Yesaya 1:16

1:16 ¹ Wash! Cleanse yourselves!

Remove your sinful deeds ² 

from my sight.

Stop sinning!

Yesaya 1:25

1:25 I will attack you; ³ 

I will purify your metal with flux. ⁴ 

I will remove all your slag. ⁵ 

Yesaya 2:10

2:10 Go up into the rocky cliffs,

hide in the ground.

Get away from the dreadful judgment of the Lord, ⁶ 

from his royal splendor!

Yesaya 2:20

2:20 At that time ⁷  men will throw

their silver and gold idols,

which they made for themselves to worship, ⁸ 

into the caves where rodents and bats live, ⁹ 

Yesaya 5:11

5:11 Those who get up early to drink beer are as good as dead, ¹⁰ 

those who keep drinking long after dark

until they are intoxicated with wine. ¹¹ 

Yesaya 7:6

7:6 They say, “Let’s attack Judah, terrorize it, and conquer it. ¹²  Then we’ll set up the son of Tabeel as its king.” ¹³ 

Yesaya 10:7

10:7 But he does not agree with this,

his mind does not reason this way, ¹⁴ 

for his goal is to destroy,

and to eliminate many nations. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 13:17

13:17 Look, I am stirring up the Medes to attack them; ¹⁶ 

they are not concerned about silver,

nor are they interested in gold. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 21:12

21:12 The watchman replies,

“Morning is coming, but then night. ¹⁸ 

If you want to ask, ask;

come back again.” ¹⁹ 

Yesaya 23:11

23:11 The Lord stretched out his hand over the sea, ²⁰ 

he shook kingdoms;

he ²¹  gave the order

to destroy Canaan’s fortresses. ²² 

Yesaya 30:2

30:2 They travel down to Egypt

without seeking my will, ²³ 

seeking Pharaoh’s protection,

and looking for safety in Egypt’s protective shade. ²⁴ 

Yesaya 34:5

34:5 He says, ²⁵  “Indeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers. ²⁶ 

Look, it now descends on Edom, ²⁷ 

on the people I will annihilate in judgment.”

Yesaya 34:12

34:12 Her nobles will have nothing left to call a kingdom

and all her officials will disappear. ²⁸ 

Yesaya 36:21

36:21 They were silent and did not respond, for the king had ordered, “Don’t respond to him.”

Yesaya 37:35

37:35 I will shield this city and rescue it for the sake of my reputation and because of my promise to David my servant.”’” ²⁹ 

Yesaya 42:7

42:7 to open blind eyes, ³⁰ 

to release prisoners ³¹  from dungeons,

those who live in darkness from prisons.

[1:16]  ¹ sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.

[1:16]  ² sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).

[1:25]  ³ tn Heb “turn my hand against you.” The second person pronouns in vv. 25-26 are feminine singular. Personified Jerusalem is addressed. The idiom “turn the hand against” has the nuance of “strike with the hand, attack,” in Ps 81:15 HT (81:14 ET); Ezek 38:12; Am 1:8; Zech 13:7. In Jer 6:9 it is used of gleaning grapes.

[1:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will purify your dross as [with] flux.” “Flux” refers here to minerals added to the metals in a furnace to prevent oxides from forming. For this interpretation of II בֹּר (bor), see HALOT 153 s.v. II בֹּר and 750 s.v. סִיג.

[1:25]  ⁵ sn The metaphor comes from metallurgy; slag is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.

[2:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “from the dread of the Lord,” that is, from the dread that he produces in the objects of his judgment.” The words “get away” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[2:20]  ⁷ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[2:20]  ⁸ tn Or “bow down to.”

[2:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “to the shrews and to the bats.” On the meaning of חֲפַרְפָּרָה (khafarparah, “shrew”), see HALOT 341 s.v. חֲפַרְפָּרָה. The BHS text as it stands (לַחְפֹּר פֵּרוֹת, perot lakhpor), makes no sense. Based on Theodotion’s transliteration and a similar reading in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, most scholars suggest that the MT mistakenly divided a noun (a hapax legomenon) that should be translated “moles,” “shrews,” or “rodents.”

[5:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who arise early in the morning, [who] chase beer.”

[5:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “[who] delay until dark, [until] wine enflames them.”

[5:11]  sn This verse does not condemn drinking per se, but refers to the carousing lifestyle of the rich bureaucrats, made possible by wealth taken from the poor. Their carousing is not the fundamental problem, but a disgusting symptom of the real disease – their social injustice.

[7:6]  ¹² tn Heb “and let us break it open for ourselves”; NASB “make for ourselves a breach in its walls”; NLT “fight our way into.”

[7:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “and we will make the son of Tabeel king in its midst.”

[7:6]  sn The precise identity of this would-be puppet king is unknown. He may have been a Syrian official or the ruler of one of the small neighboring states. See Y. Aharoni, Land of the Bible, 370.

[10:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “but he, not so does he intend, and his heart, not so does it think.”

[10:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “for to destroy [is] in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.”

[13:17]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “against them”; NLT “against Babylon.”

[13:17]  ¹⁷ sn They cannot be bought off, for they have a lust for bloodshed.

[21:12]  ¹⁸ sn Dumah will experience some relief, but it will be short-lived as night returns.

[21:12]  ¹⁹ sn The point of the watchman’s final instructions (“if you want to ask, ask; come again”) is unclear. Perhaps they are included to add realism to the dramatic portrayal. The watchman sends the questioner away with the words, “Feel free to come back and ask again.”

[23:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “his hand he stretched out over the sea.”

[23:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” For stylistic reasons the pronoun (“he”) has been used in the translation here.

[23:11]  ²² tn Heb “concerning Canaan, to destroy her fortresses.” NIV, NLT translate “Canaan” as “Phoenicia” here.

[30:2]  ²³ tn Heb “those who go to descend to Egypt, but [of] my mouth they do not inquire.”

[30:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “to seek protection in the protection of Pharaoh, and to seek refuge in the shade of Egypt.”

[34:5]  ²⁵ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Lord speaks at this point.

[34:5]  ²⁶ tn Heb “indeed [or “for”] my sword is drenched in the heavens.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has תראה (“[my sword] appeared [in the heavens]”), but this is apparently an attempt to make sense out of a difficult metaphor. Cf. NIV “My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens.”

[34:5]  sn In v. 4 the “host of the heaven” refers to the heavenly luminaries (stars and planets, see, among others, Deut 4:19; 17:3; 2 Kgs 17:16; 21:3, 5; 23:4-5; 2 Chr 33:3, 5) that populate the divine/heavenly assembly in mythological and prescientific Israelite thought (see Job 38:7; Isa 14:13). As in 24:21, they are viewed here as opposing God and being defeated in battle.

[34:5]  ²⁷ sn Edom is mentioned here as epitomizing the hostile nations that oppose God.

[34:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “will be nothing”; NCV, TEV, NLT “will all be gone.”

[37:35]  ²⁹ tn Heb “for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”

[42:7]  ³⁰ sn This does not refer to literal physical healing of the blind. As the next two lines suggest, this refers metonymically to freeing captives from their dark prisons where their eyes have grown unaccustomed to light.

[42:7]  ³¹ sn This does not refer to hardened, dangerous criminals, who would have been executed for their crimes in ancient Near Eastern society. This verse refers to political prisoners or victims of social injustice.