Yesaya 10:28

10:28 ¹ They ²  attacked ³  Aiath,

moved through Migron,

depositing their supplies at Micmash.

Yesaya 11:16

11:16 There will be a highway leading out of Assyria

for the remnant of his people, ⁴ 

just as there was for Israel,

when ⁵  they went up from the land of Egypt.

Yesaya 27:3

27:3 I, the Lord, protect it; ⁶ 

I water it regularly. ⁷ 

I guard it night and day,

so no one can harm it. ⁸ 

Yesaya 34:4

34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, ⁹ 

the sky will roll up like a scroll;

all its stars will wither,

like a leaf withers and falls from a vine

or a fig withers and falls from a tree. ¹⁰ 

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, ¹¹  the Holy One of Israel. ¹² 

He is called “God of the entire earth.”

[10:28]  ¹ sn Verses 28-31 display a staccato style; the statements are short and disconnected (no conjunctions appear in the Hebrew text). The translation to follow strives for a choppy style that reflects the mood of the speech.

[10:28]  ² tn Heb “he,” that is, the Assyrians (as the preceding context suggests). Cf. NCV “The army of Assyria.”

[10:28]  sn Verses 28-32 describe an invasion of Judah from the north. There is no scholarly consensus on when this particular invasion took place, if at all. J. H. Hayes and S. A. Irvine (Isaiah, 209-10) suggest the text describes the Israelite-Syrian invasion of Judah (ca. 735 b.c.), but this proposal disregards the preceding context, which prophesies the destruction of Assyria. Some suggest that this invasion occurred in conjunction with Sargon’s western campaign of 713-711 b.c., but there is no historical evidence of such an invasion at that time. Many others identify the invasion as Sennacherib’s in 701 b.c., but historical records indicate Sennacherib approached Jerusalem from the southwest. J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:274-75) prefers to see the description as rhetorical and as not corresponding to any particular historical event, but Hayes and Irvine argue that the precise geographical details militate against such a proposal. Perhaps it is best to label the account as rhetorical-prophetic. The prophecy of the invasion was not necessarily intended to be a literal itinerary of the Assyrians’ movements; rather its primary purpose was to create a foreboding mood. Geographical references contribute to this purpose, but they merely reflect how one would expect an Assyrian invasion to proceed, not necessarily how the actual invasion would progress. Despite its rhetorical nature, the prophecy does point to the invasion of 701 b.c., as the announcement of the invaders’ downfall in vv. 33-34 makes clear; it was essentially fulfilled at that time. For further discussion of the problem, see R. E. Clements, Isaiah (NCBC), 117-19. On the geographical details of the account, see Y. Aharoni, Land of the Bible, 393.

[10:28]  ³ tn Heb “came against,” or “came to.”

[11:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “and there will be a highway for the remnant of his people who remain, from Assyria.”

[11:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the day” (so KJV).

[27:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “her.” Apparently “vineyard” is the antecedent, though normally this noun is understood as masculine (see Lev 25:3, however).

[27:3]  ⁷ tn Or perhaps, “constantly.” Heb “by moments.”

[27:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “lest [someone] visit [harm] upon it, night and day I guard it.”

[34:4]  ⁹ tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”

[34:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”

[54:5]  ¹¹ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[54:5]  ¹² sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.