Yesaya 18:3

18:3 All you who live in the world,

who reside on the earth,

you will see a signal flag raised on the mountains;

you will hear a trumpet being blown.

Yesaya 42:11

42:11 Let the desert and its cities shout out,

the towns where the nomads of Kedar live!

Let the residents of Sela shout joyfully;

let them shout loudly from the mountaintops.

Yesaya 42:15

42:15 I will make the trees on the mountains and hills wither up; ¹ 

I will dry up all their vegetation.

I will turn streams into islands, ² 

and dry up pools of water. ³ 

Yesaya 64:3

64:3 When you performed awesome deeds that took us by surprise, ⁴ 

you came down, and the mountains trembled ⁵  before you.

[42:15]  ¹ tn Heb “I will dry up the mountains and hills.” The “mountains and hills” stand by synecdoche for the trees that grow on them. Some prefer to derive the verb from a homonymic root and translate, “I will lay waste.”

[42:15]  ² tc The Hebrew text reads, “I will turn streams into coastlands [or “islands”].” Scholars who believe that this reading makes little sense have proposed an emendation of אִיִּים (’iyyim, “islands”) to צִיּוֹת (tsiyyot, “dry places”; cf. NCV, NLT, TEV). However, since all the versions support the MT reading, there is insufficient grounds for an emendation here. Although the imagery of changing rivers into islands is somewhat strange, J. N. Oswalt describes this imagery against the backdrop of rivers of the Near East. The receding of these rivers at times occasioned the appearance of previously submerged islands (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:126).

[42:15]  ³ sn The imagery of this verse, which depicts the Lord bringing a curse of infertility to the earth, metaphorically describes how the Lord will destroy his enemies.

[64:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “[for which] we were not waiting.”

[64:3]  ⁵ tn See the note at v. 1.