Yesaya 1:7

1:7 Your land is devastated,

your cities burned with fire.

Right before your eyes your crops

are being destroyed by foreign invaders. ¹ 

They leave behind devastation and destruction. ² 

Yesaya 7:9

7:9 Ephraim’s leader is Samaria,

and Samaria’s leader is the son of Remaliah.

If your faith does not remain firm,

then you will not remain secure.” ³ 

Yesaya 13:10

13:10 Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations

no longer give out their light; ⁴ 

the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,

and the moon does not shine. ⁵ 

Yesaya 36:3

36:3 Eliakim son of Hilkiah, the palace supervisor, accompanied by Shebna the scribe and Joah son of Asaph, the secretary, went out to meet him.

Yesaya 38:17

38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. ⁶ 

You delivered me ⁷  from the pit of oblivion. ⁸ 

For you removed all my sins from your sight. ⁹ 

Yesaya 43:14

The Lord Will Do Something New

43:14 This is what the Lord says,

your protector, ¹⁰  the Holy One of Israel: ¹¹ 

“For your sake I send to Babylon

and make them all fugitives, ¹² 

turning the Babylonians’ joyful shouts into mourning songs. ¹³ 

Yesaya 44:25

44:25 who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers ¹⁴ 

and humiliates ¹⁵  the omen readers,

who overturns the counsel of the wise men ¹⁶ 

and makes their advice ¹⁷  seem foolish,

Yesaya 54:5

54:5 For your husband is the one who made you –

the Lord who commands armies is his name.

He is your protector, ¹⁸  the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁹ 

He is called “God of the entire earth.”

Yesaya 59:15

59:15 Honesty has disappeared;

the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed.

The Lord watches and is displeased, ²⁰ 

for there is no justice.

Yesaya 62:5

62:5 As a young man marries a young woman,

so your sons ²¹  will marry you.

As a bridegroom rejoices over a bride,

so your God will rejoice over you.

[1:7]  ¹ tn Heb “As for your land, before you foreigners are devouring it.”

[1:7]  ² tn Heb “and [there is] devastation like an overthrow by foreigners.” The comparative preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like, as”) has here the rhetorical nuance, “in every way like.” The point is that the land has all the earmarks of a destructive foreign invasion because that is what has indeed happened. One could paraphrase, “it is desolate as it can only be when foreigners destroy.” On this use of the preposition in general, see GKC 376 §118.x. Many also prefer to emend “foreigners” here to “Sodom,” though there is no external attestation for such a reading in the mss or ancient versions. Such an emendation finds support from the following context (vv. 9-10) and usage of the preceding noun מַהְפֵּכָה (mahpekhah, “overthrow”). In its five other uses, this noun is associated with the destruction of Sodom. If one accepts the emendation, then one might translate, “the devastation resembles the destruction of Sodom.”

[7:9]  ³ tn Heb “if you do not believe, you will not endure.” The verb forms are second plural; the Lord here addresses the entire Davidic family and court. (Verse 4 was addressed to the king.) There is a wordplay in the Hebrew text, designed to draw attention to the alternatives set before the king (cf. 1:20). “Believe” (תַאֳמִינוּ, ta’aminu) is a Hiphil form of the verb אָמָן (’aman); “endure” (תֵאָמֵנוּ, te’amenu) is a Niphal form of this same verb.

[13:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “do not flash forth their light.”

[13:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “does not shed forth its light.”

[38:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”

[38:17]  ⁷ tc The Hebrew text reads, “you loved my soul,” but this does not fit syntactically with the following prepositional phrase. חָשַׁקְתָּ (khashaqta, “you loved”), may reflect an aural error; most emend the form to חָשַׂכְת, (khasakht, “you held back”).

[38:17]  ⁸ tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”

[38:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”

[43:14]  ¹⁰ tn Or “kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[43:14]  ¹¹ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[43:14]  ¹² tn Heb “and I bring down [as] fugitives all of them.”

[43:14]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “as for the Babylonians, in ships their joyful shout.” This might be paraphrased, “even the Babylonians in the ships [over which] they joyfully shouted.” The point would be that the Lord caused the Babylonians to flee for safety in the ships in which they took such great pride. A slight change in vocalization yields the reading “into mourning songs,” which provides a good contrast with “joyful shout.” The prefixed bet (בְּ) would indicate identity.

[44:25]  ¹⁴ tc The Hebrew text has בַּדִּים (baddim), perhaps meaning “empty talkers” (BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד). In the four other occurrences of this word (Job 11:3; Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30; 50:36) the context does not make the meaning of the term very clear. Its primary point appears to be that the words spoken are meaningless or false. In light of its parallelism with “omen readers,” some have proposed an emendation to בָּרִים (barim, “seers”). The Mesopotamian baru-priests were divination specialists who played an important role in court life. See R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 93-98. Rather than supporting an emendation, J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:189, n. 79) suggests that Isaiah used בַּדִּים purposively as a derisive wordplay on the Akkadian word baru (in light of the close similarity of the d and r consonants).

[44:25]  ¹⁵ tn Or “makes fools of” (NIV, NRSV); NAB and NASB both similar.

[44:25]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “who turns back the wise” (so NRSV); NIV “overthrows the learning of the wise”; TEV “The words of the wise I refute.”

[44:25]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “their knowledge” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[54:5]  ¹⁸ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[54:5]  ¹⁹ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[59:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and it is displeasing in his eyes.”

[62:5]  ²¹ tc The Hebrew text has “your sons,” but this produces an odd metaphor and is somewhat incongruous with the parallelism. In the context (v. 4b, see also 54:5-7) the Lord is the one who “marries” Zion. Therefore several prefer to emend “your sons” to בֹּנָיִךְ (bonayikh, “your builder”; e.g., NRSV). In Ps 147:2 the Lord is called the “builder of Jerusalem.” However, this emendation is not the best option for at least four reasons. First, although the Lord is never called the “builder” of Jerusalem in Isaiah, the idea of Zion’s children possessing the land does occur (Isa 49:20; 54:3; cf. also 14:1; 60:21). Secondly, all the ancient versions support the MT reading. Thirdly, although the verb בָּעַל (ba’al) can mean “to marry,” its basic idea is “to possess.” Consequently, the verb stresses a relationship more than a state. All the ancient versions render this verb “to dwell in” or “to dwell with.” The point is not just that the land will be reinhabited, but that it will be in a relationship of “belonging” to the Israelites. Hence a relational verb like בָּעַל is used (J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 2:581). Finally, “sons” is a well-known metaphor for “inhabitants” (J. de Waard, Isaiah, 208).