Yesaya 6:5
Konteks6:5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, 1 for my lips are contaminated by sin, 2 and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. 3 My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.” 4
Yesaya 28:4
Konteks28:4 The withering flower, its beautiful splendor,
situated at the head of a rich valley,
will be like an early fig before harvest –
as soon as someone notices it,
he grabs it and swallows it. 5
Yesaya 40:26
KonteksWho created all these heavenly lights? 7
He is the one who leads out their ranks; 8
he calls them all by name.
Because of his absolute power and awesome strength,
not one of them is missing.
[6:5] 1 tn Isaiah uses the suffixed (perfect) form of the verb for rhetorical purposes. In this way his destruction is described as occurring or as already completed. Rather than understanding the verb as derived from דָּמַה (damah, “be destroyed”), some take it from a proposed homonymic root דמה, which would mean “be silent.” In this case, one might translate, “I must be silent.”
[6:5] 2 tn Heb “a man unclean of lips am I.” Isaiah is not qualified to praise the king. His lips (the instruments of praise) are “unclean” because he has been contaminated by sin.
[6:5] 3 tn Heb “and among a nation unclean of lips I live.”
[6:5] 4 tn Perhaps in this context, the title has a less militaristic connotation and pictures the Lord as the ruler of the heavenly assembly. See the note at 1:9.
[28:4] 5 tn Heb “which the one seeing sees, while still it is in his hand he swallows it.”
[40:26] 6 tn Heb “Lift on high your eyes and see.”
[40:26] 7 tn The words “heavenly lights” are supplied in the translation for clarification. See the following lines.
[40:26] 8 tn Heb “the one who brings out by number their host.” The stars are here likened to a huge army that the Lord leads out. Perhaps the next line pictures God calling roll. If so, the final line may be indicating that none of them dares “go AWOL.” (“AWOL” is a military acronym for “absent without leave.”)
