The final words are best read as a vocative: "the fullness of the breadth of your land, Immanuel." The second masculine singular suffix in אַרְצְךָ (ʾarṣĕkā, "your land") is naturally followed by the proper name עִמָּנוּ אֵל (ʿimmānû ʾēl), identifying the one addressed. The clause therefore interrupts the military image with an appeal to Immanuel, whose land Assyria's outspread "wings" will fill from boundary to boundary. The construct expression מְלֹא רֹחַב (mĕlōʾ rōḥab) denotes the full extent of the land's breadth, while מֻטּוֹת כְּנָפָיו (muṭṭôt kĕnāpāyw) portrays the invader's deployed wings or outspread forces. This address explains the limitation implicit in the preceding flood image. Assyria will inundate Judah and rise "up to the neck," bringing the Davidic kingdom to the brink of death, yet Judah is not finally swallowed because it is Immanuel's land. The name, announced in 7:14 and echoed in 8:10, means "God [is] with us" and declares that Judah's preservation rests upon the divine presence pledged to David's house, not upon Ahaz's anti-Assyrian policy or his Assyrian alliance. The land is Yahweh's in the ultimate sense, but its designation as Immanuel's land closely associates the promised Davidic child with Yahweh's protecting presence and royal claim. In its immediate historical setting, Immanuel functions as the prophetic sign that the dynasty and Judah will survive the Assyrian crisis, though under severe judgment. The identity and fullness of the sign exceed an identification with a merely ordinary child: Isaiah's later portrait of the Davidic ruler in 9:6-7 and 11:1-5 develops the same royal hope in categories that culminate in the Messiah. Matthew's application of Isaiah 7:14 to Jesus therefore accords with the canonical trajectory: Christ is Immanuel in the climactic and personal sense, the Davidic king whose possession and preservation of his land preclude Judah's extinction in Isaiah's day.

The Hiphil perfect הִרְגִּיעָה (hirgîʿâ), from רָגַע (rāgaʿ), means here that the night creature has settled or come to rest, rather than that she gives rest to another. Although the Hiphil often carries a causative sense, "to cause to rest" or "give quiet," Hebrew usage also permits a resultative or effectively intransitive force in which the subject enters a state of repose. The following clause, וּמָצְאָה לָהּ מָנוֹחַ (ûmāṣʾâ lāh mānôaḥ), "and she has found for herself a resting place," fixes the sense: the creature is the one seeking and obtaining repose. The feminine singular verbs agree with לִילִית (lîlît), and the lamed with the feminine suffix, לָהּ (lāh), is a dative of advantage, "for herself." The paired expressions intensify the point. Edom's devastation is so complete that what is normally elusive, nocturnal, and associated with deserted places can establish a secure habitation there. In the larger sequence of vv. 13-15, Isaiah portrays the land once occupied by men as a settled domain for wilderness creatures. The perfect forms function within prophetic description of the coming judgment: the future ruin is represented as an accomplished reality, and the creature's finding of מָנוֹחַ (mānôaḥ) underscores the enduring character of that desolation.

The expression “yet a very little while” announces the impending character of the promised reversal, not a calendrical interval by which its fulfillment may be dated. The interrogative hălôʾ (“is it not?”) presses the hearer toward assent, while ʿôd məʿaṭ mizʿār intensifies the brevity of the interval: “still a little, a very little.” In a setting where Judah has been humbled by spiritual blindness and where the wise are exposed (29:9-16), the phrase declares that the present disorder will not endure. Isaiah employs comparable language of a divinely appointed and limited period before judgment or deliverance manifests itself. Here the following clauses define the anticipated outcome: the established order will be reversed, with Lebanon and Carmel exchanging their relative character, and with the deaf, blind, humble, and needy receiving the blessings detailed in verses 18-19. The Qal perfect with waw, wĕšāb (“and Lebanon will turn/return”), carries prophetic certainty. Although šûb commonly means “return,” the construction depicts a transformation or reversal rather than requiring that Lebanon had formerly been Carmel. The immediate literary horizon is Judah's crisis under divine judgment, in which arrogant human policy and counsel have proved futile. Yet verses 18-24 portray a restoration extending beyond a momentary political reprieve: spiritual perception is renewed, the poor rejoice in the Holy One of Israel, and those who err in spirit gain understanding. Thus the “very little while” measures the shortness of the affliction in relation to God's settled purpose, while the prophecy's restorative scope reaches its fullness in the redemptive renewal promised throughout Isaiah.

“The stronghold of Pharaoh” denotes security sought from Pharaoh, rather than identifying Pharaoh himself as a literal fortress. The noun מָעוֹז (maʿoz), “place or source of strength, stronghold,” stands in construct with פַּרְעֹה (parʿoh), a relationship that can be expressed idiomatically in English as “Pharaoh’s protection” or “the security provided by Pharaoh.” Its sense is fixed by the parallel phrase, “refuge in the shadow of Egypt”: Judah is seeking shelter under Egyptian political power. Pharaoh is the representative ruler of Egypt, while “Egypt” names the larger realm and its military resources. The expression is deliberately ironic within Isaiah’s theology of trust. Elsewhere, the Lord himself is described as a מָעוֹז, a refuge and stronghold for his people (cf. Isa 25:4), and the image of a protective “shadow” commonly evokes the shelter that belongs properly to divine care. Here those terms are transferred to Egypt because Judah has acted as the “rebellious children” of v. 1, making plans and seeking protection without consulting the mouth of the Lord. The embassy’s movement toward Egypt, including the officials at Zoan and Hanes in v. 4, demonstrates that this was a concrete diplomatic and military strategy, not a merely figurative disposition. The clause introduced by וְהָיָה (wehayah), Qal perfect with waw in a prophetic future consequence, announces what this presumed protection will prove to be. Pharaoh’s supposed stronghold will become a cause of disgrace because Egypt cannot furnish the deliverance Judah has attributed to it. The verse therefore condemns a misplaced confidence in a foreign imperial power, especially where that confidence displaces reliance upon the Lord.

The phrase בְּקֶרֶב כָּל־הָאָרֶץ (bĕqereb kol-hāʾāreṣ), “in the midst of all the earth/land,” deliberately gives the Lord’s determined action a scope wider than Israel alone. Although ʾereṣ can denote a particular land, and the immediate concern of vv. 20-22 is the remnant within Israel, the expression “all the earth” normally carries a comprehensive sense in Isaiah. The shift from “in the midst of Israel” (v. 22) to “in the midst of all the earth” (v. 23) is therefore significant: Israel’s severe reduction belongs within a judgment that encompasses the wider world under the sovereignty of the Lord of hosts. The context confirms this widening horizon. Assyria has been commissioned as the rod of divine anger against a godless nation (vv. 5-6), but its arrogant imperial purpose will itself be judged (vv. 12-19). Its king boasts of removing the boundaries of peoples and plundering the resources of “all the earth” (vv. 13-14); the Lord answers such imperial pretension by declaring that his own decisive purpose extends throughout the earth. The designation אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה צְבָאוֹת (ʾădōnāy YHWH ṣĕbāʾôt), “the Lord, YHWH of hosts,” grounds this scope in his rule over earthly armies and nations. This does not dissolve the immediate reference to Israel’s historical chastening through Assyria. The remnant theme remains central, and the announced completion is experienced concretely in the covenant people. Yet Israel is neither the whole object nor the final horizon of the oracle. Isaiah presents the judgment of Israel, the humbling of Assyria, and the reckoning with the nations as coordinated acts of the one Lord. Paul’s use of vv. 22-23 in Romans 9:27-28 retains the remnant emphasis, while the wording he cites from the Greek version, which speaks of the Lord accomplishing his word “upon the earth,” is consistent with this broader divine horizon.

“Every seed of the Nile” denotes the totality of crops dependent upon the Nile, especially the sown produce of the river’s floodplain and irrigated fields. The noun מִזְרַע (mizraʿ), “sowing” or “seed,” can denote seed in the act or result of sowing and thus, by extension, the agricultural yield arising from it. The construct relation in מִזְרַע יְאֹר (mizraʿ yeʾor) is best taken as describing produce belonging to, nourished by, or cultivated along the Nile. It does not primarily identify seeds floating in the river. In the preceding description, the Nile and its canals fail, fisheries collapse, and river vegetation withers; the present clause completes the picture by extending the judgment to Egypt’s arable economy. The singular verb יִיבַשׁ (yîbaš, Qal imperfect, “will dry up”) treats “all the sowing” as a collective whole. The following נִדָּף (niddāph, Niphal perfect of nādap, “be driven away” or “be scattered”) depicts the crop’s removal or dispersal, whether by the effects of drought, wind, or the broader devastation accompanying the drying of the river. Its perfect form following the imperfect presents the ruin as certain and effectively accomplished, a common prophetic usage. The final וְאֵינֶנּוּ (weʾênennû), “and it is no more,” intensifies the prediction beyond a reduced harvest: the Nile-dependent produce disappears altogether. Isaiah therefore portrays a comprehensive reversal of Egypt’s celebrated fertility, grounded in the divine judgment announced throughout the oracle.

The shaving of heads and beards depicts Moab's comprehensive public mourning and humiliation under the announced judgment; the verse does not primarily indict Moab here for performing an illicit rite. The clauses "on all its heads is baldness" and "every beard is cut off" are nominal descriptions of a condition that has become universal throughout Moab. קָרְחָה (qorḥâ), "baldness," denotes the shaved or denuded head, while גְּרוּעָה (gerûʿâ) is a Qal passive participle from גרע (gāraʿ), "to diminish, remove," and means that every beard has been cut away. Together with the wailing over Nebo and Medeba, these bodily signs portray a people overwhelmed by catastrophe. Head-shaving and beard-cutting could express mourning in the wider ancient Near Eastern world and appear in Israel's Scriptures as recognizable gestures of grief and abasement (cf. Jer. 48:37, which closely parallels this oracle; Ezek. 7:18). Israel, however, was forbidden to make baldness between the eyes for the dead (Deut. 14:1) and priests were specially prohibited from shaving bald patches or the edges of the beard (Lev. 21:5). Those prohibitions protect Israel's holy identity and regulate mourning practices associated with death, but they do not make every biblical reference to shaving an accusation of idolatry. Isaiah's emphasis falls on the totality of Moab's devastation: every head and every beard bears the visible marks of lamentation. The language also intensifies the reversal of Moab's former strength and pride. The whole nation, personified by the singular "Moab," is reduced to mourners whose appearance publicly signals loss. Isaiah 15:3 adds sackcloth and weeping, confirming that the shaving imagery belongs to the dirge-like depiction of national ruin rather than functioning as an isolated charge against Moabite cultic custom.

The final words, אַגְמֵי־נָפֶשׁ (ʾagmê-nepeš), describe the inward anguish of those who labor for wages: they are “grieved in soul” or “dejected in spirit.” The phrase does not most naturally identify a further class of workers employed in ponds or fisheries. אַגְמֵי is best taken as a masculine plural construct adjective, related to the idea of being sorrowful, and נֶפֶשׁ (nepeš) specifies the sphere of that sorrow, the person’s inner life. Thus the clause portrays comprehensive economic misery: “all who work for hire” are persons stricken with grief. The preceding expression, כָּל־עֹשֵׂי שֶׂכֶר (kol-ʿōśê śekher), literally denotes “all makers of wages,” with עֹשֵׂי (ʿōśê) a Qal active participle plural of עָשָׂה (ʿāśâ). In context it refers to those dependent upon wages, rather than to employers who dispense them. The oracle has moved from the Nile’s failure and the collapse of its fisheries and textile production to the distress of the broader laboring population. The participial construction allows the clause to stand as a further consequence of the announced judgment: Egypt’s productive order fails, and those whose lives depend upon its regular economic return become sorrowful in their very persons. An older rendering that connects אַגְמֵי with “pools” or “marshes” has some superficial plausibility because a similar Hebrew form can denote a pool or marsh. Yet it creates a strained construction after “all workers for hire” and supplies an occupational reference less suited to the summarizing force of the verse. The Masoretic vocalization and the parallel concern for the afflicted labor force support the traditional sense, “grieved in soul.”

The repeated first-person verbs identify the Lord as the ultimate agent of Ariel's siege. The forms וְחָנִיתִי (weḥānîtî, Qal first common singular of ḥānah, "to encamp"), וְצַרְתִּי (weṣartî, Qal first common singular of ṣûr, "to besiege"), and וַהֲקִימֹתִי (waḥăqîmōtî, Hiphil first common singular of qûm, "to set up" or "raise") form a deliberate triad. In the prophetic setting, these perfect forms with waw carry a future sense: Yahweh announces what he will bring about. Jerusalem's enemies and their military apparatus are therefore subordinate means of the divine judgment rather than autonomous forces operating outside his rule. This attribution accords with the preceding woe upon Ariel in vv. 1-2, where the city's continued religious observances cannot shield it from the Lord's chastening. It also prepares for vv. 7-8, where "the multitude of all the nations" fighting against Ariel suddenly disappears. The nations are real combatants, yet their assault is bounded by the Lord who both brings distress and reverses the attackers' purpose. Isaiah elsewhere describes Assyria as the rod of Yahweh's anger (Isa 10:5-6), and the same theological pattern governs this oracle: the historical besieging power executes a judgment that belongs properly to God. The language does not portray Yahweh as morally equivalent to pagan violence; it declares his covenantal sovereignty in judging his sinful city and his freedom to terminate the siege according to his own purpose.

Rabshakeh deliberately represents Hezekiah as the human agent who induces Judah to place its confidence in the LORD. The verb יַבְטַח (yabtaḥ) is Hiphil jussive from בָּטַח (bāṭaḥ), “to trust,” and thus bears a causative sense: “Let not Hezekiah cause you to trust in the LORD.” The people are the direct object, אֶתְכֶם, while the LORD is introduced by אֶל, marking the one toward whom their confidence is directed. Rabshakeh’s command therefore attacks Hezekiah’s leadership and his summons to covenantal faith, not merely an isolated private sentiment among Jerusalem’s inhabitants. This phrasing is rhetorically calculated. Hezekiah had become the public advocate of reliance upon the LORD rather than upon political alliances or surrender to Assyria (cf. Isa 30:1-7; 31:1). Rabshakeh seeks to detach the population from their king by portraying his confidence in the LORD as deceptive propaganda. The following infinitival clause, “saying,” supplies the particular assurance Hezekiah is alleged to give: the LORD will certainly rescue Jerusalem and will not hand the city over to Assyria. Rabshakeh does not yet deny that the LORD exists; rather, he denies that the LORD can or will act decisively against Assyria. His later comparison of the LORD with the defeated gods of other lands makes the theological implication explicit (36:18-20). The narrative subsequently overturns this accusation. Hezekiah’s encouragement to trust the LORD corresponds to the prophetic word, and the city is in fact spared through the LORD’s intervention (37:33-36). Thus the verse exposes the central conflict as one of rival interpretations of history and power: Assyria interprets its military success as proof that resistance to its empire, even in reliance on the LORD, is futile; Isaiah presents that claim as blasphemous because the LORD remains free and able to judge the imperial power that has served, yet exceeded, his purposes.

“This people” denotes Judah, especially Jerusalem and the Davidic kingdom, rather than the northern kingdom of Israel. The immediate prophetic setting concerns the Syro-Ephraimite crisis: Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah threaten the house of David (7:1-2, 6), while Isaiah’s son is given as a sign that Damascus and Samaria will be despoiled (8:1-4). The renewed divine speech in 8:5 therefore explains Judah’s coming judgment. The Shiloah was Jerusalem’s modest water supply, associated with the city over which the Davidic king ruled; its waters provide a concrete local marker that identifies the addressed people with Judah. The ensuing picture of Assyria flooding Judah in 8:7-8 confirms this reference. The designation is nevertheless accusatory rather than honorific. The singular verb מָאַס (maʾas, Qal perfect, “has rejected”) takes הָעָם הַזֶּה (“this people”) as a collective subject and indicts the populace for refusing the Lord’s quiet, covenantally ordered provision. Their relation to Rezin and Pekah is expressed by the infinitive מְשׂוֹשׂ (meśôś, “rejoicing”) with אֶת (ʾet), which functions here to introduce the persons in whom, or over whose cause, they rejoiced. The expression does not imply that Rezin and Pekah were Judean rulers. It points instead to sympathy within Judah for the Syro-Ephraimite political cause, plausibly the anti-Assyrian coalition and its proposed replacement of the Davidic dynasty (7:6), or at least to a willingness to seek security in that coalition rather than in the Lord’s promise to David. The verse thus distinguishes Judah from Ephraim while exposing Judah’s inward participation in the same unbelief. Ahaz’s subsequent appeal to Assyria does not negate this indictment; it displays the wider refusal of divine rule that characterized the crisis. Whether expressed through attraction to the northern coalition or through dependence upon Assyria, Judah had rejected the Lord’s appointed security, represented by the gently flowing Shiloah.

The plural address in v. 11 is directed primarily to the hostile Assyrian power, understood collectively in its king, commanders, and army, rather than to the sinful inhabitants of Zion. Isaiah 33:1 begins with a woe against the treacherous "destroyer," using singular language that personifies the imperial aggressor. After the Lord announces his intervention in vv. 10-11, the oracle turns upon that enemy in the plural: "You conceive" (taharû, Qal imperfect 2 masculine plural) and "you give birth" (tēlĕdû, Qal imperfect 2 masculine plural). The shift is natural when the singular imperial power is viewed as the multitude of those who execute its violence. The immediate sequel confirms this identification. The addressed group will become "peoples burned to lime" and "thorns cut down" consumed by fire (v. 12), language appropriate to the nations arrayed against Zion. By contrast, the sinners and godless within Zion appear explicitly in v. 14 as a distinct group who tremble before the consuming holiness of the Lord. The chapter therefore preserves a real distinction between God's judgment upon the foreign oppressor in vv. 1, 10-12 and his searching judgment upon covenant breakers in Zion in vv. 14-16. The plural in v. 11 need not exclude the Assyrian king as the principal representative; it expands the address from the personified "destroyer" to the forces and counsels of the Assyrian threat.

The feminine plural forms are required by Hebrew agreement with the grammatical heads of the two construct expressions, “the eyes of the blind” and “the ears of the deaf.” Both תִּפָּקַחְנָה (tippāqaḥnāh, Niphal imperfect 3 feminine plural of p-q-ḥ, “be opened”) and תִּפָּתַחְנָה (tippātaḥnāh, Niphal imperfect 3 feminine plural of p-t-ḥ, “be opened”) agree with עֵינֵי (ʿênê, “eyes of”) and אָזְנֵי (ʾoznê, “ears of”). Though these nouns are morphologically dual, Hebrew commonly uses plural verbal agreement with dual nouns; since “eye” and “ear” are feminine nouns, the verbs are feminine plural. The masculine plural forms עִוְרִים (ʿiwrîm, “blind persons”) and חֵרְשִׁים (ḥērĕšîm, “deaf persons”) describe the human possessors of the eyes and ears. As substantivized adjectives, they employ the masculine plural, the customary unmarked plural for a group of persons that may include both men and women. The verse thus does not speak abstractly of blindness and deafness, nor does it identify eyes and ears themselves as blind or deaf. It promises that the bodily organs belonging to blind and deaf people will receive the healing action of God. The different word order in the two clauses, with the first verb preceding its subject and the second following it, is stylistic variation; the grammatical agreement in both clauses makes the parallelism exact.

The double designation identifies Babylon’s impending fall as an act of Israel’s covenant God, whose authority extends over every military and cosmic power. “The LORD of hosts” (YHWH tsebaʾot) presents Yahweh as sovereign over the hosts, whether understood principally as the heavenly armies or, in the wider prophetic idiom, as all forces subject to his command. Thus the collapse announced in 21:9, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon,” is not attributed to chance, imperial rivalry, or the strength of a rival deity. The God who governs the hosts has decreed Babylon’s humiliation. The appended title “God of Israel” (ʾelohe yisraʾel) directs the oracle particularly toward the plural audience of the final clause, “I have declared [it] to you” (higgadti lakem). Although Babylon is the immediate object of judgment, Israel is the people to whom the revelation is entrusted and for whose historical situation it bears covenantal significance. The title does not restrict Yahweh’s rule to Israel; rather, it joins his universal lordship to his particular covenant relation with Israel. The preceding perfects, “I have heard” (shamaʿti) and “I have declared” (higgadti), portray Isaiah as the faithful mediator of a received divine message. The certainty of the prophecy rests upon its origin with Yahweh, Israel’s God and the Lord who commands the hosts.

The question of v. 8 is deliberately answered by the immediate context: “The LORD of hosts has planned it” (v. 9). מי יָעַץ (mî yāʿaṣ), “Who has planned?” employs the Qal perfect of יָעַץ (yāʿaṣ), denoting a settled purpose or counsel. It is not an expression of Isaiah’s uncertainty concerning the agent behind Tyre’s downfall. Rather, the prophet frames the announcement as a rhetorical challenge: who could devise and carry out a reversal so astonishing as the abasement of this wealthy, internationally influential city? The answer identifies Israel’s covenant God, under the title “LORD of hosts,” as the sovereign author of the judgment. The arrangement also intensifies the contrast between Tyre’s apparent self-sufficiency and the divine counsel that governs her fate. Verse 8 catalogs her capacity to confer status through commerce: her traders function as princes and as honored persons throughout the earth. Yet the city whose commercial reach seemed to crown others stands under a purpose conceived outside itself. Verse 9 states the purpose more fully, namely, “to defile the pride of all glory, to dishonor all the honored of the earth.” Tyre’s judgment therefore is not presented as an accidental geopolitical reversal, though historical powers may serve as its instruments. It is the execution of the LORD’s deliberate judgment upon human splendor that has exalted itself against him.

The masculine singular verbs פָּחַד וְרָחַב (paḥad werāḥab) take לְבָבֵךְ (lebābēk, “your heart”) as their delayed subject, rather than continuing to agree with the feminine personified Zion. The verse first addresses Zion directly with the feminine forms תִּרְאִי (tirʾî, “you will see”) and נָהַרְתְּ (nāhart, “you will shine/radiate”). It then describes the response of her heart: “your heart will tremble and be enlarged.” The masculine agreement is therefore syntactically regular, since לֵבָב is masculine, while its second feminine singular suffix identifies the heart as Zion’s. פָּחַד (paḥad) ordinarily denotes trembling or fear, and its basic force should not be emptied of that sense. Yet the cause clause excludes a prediction of hostile terror: the sea’s abundance is turned toward Zion, and the nations’ wealth comes to her. In the immediate setting, Zion has just seen her dispersed children returning (vv. 4, 9), and the nations subsequently bring tribute in acknowledgment of the Lord’s glory (vv. 6-16). Her trembling is the overwhelmed, reverent agitation produced by an unexpected manifestation of divine salvation, akin to the trembling that can accompany joy and awe before God. The following verb רָחַב (rāḥab), “to become broad” or “enlarged,” clarifies the emotional movement: the heart that initially quakes under the magnitude of the gift is then expanded in gladness and capacity to receive it. The perfect forms with waw following the initial imperfect function prophetically, portraying the consequences of Zion’s seeing as certain and sequential. The line thus does not depict fear as a contradiction of joy. It presents the profound inward response evoked when the Lord reverses Zion’s former desolation and brings the resources of the nations to her.

The “one seeing” is presented generically in the proverb, yet in the immediate oracle the figure points to the powerful agent of judgment introduced in v. 2, the one whom the Lord sends against Ephraim. The image describes the ease and speed with which Samaria, the proud “crown” situated above the fertile valley, will be seized. Like an unusually early fig, visible before the ordinary summer harvest, it invites immediate consumption by the first person who notices it. The comparison therefore develops the announcement of v. 2 that the crown will be thrown down and trampled. The Hebrew preserves the singular throughout the final clause. The relative clause reads ʾăšer yirʾeh hāroʾeh ʾôtāh, “which, when the observer sees it,” with yirʾeh an imperfect of ראה (rāʾâ, “to see”) and hāroʾeh a Qal participle, “the one seeing.” The ensuing yiblaʿennāh, from בלע (bālaʿ, “to swallow”), is likewise third masculine singular with a feminine singular object suffix: “he swallows it.” The feminine suffix refers to the early fruit, and by the image to the fading blossom or glorious crown of Ephraim. A plural rendering, “they swallow it,” smooths the proverbial expression but obscures the Hebrew's deliberately singular portrayal of the eager possessor. The indefinite singular does not require that only one historical individual be intended. It describes what any finder of such fruit would do, while the context gives the general picture concrete historical force. The “strong and mighty one” in v. 2 is the Lord's judicial instrument, conventionally understood as the Assyrian power that overran the northern kingdom. Samaria's apparent desirability and strategic prominence will not secure it; those very qualities make its capture swift and effortless in the prophetic analogy.

The alternation of verbal forms presents the Servant’s endurance as a settled response to the Lord’s continuing aid and as a confidence directed toward final vindication. יַעֲזָר (yaʿazor), a Qal imperfect of עזר (ʿzr), depicts the Lord GOD as the one who helps the Servant, with the imperfect carrying a present and forward-looking force rather than referring only to a completed act. On that basis, the Servant declares, “I have not been humiliated” (לֹא נִכְלָמְתִּי, loʾ niklamti) and “I have set my face” (שַׂמְתִּי, śamti). The perfects portray his refusal of disgrace and his fixed resolve as established realities, even while the hostile treatment described in v. 6 remains in view. The final forms, וָאֵדַע (waʾēdaʿ, “and I know”) and לֹא אֵבוֹשׁ (loʾ ʾevosh, “I shall not be ashamed”), move from this settled posture to the certainty of its outcome. The imperfect אֵבוֹשׁ (ʾevosh) anticipates the public result: the Servant’s apparent disgrace will not prove to be his lasting shame. This sequence is not best treated as a mechanical chronology, nor do the perfects require that every aspect of vindication has already occurred. Hebrew perfect forms can express a condition regarded as certain and decisively embraced. The repeated עַל־כֵּן (ʿal-ken, “therefore” or “for this reason”) binds the clauses together: because the Lord’s help is reliable, the Servant has already taken an unyielding stance and knows that the coming verdict will not disgrace him. The image of setting the face “like flint” (כַּחַלָּמִישׁ, kaḥallāmîš) gives concrete expression to this grammatical movement from divine aid through present resolution toward future acquittal. It denotes neither sinful obstinacy nor emotional insensibility, but resolute obedience in the face of contempt and violence. The same imagery in Ezekiel 3:8-9 concerns divine strengthening for a difficult prophetic commission; Isaiah applies it to the Servant’s obedient endurance under suffering. In the canonical fulfillment, the language coheres with Christ’s deliberate movement toward Jerusalem and the cross, while the Servant’s confidence in non-shame reaches its fullest confirmation in God’s vindication of him.

The plural pronominal suffix in “with them” (אִתָּם, ʾittām) refers most naturally to the kings described in vv. 18–19, especially the “kings of the nations” who lie in honor, each in his own tomb. The tyrant addressed in the taunt is denied association with that company in burial: whereas other monarchs receive the recognized dignity of interment, he is expelled from his grave and treated as a despised corpse (v. 19). The imperfect תֵחַד (tēḥad), from יחד (yāḥad, “be united, joined”), expresses his exclusion from their burial fellowship and royal honor. The statement concerns more than the physical fact of dying. In the ancient Near Eastern setting, burial in an ancestral or royal tomb publicly marked status, continuity, and remembrance. The preceding description has already portrayed this ruler as lacking even such burial, his body cast away among the slain. Verse 20 supplies the moral ground for that disgrace: “for you have ruined your land; you have killed your people.” His devastation of his own realm and people renders him unworthy of the honor ordinarily granted even to pagan kings. The contrast reinforces the larger taunt against Babylon’s arrogant ruler: his imperial pretensions end in a dishonor corresponding to the violence by which he maintained his rule.

The feminine singular forms identify Zion as the LORD's addressee and as the implied child in the comparison, not as the nursing mother. The suffix on אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ (ʾeškaḥēk, Qal imperfect first singular with second feminine singular suffix, “I will forget you”) corresponds directly to Zion's complaint in v. 14: “The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” Zion, regularly personified as a woman and city throughout Isaiah, is therefore addressed in the feminine singular. The same grammatical gender appears in the preceding interrogative, תִשְׁכַּח אִשָּׁה (tiškaḥ ʾiššâ, “can a woman forget”), where the feminine singular verb agrees with the mother who supplies the analogy. The comparison itself changes roles without confusion. A human mother is asked whether she can forget her nursing infant, עוּלָהּ (ʿûlâh, “her suckling child”), or fail to show compassion, מֵרַחֵם (mēraḥēm, Piel infinitive construct, “to have compassion”), for the son of her womb. Zion, though elsewhere depicted as mother of restored children (49:20-21; 54:1), is here cast in the position of the dependent child remembered by God. This rhetorical flexibility is characteristic of Zion imagery: the city may be mother, bride, widow, or daughter according to the particular aspect of the covenant relation being expounded. The maternal language therefore communicates the intensity and constancy of divine covenant remembrance rather than assigning feminine sex to God. The LORD's assurance exceeds the strongest ordinary human bond: even if instances of maternal abandonment occur, expressed by the plural תִשְׁכַּחְנָה (tiškaḥnāh, “they may forget”), his remembrance of Zion cannot fail. In this context, “remember” and “forget” concern covenantal regard and action, as the following promise that Zion is inscribed on the palms of his hands makes explicit (v. 16).