Yesaya 29:11

29:11 To you this entire prophetic revelation ¹  is like words in a sealed scroll. When they hand it to one who can read ²  and say, “Read this,” he responds, “I can’t, because it is sealed.”

Yesaya 29:16

29:16 Your thinking is perverse! ³ 

Should the potter be regarded as clay? ⁴ 

Should the thing made say ⁵  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?

Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

Yesaya 51:22

51:22 This is what your sovereign master, ⁶  the Lord your God, says:

“Look, I have removed from your hand

the cup of intoxicating wine, ⁷ 

the goblet full of my anger. ⁸ 

You will no longer have to drink it.

[29:11]  ¹ tn Heb “vision” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[29:11]  ² tn Heb “one who knows a/the scroll.”

[29:16]  ³ tn Heb “your overturning.” The predicate is suppressed in this exclamation. The idea is, “O your perversity! How great it is!” See GKC 470 §147.c. The people “overturn” all logic by thinking their authority supersedes God’s.

[29:16]  ⁴ tn The expected answer to this rhetorical question is “of course not.” On the interrogative use of אִם (’im), see BDB 50 s.v.

[29:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “that the thing made should say.”

[51:22]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[51:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “the cup of [= that causes] staggering” (so ASV, NAB, NRSV); NASB “the cup of reeling.”

[51:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “the goblet of the cup of my anger.”