Yesaya 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ¹ 

they associate with ²  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ³  payoffs. ⁴ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁵ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ⁶ 

Yesaya 5:6

5:6 I will make it a wasteland;

no one will prune its vines or hoe its ground, ⁷ 

and thorns and briers will grow there.

I will order the clouds

not to drop any rain on it.

Yesaya 5:27

5:27 None tire or stumble,

they don’t stop to nap or sleep.

They don’t loosen their belts,

or unstrap their sandals to rest. ⁸ 

Yesaya 10:4

10:4 You will have no place to go, except to kneel with the prisoners,

or to fall among those who have been killed. ⁹ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 22:22

22:22 I will place the key ¹¹  to the house of David on his shoulder. When he opens the door, no one can close it; when he closes the door, no one can open it.

Yesaya 29:22

29:22 So this is what the Lord, the one who delivered Abraham, says to the family of Jacob: ¹² 

“Jacob will no longer be ashamed;

their faces will no longer show their embarrassment. ¹³ 

Yesaya 33:8

33:8 Highways are empty, ¹⁴ 

there are no travelers. ¹⁵ 

Treaties are broken, ¹⁶ 

witnesses are despised, ¹⁷ 

human life is treated with disrespect. ¹⁸ 

Yesaya 33:22

33:22 For the Lord, our ruler,

the Lord, our commander,

the Lord, our king –

he will deliver us.

Yesaya 38:18

38:18 Indeed ¹⁹  Sheol does not give you thanks;

death does not ²⁰  praise you.

Those who descend into the pit do not anticipate your faithfulness.

Yesaya 41:28

41:28 I look, but there is no one,

among them there is no one who serves as an adviser,

that I might ask questions and receive answers.

Yesaya 42:3

42:3 A crushed reed he will not break,

a dim wick he will not extinguish; ²¹ 

he will faithfully make just decrees. ²² 

Yesaya 46:9

46:9 Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! ²³ 

Truly I am God, I have no peer; ²⁴ 

I am God, and there is none like me,

Yesaya 48:8

48:8 You did not hear,

you do not know,

you were not told beforehand. ²⁵ 

For I know that you are very deceitful; ²⁶ 

you were labeled ²⁷  a rebel from birth.

Yesaya 48:18

48:18 If only you had obeyed my ²⁸  commandments,

prosperity would have flowed to you like a river, ²⁹ 

deliverance would have come to you like the waves of the sea. ³⁰ 

Yesaya 53:9

53:9 They intended to bury him with criminals, ³¹ 

but he ended up in a rich man’s tomb, ³² 

because ³³  he had committed no violent deeds,

nor had he spoken deceitfully.

Yesaya 56:11

56:11 The dogs have big appetites;

they are never full. ³⁴ 

They are shepherds who have no understanding;

they all go their own way,

each one looking for monetary gain. ³⁵ 

Yesaya 59:15-16

59:15 Honesty has disappeared;

the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed.

The Lord watches and is displeased, ³⁶ 

for there is no justice.

The Lord Intervenes

59:16 He sees there is no advocate; ³⁷ 

he is shocked ³⁸  that no one intervenes.

So he takes matters into his own hands; ³⁹ 

his desire for justice drives him on. ⁴⁰ 

Yesaya 60:19-20

60:19 The sun will no longer supply light for you by day,

nor will the moon’s brightness shine on you;

the Lord will be your permanent source of light –

the splendor of your God will shine upon you. ⁴¹ 

60:20 Your sun will no longer set;

your moon will not disappear; ⁴² 

the Lord will be your permanent source of light;

your time ⁴³  of sorrow will be over.

Yesaya 65:19

65:19 Jerusalem will bring me joy,

and my people will bring me happiness. ⁴⁴ 

The sound of weeping or cries of sorrow

will never be heard in her again.

[1:23]  ¹ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ² tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ³ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁴ sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).

[1:23]  ⁵ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ⁶ sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.

[5:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “it will not be pruned or hoed” (so NASB); ASV and NRSV both similar.

[5:27]  ⁸ tn Heb “and the belt on his waist is not opened, and the thong of his sandals is not torn in two.”

[10:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “except one kneels in the place of the prisoner, and in the place of the slain [who] fall.” On the force of בִּלְתִּי (bilti, “except”) and its logical connection to what precedes, see BDB 116 s.v. בֵלֶת. On the force of תַּחַת (takhat, “in the place of”) here, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:258, n. 6.

[10:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in all this his anger was not turned, and still his hand was outstretched”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “his had is stretched out still.”

[10:4]  sn See the note at 9:12.

[22:22]  ¹¹ sn This may refer to a literal insignia worn by the chief administrator. Even so, it would still symbolize the administrator’s authority to grant or exclude access to the king. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:422.

[29:22]  ¹² tn Heb “So this is what the Lord says to the house of Jacob, the one who ransomed Abraham.” The relative pronoun must refer back to “the Lord,” not to the immediately preceding “Jacob.” It is uncertain to what event in Abraham’s experience this refers. Perhaps the name “Abraham” stands here by metonymy for his descendants through Jacob. If so, the Exodus is in view.

[29:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “and his face will no longer be pale.”

[33:8]  ¹⁴ tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”

[33:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”

[33:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”

[33:8]  ¹⁷ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “he despises cities.” The term עָרִים (’arim, “cities”) is probably a corruption of an original עֵדִים (’edim, “[legal] witnesses”), a reading that is preserved in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a. Confusion of dalet (ד) and resh (ר) is a well-attested scribal error.

[33:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”

[38:18]  ¹⁹ tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[38:18]  ²⁰ tn The negative particle is understood by ellipsis in this line. See GKC 483 §152.z.

[42:3]  ²¹ sn The “crushed reed” and “dim wick” symbolize the weak and oppressed who are on the verge of extinction.

[42:3]  ²² tn Heb “faithfully he will bring out justice” (cf. NASB, NRSV).

[46:9]  ²³ tn Heb “remember the former things, from antiquity”; KJV, ASV “the former things of old.”

[46:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and there is no other” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[48:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “beforehand your ear did not open.”

[48:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “deceiving, you deceive.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[48:8]  ²⁷ tn Or “called” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[48:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “paid attention to” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “had listened to.”

[48:18]  ²⁹ tn Heb “like a river your peace would have been.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom) probably refers here to the peace and prosperity which God promised in return for obedience to the covenant.

[48:18]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah) probably refers here to divine deliverance from enemies. See v. 19.

[53:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “one assigned his grave with criminals.” The subject of the singular is impersonal; English typically uses “they” in such constructions.

[53:9]  ³² tn This line reads literally, “and with the rich in his death.” בְּמֹתָיו (bÿmotayv) combines a preposition, a plural form of the noun מוֹת (mot), and a third masculine singular suffix. The plural of the noun is problematic and the יו may be the result of virtual dittography. The form should probably be emended to בָּמָתוֹ (bamato, singular noun). The relationship between this line and the preceding one is uncertain. The parallelism appears to be synonymous (note “his grave” and “in his death”), but “criminals” and “the rich” hardly make a compatible pair in this context, for they would not be buried in the same kind of tomb. Some emend עָשִׁיר (’ashir, “rich”) to עָשֵׂי רָע (’ase ra’, “doers of evil”) but the absence of the ayin (ע) is not readily explained in this graphic environment. Others suggest an emendation to שְׂעִירִים (sÿ’irim, “he-goats, demons”), but the meaning in this case is not entirely transparent and the proposal assumes that the form suffered from both transposition and the inexplicable loss of a final mem. Still others relate עָשִׁיר (’ashir) to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “mob.” See HALOT 896 s.v. עָשִׁיר. Perhaps the parallelism is antithetical, rather than synonymous. In this case, the point is made that the servant’s burial in a rich man’s tomb, in contrast to a criminal’s burial, was appropriate, for he had done nothing wrong.

[53:9]  ³³ tn If the second line is antithetical, then עַל (’al) is probably causal here, explaining why the servant was buried in a rich man’s tomb, rather than that of criminal. If the first two lines are synonymous, then עַל is probably concessive: “even though….”

[56:11]  ³⁴ sn The phrase never full alludes to the greed of the leaders.

[56:11]  ³⁵ tn Heb “for his gain from his end.”

[59:15]  ³⁶ tn Heb “and it is displeasing in his eyes.”

[59:16]  ³⁷ tn Heb “man” (so KJV, ASV); TEV “no one to help.”

[59:16]  ³⁸ tn Or “appalled” (NAB, NIV, NRSV), or “disgusted.”

[59:16]  ³⁹ tn Heb “and his arm delivers for him.”

[59:16]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “and his justice [or “righteousness”] supports him.”

[60:19]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and your God for your splendor.”

[60:20]  ⁴² sn In this verse “sun” and “moon” refer to the Lord’s light, which will replace the sun and moon (see v. 19). Light here symbolizes the restoration of divine blessing and prosperity in conjunction with the Lord’s presence. See 30:26.

[60:20]  ⁴³ tn Heb “days” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[65:19]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “and I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be happy in my people.”