Isaiah 42:13

יְהוָה כַּגִּבּוֹר יֵצֵא כְּאִישׁ מִלְחָמוֹת יָעִיר קִנְאָה יָרִיעַ אַף־יַצְרִיחַ עַל־אֹיְבָיו יִתְגַּבָּר׃

13 The LORD like a hero goes forth, Like a man of war he will stir up his zeal. He cries out and he shouts. He will be heroic over his foes.

יְהוָה כַּגִּבּוֹר יֵצֵא The LORD like a hero goes forth, יֵצֵא qal imperfect יָצָא, "go out." A גִּבּוֹר is a mighty man, as in David's mighty men. I wouldn't insist on the translation "hero" here, but I wanted to capture the noun's relationship with the verb below, "be heroic." The form כַּגִּבּוֹר is a hapax legomenon (Gesenius proposes that the Masoretes did not like to treat the object of a comparison as definite but as a general term, as so this is the only case of כַּגִּבּוֹר with the definite article, GK §126p).

כְּאִישׁ מִלְחָמוֹת יָעִיר קִנְאָה Like a man of war he will stir up his zeal. יָעִיר hifil imperfect עוּר, "rouse, awaken," with a force like the Greek middle voice, "rouse oneself." קִנְאָה is the dictionary form, "zeal, jealousy." Cf. אֵ֣ל קַנָּ֔א "a jealous God" (Exodus 20:5). God's fury is not tainted by sin as ours is. An Mp notes says that כְּאִישׁ occurs twenty times (Num 14:15; Jg 6:16; 20:1; 20:8; 20:11; 1 Sam 11:7; 2 Sam 19:15; Ezr 3:1; Neh 7:2; Neh 8:1; Psalm 38:15; Prov 6:11; 24:34; Isa 42:13; 66:13; Jer 6:23; 14:9; 23:9; 50:42; Zech 4:1). The other Mp note for this phrase is that יָעִיר occurs eight times. Deut 32:11; Job 8:6; Psalm 78:38; Isaiah 42:13; 50:4 (twice), Daniel 11:2 and the qere of יעור in 1 Chron. 20:5.

יָרִיעַ אַף־יַצְרִיחַ He cries out and he shouts. יָרִיעַ hifil imperfect (3 m sg) of רוּעַ "raise a shout" or "blast (a horn)." יַצְרִיחַ is another hifil perfect (צָרַח, "cry, roar"). The אַף acts as a simple copulative and negates the problem of how to construe a waw-consecutive.

עַל־אֹיְבָיו יִתְגַּבָּר He will be heroic over his foes. אֹיְבָיו is the qal participle (m pl construct) of אָיַב "be hostile to." The noun of this word, אֵיבָה, is the familiar term "enmity" of Genesis 3:15. יִתְגַּבָּר is the hithpael imperfect (3 m sg) of גָבַר, "be a hero, be strong; be mighty." The qames is the pausal vowel, which is regularly patach in the hithpael imperfect 3 m sg of a lamed-gutteral (ר) verb (cf. Weingreen p. 279). As Professor Eickmann used to tell us, "Gutterals prefer patach below and even before them." The form יִתְגַּבָּר also occurs in pause in Job 15:25.

A setumah (ס֡) after this verse closes off the paragraph.

And so the Lord comes, to call his people to his banner, like a warrior he shouts to believers across the folds of time.

Who is the bravest, most fearless person you can think of? This is the one the Lord compares himself to, to show us that he is willing to take on anything for our sakes. For many people, and we must admit, many men in particular, the bravest souls are those who march out at the head of armies, willing to engage in single combat if necessary, like David facing Goliath or his nephew facing the monstrous Philistines with twelve fingers and twelve toes (1 Chron. 20:6-7).

But I have seen someone I thought even more brave. I have seen a woman writhe in the agony of childbirth, and then go back and do it again and again--and my respect for her is at least equal to, if not greater than, any warrior in battle. And the Lord uses that picture, too, in the next verse.