Yesaya 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ¹ 

they associate with ²  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ³  payoffs. ⁴ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁵ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ⁶ 

Yesaya 41:11

41:11 Look, all who were angry at you will be ashamed and humiliated;

your adversaries ⁷  will be reduced to nothing ⁸  and perish.

Yesaya 44:9

44:9 All who form idols are nothing;

the things in which they delight are worthless.

Their witnesses cannot see;

they recognize nothing, so they are put to shame.

Yesaya 56:11

56:11 The dogs have big appetites;

they are never full. ⁹ 

They are shepherds who have no understanding;

they all go their own way,

each one looking for monetary gain. ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 60:6

60:6 Camel caravans will cover your roads, ¹¹ 

young camels from Midian and Ephah.

All the merchants of Sheba ¹²  will come,

bringing gold and incense

and singing praises to the Lord. ¹³ 

[1:23]  ¹ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ² tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ³ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁴ sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).

[1:23]  ⁵ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ⁶ sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.

[41:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “the men of your strife”; NASB “those who contend with you.”

[41:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “like nothing”; NAB “come to nought.”

[56:11]  ⁹ sn The phrase never full alludes to the greed of the leaders.

[56:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for his gain from his end.”

[60:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “an abundance of camels will cover you.”

[60:6]  ¹² tn Heb “all of them, from Sheba.”

[60:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “and they will announce the praises of the Lord.”