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The commentators have offered a great variety of translations of these words:
"I will suffer no man to intercede" (Lowth).
"I will ask no man (i.e. to avenge)" (Jarchi).
"I will strike a league with no man" (Gesen).
"I will spare no man" (Hend).
"Though I should meet with no man" (Vitx).
"I shall encounter no man" (Steir).
"I shall not meet a man (i.e. shall be wholly desolate)" (Hahn).
"I shall not pardon any man" (Delitzsch).
"I will meet thee not as a man" (Mayer).
"I will not accept or regard any man" (100: Bible).
"I will accept (or make truce with, Heb. meet) no man" (R.V.).
This exhibition of differences reveals the intensely humbling nature of the task we
undertake in The Berean Expositor.
Paga, the Hebrew translated `meet', primarily means `to strike upon', or as the
English idiom is `to light upon'. It may be of set purpose or by accident; it may be with
violence (I Sam. 22: 18 `fall upon'). It is found in two senses in the book of Ruth:
"That they meet thee not in any other field" (2: 22).
"Intreat me not to leave thee" (1: 16).
Here, in Ruth 1: 16 the word enters its secondary meaning. To assail anyone with
petitions; and so in Isaiah we read:
"He made intercessions for the transgressors" (53: 12).
"He wondered that there was no intercessor" (59: 16).
Consequently Gesenius says of Isa. 47: 3 that it should read:
"I will take vengeance and will not make peace with any man."
Where scholars disagree, the reader may find confirmation and certainty by
considering the influence of parallel passages. Now we know that `the day of vengeance'
of our God is contrasted with `the acceptable year' of the Lord in this same prophecy, and
Isa. 47: 3 read in the light of such passages, suggests that the true rendering is that
given in The Companion Bible or by Gesenius.
We must now pass to other subjects:
"I had been provoked with My people,
Had profaned Mine inheritance
And given them unto thy hand . . . . .
Thou showedst them no compassion,
Upon the elder madest thou very heavy thy yoke.
And thou saidst,
Unto times age-biding shall I be Mistress--
Insomuch that thou laidst not these things to thy heart,
Didst not keep in mind the issue thereof" (Isa. 47: 6, 7).