Yesaya 1:25

1:25 I will attack you; ¹ 

I will purify your metal with flux. ² 

I will remove all your slag. ³ 

Yesaya 7:24

7:24 With bow and arrow ⁴  men will hunt ⁵  there, for the whole land will be covered ⁶  with thorns and briers.

Yesaya 8:10

8:10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted!

Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! ⁷ 

For God is with us! ⁸ 

Yesaya 8:22

8:22 When one looks out over the land, he sees ⁹  distress and darkness, gloom ¹⁰  and anxiety, darkness and people forced from the land. ¹¹ 

Yesaya 10:10

10:10 I overpowered kingdoms ruled by idols, ¹² 

whose carved images were more impressive than Jerusalem’s ¹³  or Samaria’s.

Yesaya 13:17

13:17 Look, I am stirring up the Medes to attack them; ¹⁴ 

they are not concerned about silver,

nor are they interested in gold. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 16:2

16:2 At the fords of the Arnon ¹⁶ 

the Moabite women are like a bird

that flies about when forced from its nest. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 22:6

22:6 The Elamites picked up the quiver,

and came with chariots and horsemen; ¹⁸ 

the men of Kir ¹⁹  prepared ²⁰  the shield. ²¹ 

Yesaya 24:7

24:7 The new wine dries up,

the vines shrivel up,

all those who like to celebrate ²²  groan.

Yesaya 26:13

26:13 O Lord, our God,

masters other than you have ruled us,

but we praise your name alone.

Yesaya 29:17

Changes are Coming

29:17 In just a very short time ²³ 

Lebanon will turn into an orchard,

and the orchard will be considered a forest. ²⁴ 

Yesaya 30:7

30:7 Egypt is totally incapable of helping. ²⁵ 

For this reason I call her

‘Proud one ²⁶  who is silenced.’” ²⁷ 

Yesaya 33:11

33:11 You conceive straw, ²⁸ 

you give birth to chaff;

your breath is a fire that destroys you. ²⁹ 

Yesaya 36:5

36:5 Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ³⁰  In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?

Yesaya 36:20-21

36:20 Who among all the gods of these lands have rescued their lands from my power? So how can the Lord rescue Jerusalem from my power?’” ³¹  36:21 They were silent and did not respond, for the king had ordered, “Don’t respond to him.”

Yesaya 38:11

38:11 “I thought,

‘I will no longer see the Lord ³²  in the land of the living,

I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world. ³³ 

Yesaya 41:13

41:13 For I am the Lord your God,

the one who takes hold of your right hand,

who says to you, ‘Don’t be afraid, I am helping you.’

Yesaya 65:6

65:6 Look, I have decreed: ³⁴ 

I will not keep silent, but will pay them back;

I will pay them back exactly what they deserve, ³⁵ 

[1:25]  ¹ tn Heb “turn my hand against you.” The second person pronouns in vv. 25-26 are feminine singular. Personified Jerusalem is addressed. The idiom “turn the hand against” has the nuance of “strike with the hand, attack,” in Ps 81:15 HT (81:14 ET); Ezek 38:12; Am 1:8; Zech 13:7. In Jer 6:9 it is used of gleaning grapes.

[1:25]  ² tn Heb “I will purify your dross as [with] flux.” “Flux” refers here to minerals added to the metals in a furnace to prevent oxides from forming. For this interpretation of II בֹּר (bor), see HALOT 153 s.v. II בֹּר and 750 s.v. סִיג.

[1:25]  ³ sn The metaphor comes from metallurgy; slag is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.

[7:24]  ⁴ tn Heb “with arrows and a bow.” The more common English idiom is “bow[s] and arrow[s].”

[7:24]  ⁵ tn Heb “go” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “go hunting.”

[7:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “will be” (so NASB, NRSV).

[8:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “speak a word, but it will not stand.”

[8:10]  ⁸ sn In these vv. 9-10 the tone shifts abruptly from judgment to hope. Hostile nations like Assyria may attack God’s people, but eventually they will be destroyed, for God is with his people, sometimes to punish, but ultimately to vindicate. In addition to being a reminder of God’s presence in the immediate crisis faced by Ahaz and Judah, Immanuel (whose name is echoed in this concluding statement) was a guarantee of the nation’s future greatness in fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises. Eventually God would deliver his people from the hostile nations (vv. 9-10) through another child, an ideal Davidic ruler who would embody God’s presence in a special way (see 9:6-7). Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment of the Davidic ideal prophesied by Isaiah, the one whom Immanuel foreshadowed. Through the miracle of the incarnation he is literally “God with us.” Matthew realized this and applied Isaiah’s ancient prophecy of Immanuel’s birth to Jesus (Matt 1:22-23). The first Immanuel was a reminder to the people of God’s presence and a guarantee of a greater child to come who would manifest God’s presence in an even greater way. The second Immanuel is “God with us” in a heightened and infinitely superior sense. He “fulfills” Isaiah’s Immanuel prophecy by bringing the typology intended by God to realization and by filling out or completing the pattern designed by God. Of course, in the ultimate fulfillment of the type, the incarnate Immanuel’s mother must be a virgin, so Matthew uses a Greek term (παρθένος, parqenos), which carries that technical meaning (in contrast to the Hebrew word עַלְמָה [’almah], which has the more general meaning “young woman”). Matthew draws similar analogies between NT and OT events in 2:15, 18. The linking of these passages by analogy is termed “fulfillment.” In 2:15 God calls Jesus, his perfect Son, out of Egypt, just as he did his son Israel in the days of Moses, an historical event referred to in Hos 11:1. In so doing he makes it clear that Jesus is the ideal Israel prophesied by Isaiah (see Isa 49:3), sent to restore wayward Israel (see Isa 49:5, cf. Matt 1:21). In 2:18 Herod’s slaughter of the infants is another illustration of the oppressive treatment of God’s people by foreign tyrants. Herod’s actions are analogous to those of the Assyrians, who deported the Israelites, causing the personified land to lament as inconsolably as a mother robbed of her little ones (Jer 31:15).

[8:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “and behold” (so KJV, ASV, NASB).

[8:22]  ¹⁰ tn The precise meaning of מְעוּף (mÿ’uf) is uncertain; the word occurs only here. See BDB 734 s.v. מָעוּף.

[8:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “ and darkness, pushed.” The word מְנֻדָּח (mÿnudakh) appears to be a Pual participle from נדח (“push”), but the Piel is unattested for this verb and the Pual occurs only here.

[10:10]  ¹² tn Heb “Just as my hand found the kingdoms of the idol[s].” The comparison is expanded in v. 11a (note “as”) and completed in v. 11b (note “so”).

[10:10]  ¹³ map For the location of Jerusalem see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[13:17]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “against them”; NLT “against Babylon.”

[13:17]  ¹⁵ sn They cannot be bought off, for they have a lust for bloodshed.

[16:2]  ¹⁶ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[16:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “like a bird fleeing, thrust away [from] a nest, the daughters of Moab are [at] the fords of Arnon.”

[22:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “[with] the chariots of men, horsemen.”

[22:6]  ¹⁹ sn A distant region in the direction of Mesopotamia; see Amos 1:5; 9:7.

[22:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Kir uncovers” (so NAB, NIV).

[22:6]  ²¹ sn The Elamites and men of Kir may here symbolize a fierce army from a distant land. If this oracle anticipates a Babylonian conquest of the city (see 39:5-7), then the Elamites and men of Kir are perhaps viewed here as mercenaries in the Babylonian army. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:410.

[24:7]  ²² tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “all the joyful in heart,” but the context specifies the context as parties and drinking bouts.

[29:17]  ²³ tn The Hebrew text phrases this as a rhetorical question, “Is it not yet a little, a short [time]?”

[29:17]  ²⁴ sn The meaning of this verse is debated, but it seems to depict a reversal in fortunes. The mighty forest of Lebanon (symbolic of the proud and powerful, see 2:13; 10:34) will be changed into a common orchard, while the common orchard (symbolic of the oppressed and lowly) will grow into a great forest. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:538.

[30:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “As for Egypt, with vanity and emptiness they help.”

[30:7]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Rahab” (רַהַב, rahav), which also appears as a name for Egypt in Ps 87:4. The epithet is also used in the OT for a mythical sea monster symbolic of chaos. See the note at 51:9. A number of English versions use the name “Rahab” (e.g., ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV) while others attempt some sort of translation (cf. CEV “a helpless monster”; TEV, NLT “the Harmless Dragon”).

[30:7]  ²⁷ tn The MT reads “Rahab, they, sitting.” The translation above assumes an emendation of הֵם שָׁבֶת (hem shavet) to הַמָּשְׁבָּת (hammashbat), a Hophal participle with prefixed definite article, meaning “the one who is made to cease,” i.e., “destroyed,” or “silenced.” See HALOT 444-45 s.v. ישׁב.

[33:11]  ²⁸ tn The second person verb and pronominal forms in this verse are plural. The hostile nations are the addressed, as the next verse makes clear.

[33:11]  ²⁹ sn The hostile nations’ plans to destroy God’s people will come to nothing; their hostility will end up being self-destructive.

[36:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “you say only a word of lips, counsel and might for battle.” Sennacherib’s message appears to be in broken Hebrew at this point. The phrase “word of lips” refers to mere or empty talk in Prov 14:23.

[36:20]  ³¹ tn Heb “that the Lord might rescue Jerusalem from my hand?” The logic runs as follows: Since no god has ever been able to withstand the Assyrian onslaught, how can the people of Jerusalem possibly think the Lord will rescue them?

[38:11]  ³² tn The Hebrew text has יָהּ יָהּ (yah yah, the abbreviated form of יְהוָה [yÿhvah] repeated), but this is probably a corruption of יְהוָה.

[38:11]  ³³ tc The Hebrew text has חָדֶל (khadel), which appears to be derived from a verbal root meaning “to cease, refrain.” But the form has probably suffered an error of transmission; the original form (attested in a few medieval Hebrew mss) was likely חֶלֶד (kheled, “world”).

[65:6]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Look, it is written before me.”

[65:6]  ³⁵ tn Heb “I will pay back into their lap.”