Yesaya 33:1

The Lord Will Restore Zion

33:1 The destroyer is as good as dead, ¹ 

you who have not been destroyed!

The deceitful one is as good as dead, ² 

the one whom others have not deceived!

When you are through destroying, you will be destroyed;

when you finish ³  deceiving, others will deceive you!

Yesaya 33:4

33:4 Your plunder ⁴  disappears as if locusts were eating it; ⁵ 

they swarm over it like locusts! ⁶ 

Yesaya 33:2

33:2 Lord, be merciful to us! We wait for you.

Give us strength each morning! ⁷ 

Deliver us when distress comes. ⁸ 

Yesaya 20:1

20:1 The Lord revealed the following message during the year in which King Sargon of Assyria sent his commanding general to Ashdod, and he fought against it and captured it. ⁹ 

[33:1]  ¹ tn Heb “Woe [to] the destroyer.”

[33:1]  sn In this context “the destroyer” appears to refer collectively to the hostile nations (vv. 3-4). Assyria would probably have been primary in the minds of the prophet and his audience.

[33:1]  ² tn Heb “and the deceitful one”; NAB, NIV “O traitor”; NRSV “you treacherous one.” In the parallel structure הוֹי (hoy, “woe [to]”) does double duty.

[33:1]  ³ tc The form in the Hebrew text appears to derive from an otherwise unattested verb נָלָה (nalah). The translation follows the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a in reading ככלתך, a Piel infinitival form from the verbal root כָּלָה (kalah), meaning “finish.”

[33:4]  ⁴ tn The pronoun is plural; the statement is addressed to the nations who have stockpiled plunder from their conquests of others.

[33:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “and your plunder is gathered, the gathering of the locust.”

[33:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “like a swarm of locusts swarming on it.”

[33:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “Be their arm each morning.” “Arm” is a symbol for strength. The mem suffixed to the noun has been traditionally understood as a third person suffix, but this is contrary to the context, where the people speak of themselves in the first person. The mem (מ) is probably enclitic with ellipsis of the pronoun, which can be supplied from the context. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:589, n. 1.

[33:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “[Be] also our deliverance in the time of distress.”

[20:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “In the year the commanding general came to Ashdod, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and captured it.”

[20:1]  sn This probably refers to the Assyrian campaign against Philistia in 712 or 711 b.c.