Isaiah 2 · a question people ask
"Man is brought low, and mankind is humbled; therefore don’t forgive them" (2:9). Who says this, and to whom?
At 2:6 the chapter turns to someone it calls you: "For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob" (2:6). The one addressed has "the house of Jacob" as his people; the verses don't give his name. They go on: "they are filled from the east, with those who practice divination" (2:6); "Their land is full of silver and gold" (2:7); "Their land also is full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands" (2:8). Then 2:9 ends, "therefore don’t forgive them" (2:9). The chapter doesn't name the speaker of 2:6-9 beyond its heading, which calls the whole chapter "what Isaiah the son of Amoz saw" (2:1). In Hebrew forgive here is nasa, the verb the chapter uses for raised and lifted up (tap lifted up). The same chapter also holds the call, "House of Jacob, come, and let’s walk in the light of the LORD" (2:5), and the book's first chapter holds the LORD's own words, "Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (1:18). The chapter doesn't explain how 2:9 stands beside those words, so these notes don't either; they let each verse say what it says.
The verses
““Come now, and let’s reason together,” says the LORD: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
“This is what Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”