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 22:17

22:17 Look, the Lord will throw you far away, ⁴  you mere man! ⁵ 

He will wrap you up tightly. ⁶ 

Yesaya 24:4

24:4 The earth ⁷  dries up ⁸  and withers,

the world shrivels up and withers;

the prominent people of the earth ⁹  fade away.

Yesaya 63:18

63:18 For a short time your special ¹⁰  nation possessed a land, ¹¹ 

but then our adversaries knocked down ¹²  your holy sanctuary.

[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.

[22:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “will throw you with a throwing.”

[22:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “O man” (so NASB); NAB “mortal man”; NRSV “my fellow.”

[22:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “and the one who wraps you [will] wrap.”

[24:4]  ⁷ tn Some prefer to read “land” here, but the word pair אֶרֶץ/תֵּבֵל (erets/tevel [see the corresponding term in the parallel line]) elsewhere clearly designates the earth/world (see 1 Sam 2:8; 1 Chr 16:30; Job 37;12; Pss 19:4; 24:1; 33:8; 89:11; 90:2; 96:13; 98:9; Prov 8:26, 31; Isa 14:16-17; 34:1; Jer 10:12; 51:15; Lam 4:12). According to L. Stadelmann, תבל designates “the habitable part of the world” (The Hebrew Conception of the World [AnBib], 130).

[24:4]  ⁸ tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists the homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism.

[24:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “the height of the people of the earth.” The translation assumes an emendation of the singular form מְרוֹם (mÿrom, “height of”) to the plural construct מְרֹמֵי (mÿrome, “high ones of”; note the plural verb at the beginning of the line), and understands the latter as referring to the prominent people of human society.

[63:18]  ¹⁰ tn Or “holy” (ASV, NASB, NRSV, TEV, NLT).

[63:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for a short time they had a possession, the people of your holiness.”

[63:18]  ¹² tn Heb “your adversaries trampled on.”