Israel’s New View of the Nations (7:14-17): There is some question about how this passage is to be interpreted. Hillers, Mays, and Wolff all take the verses to make up a communal prayer of lament to Yahweh, like the communal laments found in Psalms 44, 74, 79, 80, and 83. As a result, “you” in line 15a is taken to refer to Yahweh, and the following lines are read as jussives: “let us see . . . ,” 15b; “May the nations see . . . ,” 16a; “Let them lay . . . ,” 16c; “Let them lick . . . ,” 17a; “Let them come trembling . . . ,” 17c.

But the NIV has wisely separated verse 15 from what precedes and what follows it, to indicate the structure of a dialogue, and that is what we have here—the continuation of the dialogue between Jerusalem and its God that began in 6:1 and that has gone on through al…