Yesaya 29:16

29:16 Your thinking is perverse! ¹ 

Should the potter be regarded as clay? ² 

Should the thing made say ³  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?

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

Yesaya 36:12

36:12 But the chief adviser said, “My master did not send me to speak these words only to your master and to you. ⁴  His message is also for the men who sit on the wall, for they will eat their own excrement and drink their own urine along with you!” ⁵ 

Yesaya 37:27

37:27 Their residents are powerless; ⁶ 

they are terrified and ashamed.

They are as short-lived as plants in the field

or green vegetation. ⁷ 

They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops ⁸ 

when it is scorched by the east wind. ⁹ 

Yesaya 48:11

48:11 For my sake alone ¹⁰  I will act,

for how can I allow my name to be defiled? ¹¹ 

I will not share my glory with anyone else! ¹² 

Yesaya 51:13

51:13 Why do you forget ¹³  the Lord, who made you,

who stretched out the sky ¹⁴ 

and founded the earth?

Why do you constantly tremble all day long ¹⁵ 

at the anger of the oppressor,

when he makes plans to destroy?

Where is the anger of the oppressor? ¹⁶ 

[29:16]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “that the thing made should say.”

[36:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “To your master and to you did my master send me to speak these words?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[36:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “[Is it] not [also] to the men…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Yes, it is.”

[36:12]  sn The chief adviser alludes to the horrible reality of siege warfare, when the starving people in the besieged city would resort to eating and drinking anything to stay alive.

[37:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “short of hand”; KJV, ASV “of small power”; NASB “short of strength.”

[37:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “they are plants in the field and green vegetation.” The metaphor emphasizes how short-lived these seemingly powerful cities really were. See Ps 90:5-6; Isa 40:6-8, 24.

[37:27]  ⁸ tn Heb “[they are] grass on the rooftops.” See the preceding note.

[37:27]  ⁹ tc The Hebrew text has “scorched before the standing grain” (perhaps meaning “before it reaches maturity”), but it is preferable to emend קָמָה (qamah, “standing grain”) to קָדִים (qadim, “east wind”) with the support of 1Q Isa^a; cf. J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:657, n. 8.

[48:11]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text repeats לְמַעֲנִי (lÿma’ani, “for my sake”) for emphasis.

[48:11]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “for how can it be defiled?” The subject of the verb is probably “name” (v. 9).

[48:11]  ¹² sn See 42:8.

[51:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “and that you forget.”

[51:13]  ¹⁴ tn Or “the heavens” (also in v. 16). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[51:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and that you tremble constantly all the day.”

[51:13]  ¹⁶ tn The question anticipates the answer, “Ready to disappear!” See v. 14.