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 24:15

24:15 So in the east ⁷  extol the Lord,

along the seacoasts extol ⁸  the fame ⁹  of the Lord God of Israel.

Yesaya 24:22

24:22 They will be imprisoned in a pit, ¹⁰ 

locked up in a prison,

and after staying there for a long time, ¹¹  they will be punished. ¹² 

Yesaya 29:21

29:21 those who bear false testimony against a person, ¹³ 

who entrap the one who arbitrates at the city gate ¹⁴ 

and deprive the innocent of justice by making false charges. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 32:7

32:7 A deceiver’s methods are evil; ¹⁶ 

he dreams up evil plans ¹⁷ 

to ruin the poor with lies,

even when the needy are in the right. ¹⁸ 

Yesaya 42:3

42:3 A crushed reed he will not break,

a dim wick he will not extinguish; ¹⁹ 

he will faithfully make just decrees. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 42:6

42:6 “I, the Lord, officially commission you; ²¹ 

I take hold of your hand.

I protect you ²²  and make you a covenant mediator for people, ²³ 

and a light ²⁴  to the nations, ²⁵ 

Yesaya 59:13

59:13 We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord;

we turned back from following our God.

We stir up ²⁶  oppression and rebellion;

we tell lies we concocted in our minds. ²⁷ 

[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.

[24:15]  ⁷ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “in the lights,” interpreted by some to mean “in the region of light,” referring to the east. Some scholars have suggested the emendation of בָּאֻרִים (ba’urim) to בְּאִיֵּי הַיָּם (bÿ’iyyey hayyam, “along the seacoasts”), a phrase that is repeated in the next line. In this case, the two lines form synonymous parallelism. If one retains the MT reading (as above), “in the east” and “along the seacoasts” depict the two ends of the earth to refer to all the earth (as a merism).

[24:15]  ⁸ tn The word “extol” is supplied in the translation; the verb in the first line does double duty in the parallelism.

[24:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “name,” which here stands for God’s reputation achieved by his mighty deeds.

[24:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they will be gathered [in] a gathering [as] a prisoner in a cistern.” It is tempting to eliminate אֲסֵפָה (’asefah, “a gathering”) as dittographic or as a gloss, but sound repetition is one of the main characteristics of the style of this section of the chapter.

[24:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and after a multitude of days.”

[24:22]  ¹² tn Heb “visited” (so KJV, ASV). This verse can mean to visit for good or for evil. The translation assumes the latter, based on v. 21a. However, BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד B.Niph.2 suggests the meaning “visit graciously” here, in which case one might translate “they will be released.”

[29:21]  ¹³ tn Heb “the ones who make a man a sinner with a word.” The Hiphil of חָטָא (khata’) here has a delocutive sense: “declare a man sinful/guilty.”

[29:21]  ¹⁴ sn Legal disputes were resolved at the city gate, where the town elders met. See Amos 5:10.

[29:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and deprive by emptiness the innocent.”

[32:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “as for a deceiver, his implements [or “weapons”] are evil.”

[32:7]  ¹⁷ tn Or “he plans evil things”; NIV “he makes up evil schemes.”

[32:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to ruin the poor with words of falsehood, even when the needy speak what is just.”

[42:3]  ¹⁹ sn The “crushed reed” and “dim wick” symbolize the weak and oppressed who are on the verge of extinction.

[42:3]  ²⁰ tn Heb “faithfully he will bring out justice” (cf. NASB, NRSV).

[42:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “call you in righteousness.” The pronoun “you” is masculine singular, referring to the servant. See the note at 41:2.

[42:6]  ²² tn The translation assumes the verb is derived from the root נָצַר (natsar, “protect”). Some prefer to derive it from the root יָצַר (yatsar, “form”).

[42:6]  ²³ tn Heb “a covenant of people.” A person cannot literally be a covenant; בְּרִית (bÿrit) is probably metonymic here, indicating a covenant mediator. The precise identity of עָם (’am, “people”) is uncertain. In v. 5 עָם refers to mankind, and the following reference to “nations” also favors this. But in 49:8, where the phrase בְּרִית עָם occurs again, Israel seems to be in view.

[42:6]  ²⁴ sn Light here symbolizes deliverance from bondage and oppression; note the parallelism in 49:6b and in 51:4-6.

[42:6]  ²⁵ tn Or “the Gentiles” (so KJV, ASV, NIV); the same Hebrew word can be translated “nations” or “Gentiles” depending on the context.

[59:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “speaking.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[59:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.”