Yesaya 6:5

6:5 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 52:11

52:11 Leave! Leave! Get out of there!

Don’t touch anything unclean!

Get out of it!

Stay pure, you who carry the Lord’s holy items! ⁵ 

Yesaya 30:22

30:22 You will desecrate your silver-plated idols ⁶ 

and your gold-plated images. ⁷ 

You will throw them away as if they were a menstrual rag,

saying to them, “Get out!”

Yesaya 65:4

65:4 They sit among the tombs ⁸ 

and keep watch all night long. ⁹ 

They eat pork, ¹⁰ 

and broth ¹¹  from unclean sacrificial meat is in their pans.

Yesaya 59:3

59:3 For your hands are stained with blood

and your fingers with sin;

your lips speak lies,

your tongue utters malicious words.

Yesaya 57:13

57:13 When you cry out for help, let your idols ¹²  help you!

The wind blows them all away, ¹³ 

a breeze carries them away. ¹⁴ 

But the one who looks to me for help ¹⁵  will inherit the land

and will have access to ¹⁶  my holy mountain.”

Yesaya 64:6

64:6 We are all like one who is unclean,

all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight. ¹⁷ 

We all wither like a leaf;

our sins carry us away like the wind.

Yesaya 52:1

52:1 Wake up! Wake up!

Clothe yourself with strength, O Zion!

Put on your beautiful clothes,

O Jerusalem, ¹⁸  holy city!

For uncircumcised and unclean pagans

will no longer invade you.

Yesaya 56:2

56:2 The people who do this will be blessed, ¹⁹ 

the people who commit themselves to obedience, ²⁰ 

who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,

who refrain from doing anything that is wrong. ²¹ 

Yesaya 43:28

43:28 So I defiled your holy princes,

and handed Jacob over to destruction,

and subjected ²²  Israel to humiliating abuse.”

Yesaya 63:3

63:3 “I have stomped grapes in the winepress all by myself;

no one from the nations joined me.

I stomped on them ²³  in my anger;

I trampled them down in my rage.

Their juice splashed on my garments,

and stained ²⁴  all my clothes.

Yesaya 66:3

66:3 The one who slaughters a bull also strikes down a man; ²⁵ 

the one who sacrifices a lamb also breaks a dog’s neck; ²⁶ 

the one who presents an offering includes pig’s blood with it; ²⁷ 

the one who offers incense also praises an idol. ²⁸ 

They have decided to behave this way; ²⁹ 

they enjoy these disgusting practices. ³⁰ 

Yesaya 56:6

56:6 As for foreigners who become followers of ³¹  the Lord and serve him,

who love the name of the Lord and want to be his servants –

all who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,

and who are faithful to ³²  my covenant –

Yesaya 35:8

35:8 A thoroughfare will be there –

it will be called the Way of Holiness. ³³ 

The unclean will not travel on it;

it is reserved for those authorized to use it ³⁴  –

fools ³⁵  will not stray into it.

Yesaya 24:5

24:5 The earth is defiled by ³⁶  its inhabitants, ³⁷ 

for they have violated laws,

disregarded the regulation, ³⁸ 

and broken the permanent treaty. ³⁹ 

Yesaya 47:6

47:6 I was angry at my people;

I defiled my special possession

and handed them over to you.

You showed them no mercy; ⁴⁰ 

you even placed a very heavy burden on old people. ⁴¹ 

Yesaya 48:11

48:11 For my sake alone ⁴²  I will act,

for how can I allow my name to be defiled? ⁴³ 

I will not share my glory with anyone else! ⁴⁴ 

Yesaya 9:17

9:17 So the sovereign master was not pleased ⁴⁵  with their young men,

he took no pity ⁴⁶  on their orphans and widows;

for the whole nation was godless ⁴⁷  and did wicked things, ⁴⁸ 

every mouth was speaking disgraceful words. ⁴⁹ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁵⁰ 

Yesaya 65:5

65:5 They say, ‘Keep to yourself!

Don’t get near me, for I am holier than you!’

These people are like smoke in my nostrils,

like a fire that keeps burning all day long.

[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.

[52:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “the vessels of the Lord” (so KJV, NAB).

[30:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “the platings of your silver idols.”

[30:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “the covering of your gold image.”

[65:4]  ⁸ sn Perhaps the worship of underworld deities or dead spirits is in view.

[65:4]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “and in the watches they spend the night.” Some understand נְּצוּרִים (nÿtsurim) as referring to “secret places” or “caves,” while others emend the text to וּבֵין צוּרִים (uven tsurim, “between the rocky cliffs”).

[65:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the flesh of the pig”; KJV, NAB, NASB “swine’s flesh.”

[65:4]  ¹¹ tc The marginal reading (Qere), supported by the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, reads מְרַק (mÿraq, “broth”), while the consonantal text (Kethib) has פְרַק (feraq, “fragment”).

[57:13]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text has קִבּוּצַיִךְ (qibbutsayikh, “your gatherings”), an otherwise unattested noun from the verbal root קָבַץ (qavats, “gather”). Perhaps this alludes to their religious assemblies and by metonymy to their rituals. Since idolatry is a prominent theme in the context, some understand this as a reference to a collection of idols. The second half of the verse also favors this view.

[57:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “all of them a wind lifts up.”

[57:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a breath takes [them] away.”

[57:13]  ¹⁵ tn Or “seeks refuge in me.” “Seeking refuge” is a metonymy for “being loyal to.”

[57:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “possess, own.” The point seems to be that he will have free access to God’s presence, as if God’s temple mount were his personal possession.

[64:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and like a garment of menstruation [are] all our righteous acts”; KJV, NIV “filthy rags”; ASV “a polluted garment.”

[52:1]  ¹⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[56:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “blessed is the man who does this.”

[56:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the son of mankind who takes hold of it.”

[56:2]  ²¹ tn Heb and who keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

[43:28]  ²² tn The word “subjected” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[63:3]  ²³ sn Nations, headed by Edom, are the object of the Lord’s anger (see v. 6). He compares military slaughter to stomping on grapes in a vat.

[63:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and I stained.” For discussion of the difficult verb form, see HALOT 170 s.v. II גאל. Perhaps the form is mixed, combining the first person forms of the imperfect (note the alef prefix) and perfect (note the תי- ending).

[66:3]  ²⁵ tn Heb “one who slaughters a bull, one who strikes down a man.” Some understand a comparison here and in the following lines. In God’s sight the one who sacrifices is like (i.e., regarded as) a murderer or one whose worship is ritually defiled or idolatrous. The translation above assumes that the language is not metaphorical, but descriptive of the sinners’ hypocritical behavior. (Note the last two lines of the verse, which suggests they are guilty of abominable practices.) On the one hand, they act pious and offer sacrifices; but at the same time they commit violent crimes against men, defile their sacrifices, and worship other gods.

[66:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “one who sacrifices a lamb, one who breaks a dog’s neck.” Some understand a comparison, but see the previous note.

[66:3]  sn The significance of breaking a dog’s neck is uncertain, though the structure of the statement when compared to the preceding and following lines suggests the action is viewed in a negative light. According to Exod 13:13 and 34:20, one was to “redeem” a firstborn donkey by offering a lamb; if one did not “redeem” the firstborn donkey in this way, then its neck must be broken. According to Deut 21:1-9 a heifer’s neck was to be broken as part of the atonement ritual to purify the land from the guilt of bloodshed. It is not certain if these passages relate in any way to the action described in Isa 66:3.

[66:3]  ²⁷ tn Heb “one who offers an offering, pig’s blood.” Some understand a comparison, but see the note at the end of the first line.

[66:3]  ²⁸ tn Heb “one who offers incense as a memorial offering, one who blesses something false.” Some understand a comparison, but see the note at the end of the first line. אָוֶן (’aven), which has a wide variety of attested nuances, here refers metonymically to an idol. See HALOT 22 s.v. and BDB 20 s.v. 2.

[66:3]  ²⁹ tn Heb “also they have chosen their ways.”

[66:3]  ³⁰ tn Heb “their being [or “soul”] takes delight in their disgusting [things].”

[56:6]  ³¹ tn Heb “who attach themselves to.”

[56:6]  ³² tn Heb “and take hold of”; NAB “hold to”; NIV, NRSV “hold fast.”

[35:8]  ³³ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and there will be there a road and a way, and the Way of Holiness it will be called.” וְדֶרֶךְ (vÿderekh, “and a/the way”) is accidentally duplicated; the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a does not reflect the repetition of the phrase.

[35:8]  ³⁴ tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The text reads literally “and it is for them, the one who walks [on the] way.” In this context those authorized to use the Way of Holiness would be morally upright people who are the recipients of God’s deliverance, in contrast to the morally impure and foolish who are excluded from the new covenant community.

[35:8]  ³⁵ tn In this context “fools” are those who are morally corrupt, not those with limited intellectual capacity.

[24:5]  ³⁶ tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”

[24:5]  ³⁷ sn Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34, which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.

[24:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”

[24:5]  ³⁹ tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”

[24:5]  sn For a lengthy discussion of the identity of this covenant/treaty, see R. Chisholm, “The ‘Everlasting Covenant’ and the ‘City of Chaos’: Intentional Ambiguity and Irony in Isaiah 24,” CTR 6 (1993): 237-53. In this context, where judgment comes upon both the pagan nations and God’s covenant community, the phrase “permanent treaty” is intentionally ambiguous. For the nations this treaty is the Noahic mandate of Gen 9:1-7 with its specific stipulations and central regulation (Gen 9:7). By shedding blood, the warlike nations violated this treaty, which promotes population growth and prohibits murder. For Israel, which was also guilty of bloodshed (see Isa 1:15, 21; 4:4), this “permanent treaty” would refer more specifically to the Mosaic Law and its regulations prohibiting murder (Exod 20:13; Num 35:6-34), which are an extension of the Noahic mandate.

[47:6]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “compassion.”

[47:6]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “on the old you made very heavy your yoke.”

[48:11]  ⁴² tn The Hebrew text repeats לְמַעֲנִי (lÿma’ani, “for my sake”) for emphasis.

[48:11]  ⁴³ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “for how can it be defiled?” The subject of the verb is probably “name” (v. 9).

[48:11]  ⁴⁴ sn See 42:8.

[9:17]  ⁴⁵ tn The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has לא יחמול (“he did not spare”) which is an obvious attempt to tighten the parallelism (note “he took no pity” in the next line). Instead of taking שָׂמַח (samakh) in one of its well attested senses (“rejoice over, be pleased with”), some propose, with support from Arabic, a rare homonymic root meaning “be merciful.”

[9:17]  ⁴⁶ tn The translation understands the prefixed verbs יִשְׂמַח (yismakh) and יְרַחֵם (yÿrakhem) as preterites without vav (ו) consecutive. (See v. 11 and the note on “he stirred up.”)

[9:17]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “profaned”; NIV “ungodly.”

[9:17]  ⁴⁸ tn מֵרַע (mera’) is a Hiphil participle from רָעַע (ra’a’, “be evil”). The intransitive Hiphil has an exhibitive force here, indicating that they exhibited outwardly the evidence of an inward condition by committing evil deeds.

[9:17]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “foolishness” (NASB), here in a moral-ethical sense.

[9:17]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “in all this his anger is not turned, and still his hand is outstretched.”

[9:17]  sn See the note at 9:12.