Yesaya 6:5

6:5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, ¹  for my lips are contaminated by sin, ²  and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. ³  My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.” ⁴ 

Yesaya 7:17

7:17 The Lord will bring on you, your people, and your father’s family a time ⁵  unlike any since Ephraim departed from Judah – the king of Assyria!” ⁶ 

Yesaya 8:7

8:7 So look, the sovereign master ⁷  is bringing up against them the turbulent and mighty waters of the Euphrates River ⁸  – the king of Assyria and all his majestic power. It will reach flood stage and overflow its banks. ⁹ 

Yesaya 10:12

10:12 But when ¹⁰  the sovereign master ¹¹  finishes judging ¹²  Mount Zion and Jerusalem, then I ¹³  will punish the king of Assyria for what he has proudly planned and for the arrogant attitude he displays. ¹⁴ 

Yesaya 19:11

19:11 The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; ¹⁵ 

Pharaoh’s wise advisers give stupid advice.

How dare you say to Pharaoh,

“I am one of the sages,

one well-versed in the writings of the ancient kings?” ¹⁶ 

Yesaya 20:6

20:6 At that time ¹⁷  those who live on this coast ¹⁸  will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

Yesaya 30:33

30:33 For ¹⁹  the burial place is already prepared; ²⁰ 

it has been made deep and wide for the king. ²¹ 

The firewood is piled high on it. ²² 

The Lord’s breath, like a stream flowing with brimstone,

will ignite it.

Yesaya 36:6

36:6 Look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If someone leans on it for support, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him!

Yesaya 36:16

36:16 Don’t listen to Hezekiah!’ For this is what the king of Assyria says, ‘Send me a token of your submission and surrender to me. ²³  Then each of you may eat from his own vine and fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,

Yesaya 37:4

37:4 Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all these things the chief adviser has spoken on behalf of his master, the king of Assyria, who sent him to taunt the living God. ²⁴  When the Lord your God hears, perhaps he will punish him for the things he has said. ²⁵  So pray for this remnant that remains.’” ²⁶ 

Yesaya 37:6

37:6 Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master this: ‘This is what the Lord says: “Don’t be afraid because of the things you have heard – these insults the king of Assyria’s servants have hurled against me. ²⁷ 

Yesaya 37:21

37:21 Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘Because you prayed to me concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria, ²⁸ 

Yesaya 37:33

37:33 So this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:

‘He will not enter this city,

nor will he shoot an arrow here. ²⁹ 

He will not attack it with his shielded warriors, ³⁰ 

nor will he build siege works against it.

Yesaya 39:3

39:3 Isaiah the prophet visited King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men say? Where do they come from?” Hezekiah replied, “They come from the distant land of Babylon.”

Yesaya 45:1

45:1 This is what the Lord says to his chosen ³¹  one,

to Cyrus, whose right hand I hold ³² 

in order to subdue nations before him,

and disarm kings, ³³ 

to open doors before him,

so gates remain unclosed:

Yesaya 49:7

49:7 This is what the Lord,

the protector ³⁴  of Israel, their Holy One, ³⁵  says

to the one who is despised ³⁶  and rejected ³⁷  by nations, ³⁸ 

a servant of rulers:

“Kings will see and rise in respect, ³⁹ 

princes will bow down,

because of the faithful Lord,

the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you.”

Yesaya 49:23

49:23 Kings will be your children’s ⁴⁰  guardians;

their princesses will nurse your children. ⁴¹ 

With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you

and they will lick the dirt on ⁴²  your feet.

Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;

those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

[6:5]  ¹ tn Isaiah uses the suffixed (perfect) form of the verb for rhetorical purposes. In this way his destruction is described as occurring or as already completed. Rather than understanding the verb as derived from דָּמַה (damah, “be destroyed”), some take it from a proposed homonymic root דמה, which would mean “be silent.” In this case, one might translate, “I must be silent.”

[6:5]  ² tn Heb “a man unclean of lips am I.” Isaiah is not qualified to praise the king. His lips (the instruments of praise) are “unclean” because he has been contaminated by sin.

[6:5]  ³ tn Heb “and among a nation unclean of lips I live.”

[6:5]  ⁴ tn Perhaps in this context, the title has a less militaristic connotation and pictures the Lord as the ruler of the heavenly assembly. See the note at 1:9.

[7:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “days” (so KJV, NAB); NASB, NRSV “such days.”

[7:17]  ⁶ sn Initially the prophecy appears to be a message of salvation. Immanuel seems to have a positive ring to it, sour milk and honey elsewhere symbolize prosperity and blessing (see Deut 32:13-14; Job 20:17), verse 16 announces the defeat of Judah’s enemies, and verse 17a could be taken as predicting a return to the glorious days of David and Solomon. However, the message turns sour in verses 17b-25. God will be with his people in judgment, as well as salvation. The curds and honey will be signs of deprivation, not prosperity, the relief announced in verse 16 will be short-lived, and the new era will be characterized by unprecedented humiliation, not a return to glory. Because of Ahaz’s refusal to trust the Lord, potential blessing would be transformed into a curse, just as Isaiah turns an apparent prophecy of salvation into a message of judgment. Because the words “the king of Assyria” are rather awkwardly tacked on to the end of the sentence, some regard them as a later addition. However, the very awkwardness facilitates the prophet’s rhetorical strategy here, as he suddenly turns what sounds like a positive message into a judgment speech. Actually, “the king of Assyria,” stands in apposition to the earlier object “days,” and specifies who the main character of these coming “days” will be.

[8:7]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[8:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “the mighty and abundant waters of the river.” The referent of “the river” here, the Euphrates River, has been specified in the translation for clarity. As the immediately following words indicate, these waters symbolize the Assyrian king and his armies which will, as it were, inundate the land.

[8:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “it will go up over all its stream beds and go over all its banks.”

[10:12]  ¹⁰ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[10:12]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 16, 23, 24, 33 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[10:12]  ¹² tn Heb “his work on/against.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “on”; NIV “against.”

[10:12]  ¹³ tn The Lord is speaking here, as in vv. 5-6a.

[10:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will visit [judgment] on the fruit of the greatness of the heart of the king of Assyria, and on the glory of the height of his eyes.” The proud Assyrian king is likened to a large, beautiful fruit tree.

[19:11]  ¹⁵ tn Or “certainly the officials of Zoan are fools.” אַךְ (’akh) can carry the sense, “only, nothing but,” or “certainly, surely.”

[19:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “A son of wise men am I, a son of ancient kings.” The term בֶּן (ben, “son of”) could refer to literal descent, but many understand the word, at least in the first line, in its idiomatic sense of “member [of a guild].” See HALOT 138 s.v. בֶּן and J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:371. If this is the case, then one can take the word in a figurative sense in the second line as well, the “son of ancient kings” being one devoted to their memory as preserved in their literature.

[20:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).

[20:6]  ¹⁸ sn This probably refers to the coastal region of Philistia (cf. TEV).

[30:33]  ¹⁹ tn Or “indeed.”

[30:33]  ²⁰ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “for arranged from before [or “yesterday”] is [?].” The meaning of תָּפְתֶּה (tafÿteh), which occurs only here, is unknown. The translation above (as with most English versions) assumes an emendation to תֹּפֶת (tofet, “Topheth”; cf. NASB, NIV, NLT) and places the final hey (ה) on the beginning of the next word as an interrogative particle. Topheth was a place near Jerusalem used as a burial ground (see Jer 7:32; 19:11).

[30:33]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “Also it is made ready for the king, one makes it deep and wide.” If one takes the final hey (ה) on תָּפְתֶּה (tafÿteh) and prefixes it to גָּם (gam) as an interrogative particle (see the preceding note), one can translate, “Is it also made ready for the king?” In this case the question is rhetorical and expects an emphatic affirmative answer, “Of course it is!”

[30:33]  ²² tn Heb “its pile of wood, fire and wood one makes abundant.”

[30:33]  sn Apparently this alludes to some type of funeral rite.

[36:16]  ²³ tn Heb “make with me a blessing and come out to me.”

[37:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “all the words of the chief adviser whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God.”

[37:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and rebuke the words which the Lord your God hears.”

[37:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and lift up a prayer on behalf of the remnant that is found.”

[37:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “by which the servants of the king of Assyria have insulted me.”

[37:21]  ²⁸ tn The parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:20 reads, “That which you prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.” The verb “I have heard” does not appear in Isa 37:21, where אֲשֶׁר (’asher) probably has a causal sense: “because.”

[37:33]  ²⁹ tn Heb “there” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). In terms of English style “here” is expected in collocation with “this” in the previous line.

[37:33]  ³⁰ tn Heb “[with] a shield” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[45:1]  ³¹ tn Heb “anointed” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NCV “his appointed king.”

[45:1]  ³² sn The “right hand” is a symbol of activity and strength; the Lord directs Cyrus’ activities and assures his success.

[45:1]  ³³ tn Heb “and the belts of kings I will loosen”; NRSV “strip kings of their robes”; NIV “strip kings of their armor.”

[49:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[49:7]  ³⁵ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[49:7]  ³⁶ tc The Hebrew text reads literally “to [one who] despises life.” It is preferable to read with the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a לבזוי, which should be vocalized as a passive participle, לִבְזוּי (livzuy, “to the one despised with respect to life” [נֶפֶשׁ is a genitive of specification]). The consonantal sequence וי was probably misread as ה in the MT tradition. The contextual argument favors the 1QIsa^a reading. As J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:294) points out, the three terse phrases “convey a picture of lowliness, worthlessness, and helplessness.”

[49:7]  ³⁷ tn MT’s Piel participle (“to the one who rejects”) does not fit contextually. The form should be revocalized as a Pual, “to the one rejected.”

[49:7]  ³⁸ tn Parallelism (see “rulers,” “kings,” “princes”) suggests that the singular גּוֹי (goy) be emended to a plural or understood in a collective sense (see 55:5).

[49:7]  ³⁹ tn For this sense of קוּם (qum), see Gen 19:1; 23:7; 33:10; Lev 19:32; 1 Sam 20:41; 25:41; 1 Kgs 2:19; Job 29:8.

[49:23]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).

[49:23]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.

[49:23]  ⁴² tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”