Can a Woman Forget Her Nursing Child?
14 But Zion said, “Yahweh has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.” 15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you! 16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. 17 Your children hurry. Your destroyers and those who devastated you will leave you. 18 Lift up your eyes all around, and see: all these gather themselves together, and come to you. As I live,” says Yahweh, “you shall surely clothe yourself with them all as with an ornament, and dress yourself with them, like a bride. 19 “For, as for your waste and your desolate places, and your land that has been destroyed, surely now that land will be too small for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away. 20 The children of your bereavement will say in your ears, ‘This place is too small for me. Give me a place to live in.’ 21 Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has conceived these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children and am alone, an exile, and wandering back and forth? Who has brought these up? Behold, I was left alone. Where were these?’” 22 The Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and lift up my banner to the peoples. They shall bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. 23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am Yahweh; and those who wait for me won’t be disappointed.” 24 Shall the plunder be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captives be delivered? 25 But Yahweh says, “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the plunder retrieved from the fierce, for I will contend with him who contends with you and I will save your children. 26 I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh; and they will be drunk on their own blood, as with sweet wine. Then all flesh shall know that I, Yahweh, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
Zion says she has been forgotten, and is answered with a nursing mother and a name cut into a palm.
But Zion said, “Yahweh has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.”
The complaint of chapter forty Isaiah 40:27, stated by the city itself, and it is the honest reaction of people who have been in exile long enough to draw conclusions.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you!
The answer is a question, and it is chosen for being the least likely thing in human experience. A nursing mother is physically reminded every few hours; forgetting is not available to her.
Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you!
And then the comparison is conceded. Some mothers do forget, which the verse admits rather than pretending otherwise — and the concession makes the promise stronger, because it removes the analogy and leaves only the assertion.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me.
The verb is the one used of cutting into stone. Not written, not drawn — cut, on the part of the body that is in front of a person's eyes whenever they work.
Your walls are continually before me. The walls she thinks are forgotten are the ones he is looking at.
Your children hurry. Your destroyers and those who devastated you will leave you.
The children of your bereavement will say in your ears, ‘This place is too small for me. Give me a place to live in.’
The reversal is measured by overcrowding. A city that was empty runs out of room, and the complaint of the returning children is that there is nowhere to build.
Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has conceived these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children and am alone, an exile, and wandering back and forth? Who has brought these up? Behold, I was left alone. Where were these?’”
The response to the restoration is bewilderment rather than gratitude. She counts the children and cannot account for them, and the question at the end is the most human sentence in the chapter.
Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am Yahweh; and those who wait for me won’t be disappointed.”
The nursing image returns, and it is now the nations doing it.
Shall the plunder be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captives be delivered?
The objection is legal. These prisoners were taken lawfully, by the standards of the age, and there is no procedure for getting them back. The answer does not dispute the law; it names who will be contending: I will contend with him who contends with you Isaiah 49:25.
settled What this mark means