Isaiah 47 — Hebrew and Greek compared
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 47
Babylon brought low
Verse 47:1 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:1 “Come down and sit in dust, virgin daughter Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans, for they will no longer call you tender and pampered.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:1 “Come down and sit on the ground, virgin daughter Babylon. Enter darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans, for you will no longer be called tender and pampered.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek replaces sitting without a throne with entering darkness. The fall from luxury and the two city-personifying addresses agree.
Verse 47:2 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:2 Take millstones and grind flour. Uncover your covered limbs, bare the paths, expose a leg, and cross rivers.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:2 Take a millstone and grind flour. Uncover your veil, expose your gray hair, pull up your garments to bare your lower legs, and cross rivers.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew covered limbs and paths follows Rashi; veil and flowing skirt are alternative lexical readings [RASHI47]. Greek explicitly includes gray hair and lower legs. Grinding and river crossing agree, while the details of exposure differ.
Verse 47:3 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:3 Your nakedness will be uncovered, and your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance and will not appeal to any human.”
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:3 Your shame will be uncovered, and your reproaches will be visible. I will exact justice from you; I will certainly no longer hand it over to humans.”
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew not appealing to a human follows Rashi, rather than sparing or encountering anyone [RASHI47]. Greek instead refuses further human delegation and explicitly exacts justice from the addressee. Both announce public humiliation.
Verse 47:4 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:4 Our Redeemer—YHWH of hosts is His name, Israel's Holy One.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:4 The One who rescued you said—His name is the Lord Sabaoth, Israel's Holy One—
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew our Redeemer becomes Greek the One who rescued you. Greek adds a speech introduction continuing into five; the divine titles otherwise agree.
Verse 47:5 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:5 “Sit silent and enter darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans, for they will no longer call you mistress of kingdoms.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:5 “Sit stricken and enter darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. You will no longer be called a kingdom's strength.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew silence becomes Greek stunned or pierced distress; mistress of kingdoms becomes the strength of a kingdom. The darkness and loss of political standing agree.
Verse 47:6 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:6 I was angry with My people; I profaned My inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy; upon the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:6 I was provoked against My people; you defiled My inheritance. I gave it into your hand, but you gave them no mercy; you made the elder's yoke exceedingly heavy.
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Hebrew God profanes His inheritance; Greek Babylon defiles it, an explicit change of agent. Both acknowledge God's handing over and condemn merciless burdens upon the elderly; Greek has the elder's yoke rather than your yoke.
Verse 47:7 Same
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:7 You said, ‘I will be mistress forever,’ until you no longer took these things to heart or remembered their outcome.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:7 You said, ‘I will rule forever.’ You did not consider these things in your heart or remember the last things.
Classification & Notes
Same. Text: The arrogant expectation of perpetual rule and failure to consider the outcome agree. Greek has a ruling participle rather than the title mistress.
Verse 47:8 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:8 Now hear this, pampered one who sits secure, saying in her heart, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will not sit as a widow or know the loss of children.’
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:8 Now hear these things, pampered one who sits confident, saying in her heart, ‘I am, and there is no other. I will not sit as a widow or know bereavement.’
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: The boast, false security, and denial of family loss agree; Greek orphania can denote orphanhood or bereavement, whereas Hebrew specifically evokes lost children. Revelation eighteen seven reuses Babylon's royal, nonwidowed boast but replaces bereavement with mourning [NA28REV18].
Verse 47:9 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:9 Yet these two will come upon you in a moment, in one day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come in their full measure amid your many sorceries and the great power of your charms.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:9 Now these two will come upon you suddenly, in one day: widowhood and childlessness will come suddenly upon you, amid your sorcery and the overwhelming power of your enchanters,
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Greek reverses the two losses, repeats suddenly instead of full measure, and has enchanters rather than charms. Both associate sudden ruin with ineffective magic. Revelation eighteen eight likewise brings Babylon's plagues in one day, with its own list of death, mourning, and famine [NA28REV18].
Verse 47:10 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:10 You trusted in your wickedness and said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray; you said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:10 in your hope of wickedness. For you said, ‘I am, and there is no other.’ Know that understanding these things and your prostitution will become your shame. You said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no other.’
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek replaces no one sees me with a second self-exclusivity boast. It adds prostitution and future shame, where Hebrew wisdom and knowledge cause present misdirection. The initial Greek phrase continues nine.
Verse 47:11 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:11 Evil will come upon you, and you will not know how to plead it away. Disaster will fall upon you, and you will not be able to wipe it away. Devastation will come upon you suddenly, without your knowing.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:11 Destruction will come upon you, and you will not know it—a pit, and you will fall into it. Misery will come upon you, and you will not be able to become clean. Destruction will come upon you suddenly, and you will not know it.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek adds a pit and a fall into it and changes removing calamity to becoming clean. Hebrew pleading away and wiping away follow Rashi; not knowing its dawn and being unable to avert it are alternatives [RASHI47]. Both emphasize unanticipated, inescapable disaster.
Verse 47:12 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:12 Stand firm now with your charms and your many sorceries, in which you have toiled since youth. Perhaps you can gain help; perhaps you can grow strong.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:12 Stand now amid your enchantments and your abundant sorcery, which you learned from youth, if you can be helped.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek learning replaces toil and lacks the final possibility of gaining strength. Hebrew that strength reading follows Rashi; inspiring terror is another lexical construal [RASHI47]. The challenge to magical aid agrees.
Verse 47:13 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:13 You are exhausted by your many counsels. Let the interpreters of heaven, those gazing at stars, who announce each month something of what will come upon you, stand up now and save you.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:13 You have toiled in your counsels. Let heaven's astrologers stand up and save you; let those watching the stars announce to you what is about to come upon you.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Greek lacks the monthly timing and the Hebrew partitive something of, separating star-watchers' prediction into a command. Hebrew follows the checked read form for interpreters rather than the irregular written ending; Rashi emphasizes limited monthly predictions [RASHI47].
Verse 47:14 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:14 Look, they have become like straw; fire burns them. They cannot rescue their lives from the flame's power. There is no coal to warm them, no fire to sit before.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:14 Look, all will be burned up like brushwood upon a fire and certainly not rescue their soul from flame. Since you have burning coals, sit upon them!
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Hebrew denies a remaining warming coal or a fire to sit before. Greek instead says Babylon has burning coals and commands her to sit on them. The consumed diviners' inability to save themselves agrees.
Verse 47:15 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
47:15 Such are those for whom you toiled, your traders from youth. Each wanders his own way; there is no one to save you.”
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
47:15 These will be your help! You toiled in your trade from youth; each person wandered on his own, but there will be no salvation for you.”
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both conclude with failed lifelong associates, their dispersal, and no rescue. Greek sarcastically calls them help and puts trade in a singular abstract phrase rather than naming traders; exchange or change is another sense of that Greek noun.