Yesaya 1:16

1:16 ¹ Wash! Cleanse yourselves!

Remove your sinful deeds ² 

from my sight.

Stop sinning!

Yesaya 2:20

2:20 At that time ³  men will throw

their silver and gold idols,

which they made for themselves to worship, ⁴ 

into the caves where rodents and bats live, ⁵ 

Yesaya 7:15

7:15 He will eat sour milk ⁶  and honey, which will help him know how ⁷  to reject evil and choose what is right.

Yesaya 10:32

10:32 This very day, standing in Nob,

they shake their fist at Daughter Zion’s mountain ⁸  –

at the hill of Jerusalem.

Yesaya 14:24

14:24 ⁹ The Lord who commands armies makes this solemn vow:

“Be sure of this:

Just as I have intended, so it will be;

just as I have planned, it will happen.

Yesaya 16:2

16:2 At the fords of the Arnon ¹⁰ 

the Moabite women are like a bird

that flies about when forced from its nest. ¹¹ 

Yesaya 24:14

24:14 They ¹²  lift their voices and shout joyfully;

they praise ¹³  the majesty of the Lord in the west.

Yesaya 29:1

Ariel is Besieged

29:1 Ariel is as good as dead ¹⁴  –

Ariel, the town David besieged! ¹⁵ 

Keep observing your annual rituals,

celebrate your festivals on schedule. ¹⁶ 

Yesaya 31:6

31:6 You Israelites! Return to the one against whom you have so blatantly rebelled! ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 33:5

33:5 The Lord is exalted, ¹⁸ 

indeed, ¹⁹  he lives in heaven; ²⁰ 

he fills Zion with justice and fairness.

Yesaya 33:9

33:9 The land ²¹  dries up ²²  and withers away;

the forest of Lebanon shrivels up ²³  and decays.

Sharon ²⁴  is like the desert; ²⁵ 

Bashan and Carmel ²⁶  are parched. ²⁷ 

Yesaya 33:24

33:24 No resident of Zion ²⁸  will say, “I am ill”;

the people who live there will have their sin forgiven.

Yesaya 48:2

48:2 Indeed, they live in the holy city; ²⁹ 

they trust in ³⁰  the God of Israel,

whose name is the Lord who commands armies.

Yesaya 53:6

53:6 All of us had wandered off like sheep;

each of us had strayed off on his own path,

but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. ³¹ 

Yesaya 54:3

54:3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;

your children will conquer ³²  nations

and will resettle desolate cities.

Yesaya 59:20

59:20 “A protector ³³  comes to Zion,

to those in Jacob who repent of their rebellious deeds,” ³⁴  says the Lord.

[1:16]  ¹ sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.

[1:16]  ² sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).

[2:20]  ³ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[2:20]  ⁴ tn Or “bow down to.”

[2:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “to the shrews and to the bats.” On the meaning of חֲפַרְפָּרָה (khafarparah, “shrew”), see HALOT 341 s.v. חֲפַרְפָּרָה. The BHS text as it stands (לַחְפֹּר פֵּרוֹת, perot lakhpor), makes no sense. Based on Theodotion’s transliteration and a similar reading in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, most scholars suggest that the MT mistakenly divided a noun (a hapax legomenon) that should be translated “moles,” “shrews,” or “rodents.”

[7:15]  ⁶ tn Or, perhaps “cream,” frequently, “curds” (NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); KJV, ASV “butter”; CEV “yogurt.”

[7:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “for his knowing.” Traditionally the preposition has been translated in a temporal sense, “when he knows.” However, though the preposition לְ (lamed) can sometimes have a temporal force, it never carries such a nuance in any of the 40 other passages where it is used with the infinitive construct of יָדַע (yada’, “to know”). Most often the construction indicates purpose/result. This sense is preferable here. The following context indicates that sour milk and honey will epitomize the devastation that God’s judgment will bring upon the land. Cultivated crops will be gone and the people will be forced to live off the milk produced by their goats and the honey they find in the thickets. As the child is forced to eat a steady diet of this sour milk and honey, he will be reminded of the consequences of sin and motivated to make correct moral decisions in order to avoid further outbreaks of divine discipline.

[10:32]  ⁸ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has “a mountain of a house (בֵּית, bet), Zion,” but the marginal reading (Qere) correctly reads “the mountain of the daughter (בַּת, bat) of Zion.” On the phrase “Daughter Zion,” see the note on the same phrase in 1:8.

[14:24]  ⁹ sn Having announced the downfall of the Chaldean empire, the Lord appends to this prophecy a solemn reminder that the Assyrians, the major Mesopotamian power of Isaiah’s day, would be annihilated, foreshadowing what would subsequently happen to Babylon and the other hostile nations.

[16:2]  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.

[16:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “like a bird fleeing, thrust away [from] a nest, the daughters of Moab are [at] the fords of Arnon.”

[24:14]  ¹² sn The remnant of the nations (see v. 13) may be the unspecified subject. If so, then those who have survived the judgment begin to praise God.

[24:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “they yell out concerning.”

[29:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Woe [to] Ariel.” The meaning of the name “Ariel” is uncertain. The name may mean “altar hearth” (see v. 2) or, if compound, “lion of God.” The name is used here as a title for Mount Zion/Jerusalem (see v. 8).

[29:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the town where David camped.” The verb חָנָה (khanah, “camp”) probably has the nuance “lay siege to” here. See v. 3. Another option is to take the verb in the sense of “lived, settled.”

[29:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Add year to year, let your festivals occur in cycles.” This is probably a sarcastic exhortation to the people to keep up their religious rituals, which will not prevent the coming judgment. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:527.

[31:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Return to the one [against] whom the sons of Israel made deep rebellion.” The syntax is awkward here. A preposition is omitted by ellipsis after the verb (see GKC 446 §138.f, n. 2), and there is a shift from direct address (note the second plural imperative “return”) to the third person (note “they made deep”). For other examples of abrupt shifts in person in poetic style, see GKC 462 §144.p.

[33:5]  ¹⁸ tn Or “elevated”; NCV, NLT “is very great.”

[33:5]  ¹⁹ tn Or “for” (KJV, NASB, NIV).

[33:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “on high” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “in the heavens.”

[33:9]  ²¹ tn Or “earth” (KJV); NAB “the country.”

[33:9]  ²² tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. I אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism. See 24:4.

[33:9]  ²³ tn Heb “Lebanon is ashamed.” The Hiphil is exhibitive, expressing the idea, “exhibits shame.” In this context the statement alludes to the withering of vegetation.

[33:9]  ²⁴ sn Sharon was a fertile plain along the Mediterranean coast. See 35:2.

[33:9]  ²⁵ tn Or “the Arabah” (NIV). See 35:1.

[33:9]  ²⁶ sn Both of these areas were known for their trees and vegetation. See 2:13; 35:2.

[33:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “shake off [their leaves]” (so ASV, NRSV); NAB “are stripped bare.”

[33:24]  ²⁸ tn The words “of Zion” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[48:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “they call themselves [or “are called”] from the holy city.” The precise meaning of the statement is uncertain. The Niphal of קָרָא (qara’) is combined with the preposition מִן (min) only here. When the Qal of קָרָא is used with מִן, the preposition often indicates the place from which one is summoned (see 46:11). So one could translate, “from the holy city they are summoned,” meaning that they reside there.

[48:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “lean on” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB, NIV “rely on.”

[53:6]  ³¹ tn Elsewhere the Hiphil of פָגַע (paga’) means “to intercede verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25) or “to intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16), but neither nuance fits here. Apparently here the Hiphil is the causative of the normal Qal meaning, “encounter, meet, touch.” The Qal sometimes refers to a hostile encounter or attack; when used in this way the object is normally introduced by the preposition -בְּ (bet, see Josh 2:16; Judg 8:21; 15:12, etc.). Here the causative Hiphil has a double object – the Lord makes “sin” attack “him” (note that the object attacked is introduced by the preposition -בְּ. In their sin the group was like sheep who had wandered from God’s path. They were vulnerable to attack; the guilt of their sin was ready to attack and destroy them. But then the servant stepped in and took the full force of the attack.

[54:3]  ³² tn Or “take possession of”; NAB “shall dispossess.”

[59:20]  ³³ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[59:20]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and to those who turn from rebellion in Jacob.”