Yesaya 13:15

13:15 Everyone who is caught will be stabbed;

everyone who is seized ¹  will die ²  by the sword.

Yesaya 14:19

14:19 But you have been thrown out of your grave

like a shoot that is thrown away. ³ 

You lie among ⁴  the slain,

among those who have been slashed by the sword,

among those headed for ⁵  the stones of the pit, ⁶ 

as if you were a mangled corpse. ⁷ 

Yesaya 36:6

36:6 Look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If someone leans on it for support, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him!

Yesaya 51:9

51:9 Wake up! Wake up!

Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord! ⁸ 

Wake up as in former times, as in antiquity!

Did you not smash ⁹  the Proud One? ¹⁰ 

Did you not ¹¹  wound the sea monster? ¹² 

Yesaya 53:5

53:5 He was wounded because of ¹³  our rebellious deeds,

crushed because of our sins;

he endured punishment that made us well; ¹⁴ 

because of his wounds we have been healed. ¹⁵ 

[13:15]  ¹ tn Heb “carried off,” i.e., grabbed from the fleeing crowd. See HALOT 764 s.v. ספה.

[13:15]  ² tn Heb “will fall” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NLT “will be run through with a sword.”

[14:19]  ³ tn Heb “like a shoot that is abhorred.” The simile seems a bit odd; apparently it refers to a small shoot that is trimmed from a plant and tossed away. Some prefer to emend נֵצֶר (netser, “shoot”); some propose נֵפֶל (nefel, “miscarriage”). In this case one might paraphrase: “like a horrible-looking fetus that is delivered when a woman miscarries.”

[14:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “are clothed with.”

[14:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “those going down to.”

[14:19]  ⁶ tn בּוֹר (bor) literally means “cistern”; cisterns were constructed from stones. On the metaphorical use of “cistern” for the underworld, see the note at v. 15.

[14:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “like a trampled corpse.” Some take this line with what follows.

[51:9]  ⁸ tn The arm of the Lord is a symbol of divine military power. Here it is personified and told to arouse itself from sleep and prepare for action.

[51:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “Are you not the one who smashed?” The feminine singular forms agree grammatically with the feminine noun “arm.” The Hebrew text has ַהמַּחְצֶבֶת (hammakhtsevet), from the verbal root חָצַב (khatsav, “hew, chop”). The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has, probably correctly, המחצת, from the verbal root מָחַץ (makhats, “smash”) which is used in Job 26:12 to describe God’s victory over “the Proud One.”

[51:9]  ¹⁰ tn This title (רַהַב, rahav, “proud one”) is sometimes translated as a proper name: “Rahab” (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). It is used here of a symbolic sea monster, known elsewhere in the Bible and in Ugaritic myth as Leviathan. This sea creature symbolizes the forces of chaos that seek to destroy the created order. In the Bible “the Proud One” opposes God’s creative work, but is defeated (see Job 26:12; Ps 89:10). Here the title refers to Pharaoh’s Egyptian army that opposed Israel at the Red Sea (see v. 10, and note also Isa 30:7 and Ps 87:4, where the title is used of Egypt).

[51:9]  ¹¹ tn The words “did you not” are understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line). The rhetorical questions here and in v. 10 expect the answer, “Yes, you certainly did!”

[51:9]  ¹² tn Hebrew תַּנִּין (tannin) is another name for the symbolic sea monster. See the note at 27:1. In this context the sea creature represents Egypt. See the note on the title “Proud One” earlier in this verse.

[53:5]  ¹³ tn The preposition מִן (min) has a causal sense (translated “because of”) here and in the following clause.

[53:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the punishment of our peace [was] on him.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is here a genitive of result, i.e., “punishment that resulted in our peace.”

[53:5]  ¹⁵ sn Continuing to utilize the imagery of physical illness, the group acknowledges that the servant’s willingness to carry their illnesses (v. 4) resulted in their being healed. Healing is a metaphor for forgiveness here.