Yesaya 1:5

1:5 ¹ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ² 

Your head has a massive wound, ³ 

your whole body is weak. ⁴ 

Yesaya 4:4

4:4 At that time ⁵  the sovereign master ⁶  will wash the excrement ⁷  from Zion’s women,

he will rinse the bloodstains from Jerusalem’s midst, ⁸ 

as he comes to judge

and to bring devastation. ⁹ 

Yesaya 5:19

5:19 They say, “Let him hurry, let him act quickly, ¹⁰ 

so we can see;

let the plan of the Holy One of Israel ¹¹  take shape ¹²  and come to pass,

then we will know it!”

Yesaya 9:13

9:13 The people did not return to the one who struck them,

they did not seek reconciliation ¹³  with the Lord who commands armies.

Yesaya 10:2

10:2 to keep the poor from getting fair treatment,

and to deprive ¹⁴  the oppressed among my people of justice,

so they can steal what widows own,

and loot what belongs to orphans. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 10:26

10:26 The Lord who commands armies is about to beat them ¹⁶  with a whip, similar to the way he struck down Midian at the rock of Oreb. ¹⁷  He will use his staff against the sea, lifting it up as he did in Egypt. ¹⁸ 

Yesaya 24:6

24:6 So a treaty curse ¹⁹  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ²⁰ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ²¹ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ²² 

Yesaya 27:8

27:8 When you summon her for divorce, you prosecute her; ²³ 

he drives her away ²⁴  with his strong wind in the day of the east wind. ²⁵ 

Yesaya 29:21

29:21 those who bear false testimony against a person, ²⁶ 

who entrap the one who arbitrates at the city gate ²⁷ 

and deprive the innocent of justice by making false charges. ²⁸ 

Yesaya 50:8

50:8 The one who vindicates me is close by.

Who dares to argue with me? Let us confront each other! ²⁹ 

Who is my accuser? ³⁰  Let him challenge me! ³¹ 

Yesaya 53:5

53:5 He was wounded because of ³²  our rebellious deeds,

crushed because of our sins;

he endured punishment that made us well; ³³ 

because of his wounds we have been healed. ³⁴ 

[1:5]  ¹ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ³ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[4:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “when” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); CEV “after”; NRSV “once.”

[4:4]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai).

[4:4]  ⁷ tn The word refers elsewhere to vomit (Isa 28:8) and fecal material (Isa 36:12). Many English versions render this somewhat euphemistically as “filth” (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV). Ironically in God’s sight the beautiful jewelry described earlier is nothing but vomit and feces, for it symbolizes the moral decay of the city’s residents (cf. NLT “moral filth”).

[4:4]  ⁸ sn See 1:21 for a related concept.

[4:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning.” The precise meaning of the second half of the verse is uncertain. רוּחַ (ruakh) can be understood as “wind” in which case the passage pictures the Lord using a destructive wind as an instrument of judgment. However, this would create a mixed metaphor, for the first half of the verse uses the imagery of washing and rinsing to depict judgment. Perhaps the image would be that of a windstorm accompanied by heavy rain. רוּחַ can also mean “spirit,” in which case the verse may be referring to the Lord’s Spirit or, more likely, to a disposition that the Lord brings to the task of judgment. It is also uncertain if בָּעַר (ba’ar) here means “burning” or “sweeping away, devastating.”

[5:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “let his work hurry, let it hasten.” The pronoun “his” refers to God, as the parallel line makes clear. The reference to his “work” alludes back to v. 12, which refers to his ‘work” of judgment. With these words the people challenged the prophet’s warning of approaching judgment. They were in essence saying that they saw no evidence that God was about to work in such a way.

[5:19]  ¹¹ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[5:19]  ¹² tn Heb “draw near” (so NASB); NRSV “hasten to fulfillment.”

[9:13]  ¹³ tn This verse describes the people’s response to the judgment described in vv. 11-12. The perfects are understood as indicating simple past.

[10:2]  ¹⁴ tn Or “rob” (ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV); KJV “take away the right from the poor.”

[10:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “so that widows are their plunder, and they can loot orphans.”

[10:2]  sn On the socio-economic background of vv. 1-2, see the note at 1:23.

[10:26]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “him” (so KJV, ASV, NASB); the singular refers to the leader or king who stands for the entire nation. This is specified by NCV, CEV as “the Assyrians.”

[10:26]  ¹⁷ sn According to Judg 7:25, the Ephraimites executed the Midianite general Oreb at a rock which was subsequently named after the executed enemy.

[10:26]  ¹⁸ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and his staff [will be] against the sea, and he will lift it in the way [or “manner”] of Egypt.” If the text is retained, “the sea” symbolizes Assyria’s hostility, the metaphor being introduced because of the reference to Egypt. The translation above assumes an emendation of עַל הַיָּם (’al hayyam, “against the sea”) to עַלֵיהֶם (’alehem, “against them”). The proposed shift from the third singular pronoun (note “beat him” earlier in the verse) to the plural is not problematic, for the singular is collective. Note that a third plural pronoun is used at the end of v. 25 (“their destruction”). The final phrase, “in the way/manner of Egypt,” probably refers to the way in which God used the staff of Moses to bring judgment down on Egypt.

[24:6]  ¹⁹ sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ²⁰ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ²¹ tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ²² tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[27:8]  ²³ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “in [?], in sending her away, you oppose her.” The meaning of this line is uncertain. The form בְּסַאסְּאָה (bÿsa’ssÿ’ah) is taken as an infinitive from סַאסְּאָה (sa’ssÿ’ah) with a prepositional prefix and a third feminine singular suffix. (The MT does not have a mappiq in the final he [ה], however). According to HALOT 738 s.v. סַאסְּאָה the verb is a Palpel form from an otherwise unattested root cognate with an Arabic verb meaning “to gather beasts with a call.” Perhaps it means “to call, summon” here, but this is a very tentative proposal. בְּשַׁלְחָהּ (bÿshalkhah, “in sending her away”) appears to be a Piel infinitive with a prepositional prefix and a third feminine singular suffix. Since the Piel of שָׁלָח (shalakh) can sometimes mean “divorce” (HALOT 1514-15 s.v.) and the following verb רִיב (riv, “oppose”) can be used in legal contexts, it is possible that divorce proceedings are alluded to here. This may explain why Israel is referred to as feminine in this verse, in contrast to the masculine forms used in vv. 6-7 and 9.

[27:8]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew text has no object expressed, but one can understand a third feminine singular pronominal object and place a mappiq in the final he (ה) of the form to indicate the suffix.

[27:8]  ²⁵ sn The “east wind” here symbolizes violent divine judgment.

[29:21]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the ones who make a man a sinner with a word.” The Hiphil of חָטָא (khata’) here has a delocutive sense: “declare a man sinful/guilty.”

[29:21]  ²⁷ sn Legal disputes were resolved at the city gate, where the town elders met. See Amos 5:10.

[29:21]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and deprive by emptiness the innocent.”

[50:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Let us stand together!”

[50:8]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Who is the master of my judgment?”

[50:8]  ³¹ tn Heb “let him approach me”; NAB, NIV “Let him confront me.”

[53:5]  ³² tn The preposition מִן (min) has a causal sense (translated “because of”) here and in the following clause.

[53:5]  ³³ tn Heb “the punishment of our peace [was] on him.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is here a genitive of result, i.e., “punishment that resulted in our peace.”

[53:5]  ³⁴ sn Continuing to utilize the imagery of physical illness, the group acknowledges that the servant’s willingness to carry their illnesses (v. 4) resulted in their being healed. Healing is a metaphor for forgiveness here.