Isaiah 1:10

1:10 Listen to the Lord’s word,

you leaders of Sodom! ¹ 

Pay attention to our God’s rebuke, ² 

people of Gomorrah!

Isaiah 1:25

1:25 I will attack you; ³ 

I will purify your metal with flux. ⁴ 

I will remove all your slag. ⁵ 

Isaiah 3:15

3:15 Why do you crush my people

and grind the faces of the poor?” ⁶ 

The sovereign Lord who commands armies ⁷  has spoken.

Isaiah 10:5

The Lord Turns on Arrogant Assyria

10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, ⁸ 

a cudgel with which I angrily punish. ⁹ 

Isaiah 11:1

An Ideal King Establishes a Kingdom of Peace

11:1 A shoot will grow out of Jesse’s ¹⁰  root stock,

a bud will sprout ¹¹  from his roots.

Isaiah 13:12

13:12 I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold,

and people more scarce ¹²  than gold from Ophir.

Isaiah 20:5

20:5 Those who put their hope in Cush and took pride in Egypt will be afraid and embarrassed. ¹³ 

Isaiah 22:24

22:24 His father’s family will gain increasing prominence because of him, ¹⁴  including the offspring and the offshoots. ¹⁵  All the small containers, including the bowls and all the jars will hang from this peg.’ ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 23:8

23:8 Who planned this for royal Tyre, ¹⁷ 

whose merchants are princes,

whose traders are the dignitaries ¹⁸  of the earth?

Isaiah 27:6

27:6 The time is coming when Jacob will take root; ¹⁹ 

Israel will blossom and grow branches.

The produce ²⁰  will fill the surface of the world. ²¹ 

Isaiah 28:20

28:20 For the bed is too short to stretch out on,

and the blanket is too narrow to wrap around oneself. ²² 

Isaiah 37:31

37:31 Those who remain in Judah will take root in the ground and bear fruit. ²³ 

Isaiah 62:3

62:3 You will be a majestic crown in the hand of the Lord,

a royal turban in the hand of your God.

Isaiah 64:3

64:3 When you performed awesome deeds that took us by surprise, ²⁴ 

you came down, and the mountains trembled ²⁵  before you.

Isaiah 65:21

65:21 They will build houses and live in them;

they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

[1:10]  ¹ sn Building on the simile of v. 9, the prophet sarcastically addresses the leaders and people of Jerusalem as if they were leaders and residents of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah. The sarcasm is appropriate, for if the judgment is comparable to Sodom’s, that must mean that the sin which prompted the judgment is comparable as well.

[1:10]  ² tn Heb “to the instruction of our God.” In this context, which is highly accusatory and threatening, תּוֹרָה (torah, “law, instruction”) does not refer to mere teaching, but to corrective teaching and rebuke.

[1:25]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ sn The metaphor comes from metallurgy; slag is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.

[3:15]  ⁵ sn The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s outrage at what the leaders have done to the poor. He finds it almost unbelievable that they would have the audacity to treat his people in this manner.

[3:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].” On the title “the Lord who commands armies,” see the note at 1:9.

[10:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.

[10:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”

[11:1]  ⁹ sn The text mentions David’s father Jesse, instead of the great king himself. Perhaps this is done for rhetorical reasons to suggest that a new David, not just another disappointing Davidic descendant, will arise. Other prophets call the coming ideal Davidic king “David” or picture him as the second coming of David, as it were. See Jer 30:9; Ezek 34:23-24; 37:24-25; Hos 3:5; and Mic 5:2 (as well as the note there).

[11:1]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew text has יִפְרֶה (yifreh, “will bear fruit,” from פָּרָה, parah), but the ancient versions, as well as the parallelism suggest that יִפְרַח (yifrakh, “will sprout”, from פָּרַח, parakh) is the better reading here. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:276, n. 2.

[13:12]  ¹¹ tn The verb is supplied in the translation from the first line. The verb in the first line (“I will make scarce”) does double duty in the parallel structure of the verse.

[20:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “and they will be afraid and embarrassed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their beauty.”

[22:24]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and all the glory of the house of his father they will hang on him.” The Lord returns to the peg metaphor of v. 23a. Eliakim’s secure position of honor will bring benefits and jobs to many others in the family.

[22:24]  ¹⁶ tn The precise meaning and derivation of this word are uncertain. Cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “the issue”; CEV “relatives.”

[22:24]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “all the small vessels, from the vessels that are bowls to all the vessels that are jars.” The picture is that of a single peg holding the weight of all kinds of containers hung from it.

[23:8]  ¹⁷ tn The precise meaning of הַמַּעֲטִירָה (hamma’atirah) is uncertain. The form is a Hiphil participle from עָטַר (’atar), a denominative verb derived from עֲטָרָה (’atarah, “crown, wreath”). The participle may mean “one who wears a crown” or “one who distributes crowns.” In either case, Tyre’s prominence in the international political arena is in view.

[23:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the honored” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “renowned.”

[27:6]  ¹⁹ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “the coming ones, let Jacob take root.” הַבָּאִים (habba’im, “the coming ones”) should probably be emended to יָמִים בָאִים (yamim va’im, “days [are] coming”) or בְּיָמִים הַבָּאִים (biyamim habba’im, “in the coming days”).

[27:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “fruit” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[27:6]  ²¹ sn This apparently refers to a future population explosion. See 26:18.

[28:20]  ²¹ sn The bed and blanket probably symbolize their false sense of security. A bed that is too short and a blanket that is too narrow may promise rest and protection from the cold, but in the end they are useless and disappointing. In the same way, their supposed treaty with death will prove useless and disappointing.

[37:31]  ²³ tn Heb “The remnant of the house of Judah that is left will add roots below and produce fruit above.”

[64:3]  ²⁵ tn Heb “[for which] we were not waiting.”

[64:3]  ²⁶ tn See the note at v. 1.