaces intercessor, and mercy replaces righteousness. Defended them renders the Greek middle verb contextually; warded them off is another possible force requiring lexical review. Hebrew the arm saves for Him rather than explicitly defending them. Rashi retains the astonishment and absent prayer [RASHI59].
Verse 59:17 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:17 He put on righteousness like a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on His head. He clothed Himself in garments of vengeance and wrapped Himself in zeal like a cloak.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:17 He put on righteousness like a breastplate, placed a helmet of salvation on His head, and wrapped Himself in a garment of vengeance and the cloak,
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: The righteousness and salvation armor agree. Greek has no explicit zeal and leaves the cloak connected with the repayment clause in eighteen. Ephesians six fourteen and seventeen applies the righteousness breastplate and salvation helmet to believers resisting evil, adapting the divine-warrior imagery [NA28EPH6].
Verse 59:18 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:18 He will repay according to deeds: fury to His adversaries, recompense to His enemies; He will repay recompense to the islands.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:18 as one who will repay recompense—reproach to His adversaries.
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Greek sharply reduces the repayment declaration. It has reproach to adversaries, without Hebrew's separate fury, enemies, and island recompense clauses. Its opening links back to the clothing in seventeen.
Verse 59:19 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:19 From the west they will fear YHWH's name, and from sunrise His glory. For distress will come like a river, with YHWH's spirit working wonders in it.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:19 Those from the west will fear the Lord's name, and those from sunrise the glorious name. For anger from the Lord will come like a violent river; it will come with wrath.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek explicitly makes divine anger the violent river and ends with wrath. Hebrew distress and a spirit working wonders follows Rashi; he also gives a consuming-worm explanation. A constrained stream driven by YHWH's wind is another construction [RASHI59]. Greek repeats name where Hebrew ends the opening parallel with glory.
Verse 59:20 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:20 A redeemer will come to Zion and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, declares YHWH.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:20 The deliverer will come for Zion's sake and turn ungodliness away from Jacob.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew identifies repentant recipients of the redeemer's arrival; Greek makes the deliverer remove Jacob's ungodliness. Coming to Zion also becomes coming for Zion's sake. Romans eleven twenty-six quotes a deliverer coming from Zion and turning ungodliness away; its from is retained as reception, not substituted into this Greek column [NA28ROM11].
Verse 59:21 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
59:21 “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says YHWH: “My spirit that is upon you and My words that I placed in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, your offspring's mouth, or the mouth of your offspring's offspring,” says YHWH, “from now and forever.”
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
59:21 “And this is My covenant with them,” said the Lord: “My spirit that is upon you and the words I put into your mouth will never fail from your mouth or your offspring's mouth,” for the Lord said, “from now and forever.”
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: The enduring covenant, spirit, and words agree. Greek lacks the separate reference to the offspring's offspring. Romans eleven twenty-seven combines the covenant formula with removal of sins, drawing together this passage and Isaiah twenty-seven nine [NA28ROM11].