Yesaya 3:5

3:5 The people will treat each other harshly;

men will oppose each other;

neighbors will fight. ¹ 

Youths will proudly defy the elderly

and riffraff will challenge those who were once respected. ² 

Yesaya 5:13

5:13 Therefore my ³  people will be deported ⁴ 

because of their lack of understanding.

Their ⁵  leaders will have nothing to eat, ⁶ 

their ⁷  masses will have nothing to drink. ⁸ 

Yesaya 5:1

A Love Song Gone Sour

5:1 I ⁹  will sing to my love –

a song to my lover about his vineyard. ¹⁰ 

My love had a vineyard

on a fertile hill. ¹¹ 

1 Samuel 9:6

9:6 But the servant said to him, “Look, there is a man of God in this town. He is highly respected. Everything that he says really happens. ¹²  Now let’s go there. Perhaps he will tell us where we should go from here.” ¹³ 

[3:5]  ¹ tn Heb “man against man, and a man against his neighbor.”

[3:5]  ² tn Heb “and those lightly esteemed those who are respected.” The verb רָהַב (rahav) does double duty in the parallelism.

[5:13]  ³ sn It is not certain if the prophet or the Lord is speaking at this point.

[5:13]  ⁴ tn The suffixed (perfect) form of the verb is used; in this way the coming event is described for rhetorical effect as occurring or as already completed.

[5:13]  ⁵ tn The third masculine singular suffix refers back to “my people.”

[5:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “Their glory will be men of hunger.” כָּבוֹד (kavod, “glory”) is in opposition to הָמוֹן (hamon, “masses”) and refers here to the rich and prominent members of the nation. Some prefer to repoint מְתֵי (mÿtey, “men of”) as מִתֵי (mitey, “dead ones of”).

[5:13]  ⁷ tn The third masculine singular suffix refers back to “my people.”

[5:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “and their masses will be parched [by] thirst.”

[5:1]  ⁹ tn It is uncertain who is speaking here. Possibly the prophet, taking the role of best man, composes a love song for his friend on the occasion of his wedding. If so, יָדִיד (yadid) should be translated “my friend.” The present translation assumes that Israel is singing to the Lord. The word דוֹד (dod, “lover”) used in the second line is frequently used by the woman in the Song of Solomon to describe her lover.

[5:1]  ¹⁰ sn Israel, viewing herself as the Lord’s lover, refers to herself as his vineyard. The metaphor has sexual connotations, for it pictures her capacity to satisfy his appetite and to produce children. See Song 8:12.

[5:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “on a horn, a son of oil.” Apparently קֶרֶן (qeren, “horn”) here refers to the horn-shaped peak of a hill (BDB 902 s.v.) or to a mountain spur, i.e., a ridge that extends laterally from a mountain (HALOT 1145 s.v. קֶרֶן; H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:180). The expression “son of oil” pictures this hill as one capable of producing olive trees. Isaiah’s choice of קֶרֶן, a rare word for hill, may have been driven by paronomastic concerns, i.e., because קֶרֶן sounds like כֶּרֶם (kerem, “vineyard”).

[9:6]  ¹² tn The infinitive absolute precedes the verb for emphasis.

[9:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “our way on which we have gone.”