Passage

Isaiah 1.27

Book: Isaiah

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"25. and I will turn my hand upon thee, and thoroughly purge away thy dross, and will take away all thy tin; 26. and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called The city of righteousness, a faithful town."

"27. Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her converts with righteousness."

"28. But the destruction of transgressors and sinners shall be together, and they that forsake Jehovah shall be consumed. 29. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen." (Isaiah 1:25-29, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"25. and I will turn my hand on you, thoroughly purge away your dross, and will take away all your tin. 26. I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called ‘The city of righteousness, a faithful town.’"

"27. Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her converts with righteousness."

"28. But the destruction of transgressors and sinners shall be together, and those who forsake Yahweh shall be consumed. 29. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you shall be confounded for the gardens that you have chosen." (Isaiah 1:25-29, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"25. And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: ^{purely: Heb. according to pureness} 26. And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city."

"27. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness. ^{her: or, they that return of her}"

"28. And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed. ^{destruction: Heb. breaking} 29. For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen." (Isaiah 1:25-29, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"25. And I turn back My hand upon thee, And I refine as purity thy dross, And I turn aside all thy tin, 26. And I give back thy judges as at the first, And thy counsellors as in the beginning, After this thou art called, 'A city of righteousness, a faithful city.'"

"27. Zion in judgment is redeemed, And her captivity in righteousness."

"28. And the destruction of transgressors and sinners [is] together, And those forsaking Jehovah are consumed. 29. For [men] are ashamed because of the oaks That ye have desired, And ye are confounded because of the gardens That ye have chosen." (Isaiah 1:25-29, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: YHWH through the prophet Isaiah; the indictment-and-promise oracle that opens the book
Audience: Judah and Jerusalem, c. mid-eighth century BC, under the kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Isa 1:1)
Location: Jerusalem
Time period: likely Hezekiah-era (c. 700 BC), though Isa 1 functions as the editorial overture to the whole book

Theological reading

Isaiah 1:27 is the first Isaianic deployment of the mishpat-tzedaqah pair, "justice-and-righteousness", that runs as a structural thread through the prophet's entire corpus (Isa 5:7, 16; 9:7; 28:17; 32:16-17; 33:5; 56:1; 59:14). The verse is structurally programmatic: it announces the mechanism of Zion's redemption, not by ritual or military deliverance but by the divine mishpat (justice / judgment) and tzedaqah (righteousness). The pair operates simultaneously as God's attributes (the rectifying power that purges) and the gift He gives (the rightness that constitutes the redeemed community). The verse anticipates the Isaianic-vindication deployment of [[H6666 - tzedakah|tzedaqah]] that culminates in Isa 46:13, 51:5-8, 56:1, and 61:10, where God's tzedaqah is paired with yeshuah (salvation) as the saving-act by which He restores His covenant people. Patristic and Reformation exegesis read the verse as the OT shadow of Pauline dikaiosynē theou: God redeems Zion not by overlooking sin but by enacting His own righteousness in the redemption.

Key words

H6666 - tzedakah, tzedaqah (Strong's H6666). The Isaianic mishpat-tzedaqah pair as the mechanism of Zion's redemption.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.