“Therefore hear this!
You who are wounded!
You who are drunk!
But not with wine!
Thus says your Lord!
Yahweh!
Your God pleads
The cause of his people.
‘See!
I have taken from your hand
The cup of staggering.
I have taken from your hand
The bowl of my wrath.
You shall drink no more.
I will put it into the hand
Of your tormentors.
They have said to you.
‘Bow down!
Thus we may walk on you.’
You have made your back
Like the ground,
Like the street
For them to walk on.”
Second Isaiah has Yahweh end his wrath towards the Israelites. They had been wounded and drunk, but not from wine. Now Yahweh, the Lord, was going to take their staggering ways away. There would be no more drinking from the cup of wrath. Yahweh was going to take away this bowl so that he could give this bowl of wrath to their tormentors, who now would have to drink from this angry cup. These tormentors had made them bow down so that they could walk over their backs. They were like street coverings so that these oppressors could walk all over them without getting their feet dirty.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 