Yesaya 13:19-21

13:19 Babylon, the most admired ¹  of kingdoms,

the Chaldeans’ source of honor and pride, ² 

will be destroyed by God

just as Sodom and Gomorrah were. ³ 

13:20 No one will live there again;

no one will ever reside there again. ⁴ 

No bedouin ⁵  will camp ⁶  there,

no shepherds will rest their flocks ⁷  there.

13:21 Wild animals will rest there,

the ruined ⁸  houses will be full of hyenas. ⁹ 

Ostriches will live there,

wild goats will skip among the ruins. ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 19:5-10

19:5 The water of the sea will be dried up,

and the river will dry up and be empty. ¹¹ 

19:6 The canals ¹²  will stink; ¹³ 

the streams of Egypt will trickle and then dry up;

the bulrushes and reeds will decay,

19:7 along with the plants by the mouth of the river. ¹⁴ 

All the cultivated land near the river

will turn to dust and be blown away. ¹⁵ 

19:8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,

all those who cast a fishhook into the river,

and those who spread out a net on the water’s surface will grieve. ¹⁶ 

19:9 Those who make clothes from combed flax will be embarrassed;

those who weave will turn pale. ¹⁷ 

19:10 Those who make cloth ¹⁸  will be demoralized; ¹⁹ 

all the hired workers will be depressed. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 34:9-10

34:9 Edom’s ²¹  streams will be turned into pitch

and her soil into brimstone;

her land will become burning pitch.

34:10 Night and day it will burn; ²² 

its smoke will ascend continually.

Generation after generation it will be a wasteland

and no one will ever pass through it again.

Yesaya 42:15

42:15 I will make the trees on the mountains and hills wither up; ²³ 

I will dry up all their vegetation.

I will turn streams into islands, ²⁴ 

and dry up pools of water. ²⁵ 

Yesaya 44:27

44:27 who says to the deep sea, ‘Be dry!

I will dry up your sea currents,’

Yesaya 50:2

50:2 Why does no one challenge me when I come?

Why does no one respond when I call? ²⁶ 

Is my hand too weak ²⁷  to deliver ²⁸  you?

Do I lack the power to rescue you?

Look, with a mere shout ²⁹  I can dry up the sea;

I can turn streams into a desert,

so the fish rot away and die

from lack of water. ³⁰ 

[13:19]  ¹ tn Or “most beautiful” (NCV, TEV).

[13:19]  ² tn Heb “the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans.”

[13:19]  sn The Chaldeans were a group of tribes who lived in southern Mesopotamia. The established the so-called neo-Babylonian empire in the late seventh century b.c. Their most famous king, Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Judah in 605 b.c. and destroyed Jerusalem in 586 b.c.

[13:19]  ³ tn Heb “and Babylon…will be like the overthrow by God of Sodom and Gomorrah.” On מַהְפֵּכַת (mahpekhat, “overthrow”) see the note on the word “destruction” in 1:7.

[13:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “she will not be inhabited forever, and she will not be dwelt in to generation and generation (i.e., forever).” The Lord declares that Babylon, personified as a woman, will not be inhabited. In other words, her people will be destroyed and the Chaldean empire will come to a permanent end.

[13:20]  ⁵ tn Or “Arab” (NAB, NASB, NIV); cf. CEV, NLT “nomads.”

[13:20]  ⁶ tn יַהֵל (yahel) is probably a corrupted form of יֶאֱהַל (ye’ehal). See GKC 186 §68.k.

[13:20]  ⁷ tn The words “their flocks” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Hebrew text does not supply the object here, but see Jer 33:12.

[13:21]  ⁸ tn The word “ruined” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[13:21]  ⁹ tn The precise referent of this word in uncertain. See HALOT 29 s.v. *אֹחַ. Various English versions translate as “owls” (e.g., NAB, NASB), “wild dogs” (NCV); “jackals” (NIV); “howling creatures” (NRSV, NLT).

[13:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “will skip there.”

[19:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “will dry up and be dry.” Two synonyms are joined for emphasis.

[19:6]  ¹² tn Heb “rivers” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, CEV “streams”; TEV “channels.”

[19:6]  ¹³ tn The verb form appears as a Hiphil in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a; the form in MT may be a so-called “mixed form,” reflecting the Hebrew Hiphil stem and the functionally corresponding Aramaic Aphel stem. See HALOT 276 s.v. I זנח.

[19:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the plants by the river, by the mouth of the river.”

[19:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “will dry up, [being] scattered, and it will vanish.”

[19:8]  ¹⁶ tn Or perhaps, “will disappear”; cf. TEV “will be useless.”

[19:9]  ¹⁷ tn BDB 301 s.v. חוֹרִי suggests the meaning “white stuff” for חוֹרִי (khori); the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חָוֵרוּ (khaveru), probably a Qal perfect, third plural form of חוּר, (khur, “be white, pale”). See HALOT 299 s.v. I חור. The latter reading is assumed in the translation above.

[19:10]  ¹⁸ tn Some interpret שָׁתֹתֶיהָ (shatoteha) as “her foundations,” i.e., leaders, nobles. See BDB 1011 s.v. שָׁת. Others, on the basis of alleged cognates in Akkadian and Coptic, repoint the form שְׁתִיתֶיהָ (shÿtiteha) and translate “her weavers.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:370.

[19:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “crushed.” Emotional distress is the focus of the context (see vv. 8-9, 10b).

[19:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “sad of soul”; cf. NIV, NLT “sick at heart.”

[34:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Edom) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:10]  ²² tn Heb “it will not be extinguished.”

[42:15]  ²³ tn Heb “I will dry up the mountains and hills.” The “mountains and hills” stand by synecdoche for the trees that grow on them. Some prefer to derive the verb from a homonymic root and translate, “I will lay waste.”

[42:15]  ²⁴ tc The Hebrew text reads, “I will turn streams into coastlands [or “islands”].” Scholars who believe that this reading makes little sense have proposed an emendation of אִיִּים (’iyyim, “islands”) to צִיּוֹת (tsiyyot, “dry places”; cf. NCV, NLT, TEV). However, since all the versions support the MT reading, there is insufficient grounds for an emendation here. Although the imagery of changing rivers into islands is somewhat strange, J. N. Oswalt describes this imagery against the backdrop of rivers of the Near East. The receding of these rivers at times occasioned the appearance of previously submerged islands (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:126).

[42:15]  ²⁵ sn The imagery of this verse, which depicts the Lord bringing a curse of infertility to the earth, metaphorically describes how the Lord will destroy his enemies.

[50:2]  ²⁶ sn The present tense translation of the verbs assumes that the Lord is questioning why Israel does not attempt to counter his arguments. Another possibility is to take the verbs as referring to past events: “Why did no one meet me when I came? Why did no one answer when I called?” In this case the Lord might be asking why Israel rejected his calls to repent and his offer to deliver them.

[50:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “short” (so NAB, NASB, NIV).

[50:2]  ²⁸ tn Or “ransom” (NAB, NASB, NIV).

[50:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “with my rebuke.”

[50:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the fish stink from lack of water and die from thirst.”