Yesaya 5:14

5:14 So Death ¹  will open up its throat,

and open wide its mouth; ² 

Zion’s dignitaries and masses will descend into it,

including those who revel and celebrate within her. ³ 

Yesaya 7:11

7:11 “Ask for a confirming sign from the Lord your God. You can even ask for something miraculous.” ⁴ 

Yesaya 10:4

10:4 You will have no place to go, except to kneel with the prisoners,

or to fall among those who have been killed. ⁵ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁶ 

Yesaya 29:18

29:18 At that time ⁷  the deaf will be able to hear words read from a scroll,

and the eyes of the blind will be able to see through deep darkness. ⁸ 

Yesaya 29:21

29:21 those who bear false testimony against a person, ⁹ 

who entrap the one who arbitrates at the city gate ¹⁰ 

and deprive the innocent of justice by making false charges. ¹¹ 

Yesaya 33:19

33:19 You will no longer see a defiant ¹²  people

whose language you do not comprehend, ¹³ 

whose derisive speech you do not understand. ¹⁴ 

Yesaya 34:11

34:11 Owls and wild animals ¹⁵  will live there, ¹⁶ 

all kinds of wild birds ¹⁷  will settle in it.

The Lord ¹⁸  will stretch out over her

the measuring line of ruin

and the plumb line ¹⁹  of destruction. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 37:19

37:19 They have burned the gods of the nations, ²¹  for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them. ²² 

Yesaya 44:12

44:12 A blacksmith works with his tool ²³ 

and forges metal over the coals.

He forms it ²⁴  with hammers;

he makes it with his strong arm.

He gets hungry and loses his energy; ²⁵ 

he drinks no water and gets tired.

Yesaya 44:24

The Lord Empowers Cyrus

44:24 This is what the Lord, your protector, ²⁶  says,

the one who formed you in the womb:

“I am the Lord, who made everything,

who alone stretched out the sky,

who fashioned the earth all by myself, ²⁷ 

Yesaya 46:6

46:6 Those who empty out gold from a purse

and weigh out silver on the scale ²⁸ 

hire a metalsmith, who makes it into a god.

They then bow down and worship it.

Yesaya 48:21

48:21 They do not thirst as he leads them through dry regions;

he makes water flow out of a rock for them;

he splits open a rock and water flows out.’ ²⁹ 

Yesaya 51:1

There is Hope for the Future

51:1 “Listen to me, you who pursue godliness, ³⁰ 

who seek the Lord!

Look at the rock from which you were chiseled,

at the quarry ³¹  from which you were dug! ³² 

Yesaya 53:8

53:8 He was led away after an unjust trial ³³  –

but who even cared? ³⁴ 

Indeed, he was cut off from the land of the living; ³⁵ 

because of the rebellion of his own ³⁶  people he was wounded.

Yesaya 59:13

59:13 We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord;

we turned back from following our God.

We stir up ³⁷  oppression and rebellion;

we tell lies we concocted in our minds. ³⁸ 

Yesaya 60:18

60:18 Sounds of violence ³⁹  will no longer be heard in your land,

or the sounds of ⁴⁰  destruction and devastation within your borders.

You will name your walls, ‘Deliverance,’

and your gates, ‘Praise.’

[5:14]  ¹ tn Heb “Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV); the underworld, the land of the dead, according to the OT world view. Cf. NAB “the nether world”; TEV, CEV “the world of the dead”; NLT “the grave.”

[5:14]  ² tn Heb “so Sheol will make wide its throat, and open its mouth without limit.”

[5:14]  sn Death is portrayed in both the OT (Prov 1:12; Hab 2:5) and Canaanite myth as voraciously swallowing up its prey. In the myths Death is portrayed as having “a lip to the earth, a lip to the heavens … and a tongue to the stars.” (G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 69, text 5 ii 2-3.) Death describes his own appetite as follows: “But my appetite is the appetite of lions in the waste…If it is in very truth my desire to consume ‘clay’ [a reference to his human victims], then in truth by the handfuls I must eat it, whether my seven portions [indicating fullness and completeness] are already in the bowl or whether Nahar [the god of the river responsible for ferrying victims from the land of the living to the land of the dead] has to mix the cup.” (Driver, 68-69, text 5 i 14-22).

[5:14]  ³ tn Heb “and her splendor and her masses will go down, and her tumult and the one who exults in her.” The antecedent of the four feminine singular pronominal suffixes used in v. 14b is unclear. The likely referent is personified Zion/Jerusalem (see 3:25-26; 4:4-5).

[7:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “Make it as deep as Sheol or make it high upwards.” These words suggest that Ahaz can feel free to go beyond the bounds of ordinary human experience.

[10:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “except one kneels in the place of the prisoner, and in the place of the slain [who] fall.” On the force of בִּלְתִּי (bilti, “except”) and its logical connection to what precedes, see BDB 116 s.v. בֵלֶת. On the force of תַּחַת (takhat, “in the place of”) here, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:258, n. 6.

[10:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “in all this his anger was not turned, and still his hand was outstretched”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “his had is stretched out still.”

[10:4]  sn See the note at 9:12.

[29:18]  ⁷ tn Or “In that day” (KJV).

[29:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.”

[29:18]  sn Perhaps this depicts the spiritual transformation of the once spiritually insensitive nation (see vv. 10-12, cf. also 6:9-10).

[29:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “the ones who make a man a sinner with a word.” The Hiphil of חָטָא (khata’) here has a delocutive sense: “declare a man sinful/guilty.”

[29:21]  ¹⁰ sn Legal disputes were resolved at the city gate, where the town elders met. See Amos 5:10.

[29:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and deprive by emptiness the innocent.”

[33:19]  ¹² tn The Hebrew form נוֹעָז (no’az) is a Niphal participle derived from יָעַז (ya’az, an otherwise unattested verb) or from עָזָז (’azaz, “be strong,” unattested elsewhere in the Niphal). Some prefer to emend the form to לוֹעֵז (lo’ez) which occurs in Ps 114:1 with the meaning “speak a foreign language.” See HALOT 809 s.v. עזז, 533 s.v. לעז. In this case, one might translate “people who speak a foreign language.”

[33:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “a people too deep of lip to hear.” The phrase “deep of lip” must be an idiom meaning “lips that speak words that are unfathomable [i.e., incomprehensible].”

[33:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “derision of tongue there is no understanding.” The Niphal of לָעַג (la’ag) occurs only here. In the Qal and Hiphil the verb means “to deride, mock.” A related noun is used in 28:11.

[34:11]  ¹⁵ tn קָאַת (qa’at) refers to some type of bird (cf. Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17) that was typically found near ruins (see Zeph 2:14). קִפּוֹד (qippod) may also refer to a type of bird (NAB “hoot owl”; NIV “screech owl”; TEV “ravens”), but some have suggested a rodent may be in view (cf. NCV “small animals”; ASV “porcupine”; NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”).

[34:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “will possess it” (so NIV).

[34:11]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew text has יַנְשׁוֹף וְעֹרֵב (yanshof vÿ’orev). Both the יַנְשׁוֹף (“owl”; see Lev 11:17; Deut 14:16) and עֹרֵב (“raven”; Lev 11:15; Deut 14:14) were types of wild birds.

[34:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “stones,” i.e., the stones used in a plumb bob.

[34:11]  ²⁰ sn The metaphor in v. 11b emphasizes that God has carefully planned Edom’s demise.

[37:19]  ²¹ tn Heb “and they put their gods in the fire.”

[37:19]  ²² tn Heb “so they destroyed them” (NASB similar).

[44:12]  ²³ tn The noun מַעֲצָד (ma’atsad), which refers to some type of tool used for cutting, occurs only here and in Jer 10:3. See HALOT 615 s.v. מַעֲצָד.

[44:12]  ²⁴ tn Some English versions take the pronoun “it” to refer to an idol being fashioned by the blacksmith (cf. NIV, NCV, CEV). NLT understands the referent to be “a sharp tool,” which is then used by the carpenter in the following verse to carve an idol from wood.

[44:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and there is no strength”; NASB “his strength fails.”

[44:24]  ²⁶ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:24]  ²⁷ tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has “Who [was] with me?” The marginal reading (Qere) is “from with me,” i.e., “by myself.” See BDB 87 s.v. II אֵת 4.c.

[46:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the reed,” probably referring to the beam of a scales. See BDB 889 s.v. קָנֶה 4.c.

[48:21]  ²⁹ sn The translation above (present tense) assumes that this verse describes God’s provision for returning Babylonian exiles (see v. 20; 35:6; 49:10) in terms reminiscent of the Exodus from Egypt (see Exod 17:6).

[51:1]  ³⁰ tn Or “righteousness” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “justice”; NLT “hope for deliverance.”

[51:1]  ³¹ tn Heb “the excavation of the hole.”

[51:1]  ³² sn The “rock” and “quarry” refer here to Abraham and Sarah, the progenitors of the nation.

[53:8]  ³³ tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The present translation assumes that מִן (min) here has an instrumental sense (“by, through”) and understands עֹצֶר וּמִמִּשְׁפָּט (’otser umimmishpat, “coercion and legal decision”) as a hendiadys meaning “coercive legal decision,” thus “an unjust trial.” Other interpretive options include: (1) “without [for this sense of מִן, see BDB 578 s.v. 1.b] hindrance and proper judicial process,” i.e., “unfairly and with no one to defend him,” (2) “from [in the sense of “after,” see BDB 581 s.v. 4.b] arrest and judgment.”

[53:8]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and his generation, who considers?” (NASB similar). Some understand “his generation” as a reference to descendants. In this case the question would suggest that he will have none. However, אֶת (’et) may be taken here as specifying a new subject (see BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 3). If “his generation” refers to the servant’s contemporary generation, one may then translate, “As for his contemporary generation, who took note?” The point would be that few were concerned about the harsh treatment he received.

[53:8]  ³⁵ sn The “land of the living” is an idiom for the sphere where people live, in contrast to the underworld realm of the dead. See, for example, Ezek 32:23-27.

[53:8]  ³⁶ tn The Hebrew text reads “my people,” a reading followed by most English versions, but this is problematic in a context where the first person plural predominates, and where God does not appear to speak again until v. 11b. Therefore, it is preferable to read with the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a עמו (“his people”). In this case, the group speaking in these verses is identified as the servant’s people (compare פְּשָׁעֵנוּ [pÿsha’enu, “our rebellious deeds”] in v. 5 with פֶּשַׁע עַמִּי [pesha’ ’ammi, “the rebellion of his people”] in v. 8).

[59:13]  ³⁷ tn Heb “speaking.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[59:13]  ³⁸ tn Heb “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.”

[60:18]  ³⁹ tn The words “sounds of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[60:18]  ⁴⁰ tn The words “sounds of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.