Yesaya 3:5

3:5 The people will treat each other harshly;

men will oppose each other;

neighbors will fight. ¹ 

Youths will proudly defy the elderly

and riffraff will challenge those who were once respected. ² 

Yesaya 9:3

9:3 You ³  have enlarged the nation;

you give them great joy. ⁴ 

They rejoice in your presence

as harvesters rejoice;

as warriors celebrate ⁵  when they divide up the plunder.

Yesaya 25:1

25:1 O Lord, you are my God! ⁶ 

I will exalt you in praise, I will extol your fame. ⁷ 

For you have done extraordinary things,

and executed plans made long ago exactly as you decreed. ⁸ 

[3:5]  ¹ tn Heb “man against man, and a man against his neighbor.”

[3:5]  ² tn Heb “and those lightly esteemed those who are respected.” The verb רָהַב (rahav) does double duty in the parallelism.

[9:3]  ³ sn The Lord is addressed directly in vv. 3-4.

[9:3]  ⁴ tc The Hebrew consonantal text reads “You multiply the nation, you do not make great the joy.” The particle לֹא (lo’, “not”) is obviously incorrect; the marginal reading has לוֹ (lo, “to him”). In this case, one should translate, “You multiply the nation, you increase his (i.e., their) joy.” However, the parallelism is tighter if one emends הַגּוֹי לוֹ (hagoy lo, “the nation, to him”) to הַגִּילָה (haggilah, “the joy,” a noun attested in Isa 65:18), which corresponds to הַשִּׂמְחָה (hasimkhah, “the joy”) later in the verse (H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:386). As attractive as this reading is, it has not textual evidence supporting it. The MT reading (accepting the marginal reading “to him” for the negative particle “not”) affirms that Yahweh caused the nation to grow in population and increased their joy.

[9:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “as they are happy.” The word “warriors” is supplied in the translation to clarify the word picture. This last simile comes close to reality, for vv. 4-5 indicate that the people have won a great military victory over their oppressors.

[25:1]  ⁶ sn The prophet speaks here as one who has observed the coming judgment of the proud.

[25:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “name.” See the note at 24:15.

[25:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “plans from long ago [in] faithfulness, trustworthiness.” The feminine noun אֱמוּנָה (’emunah, “faithfulness”) and masculine noun אֹמֶן (’omen, “trustworthiness”), both of which are derived from the root אָמַן (’aman), are juxtaposed to emphasize the basic idea conveyed by the synonyms. Here they describe the absolute reliability of the divine plans.