O that you had hearkened to my commandments!: Yahweh is deeply disappointed that his people failed to pay attention to his laws. Yahweh’s distress is expressed in a lament. The Hebrew word rendered O that indicates a situation that should have been true but wasn’t. The Israelites should have obeyed God’s laws, but they didn’t. Oh that may be rendered “If only” or “I wish that.” The Hebrew term rendered commandments is only used here in Isaiah to refer to God’s laws. For this whole line Good News Translation and Revised English Bible have “If only you had listened to my commands,” and Contemporary English Version says “How I wish that you had obeyed my commands!”

Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea: If Israel had only followed God’s commands, then its course of history would have been different. In the present context it means that the people’s exile in Babylonia would not have taken place. What would have happened instead is expressed poetically in terms of peace and righteousness. For peace see the comments on 26.12; for righteousness see the comments on 41.2, where the Hebrew root here is rendered “victory.” As elsewhere in Isaiah, peace may refer to “well-being” or “prosperity” (New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), and righteousness to “Victory” (Good News Translation), “triumph” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), “success” (New Revised Standard Version), or “salvation” (Bible en français courant). Translators may translate peace and righteousness in ways similar to the way they rendered these terms elsewhere. Comparing these unrealized results with a river and the waves of the sea is a way of saying that peace and righteousness would have been abundant and unceasing. They would have been like the steady flow of a river and the unstoppable action of the waves of the sea. Some languages may find it helpful to make these points of comparison explicit in the similes (see the examples below). However, in languages where a river and the waves of the sea cannot be used as similes for that which is abundant and unceasing, these two lines may be rendered nonfiguratively by saying “Then your peace would have been steady and abundant, your prosperity non-ending/continuous.”

As noted in the introductory comments on this subsection [48.17-19], the structure of these two lines is chiastic in Hebrew: like a river > your peace > < your righteousness < like the waves of the sea (similarly second example below).

For the translation of this verse consider the following examples:

• If only you had paid heed to my commandments!
Then you would know a peace that flows like a river,
and like the incessant waves of the sea you would know victory.

• I wish that you had paid attention to my commands!
If you had, then your peace would be like a flowing river,
and your victory like unceasing waves of the sea [on the shore].

An example that continues indirect speech here is:

• If only you had paid heed to his commandments!
Then you would know a peace that flows like a river,
and you would know victory like the incessant waves of the sea.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .