Yesaya 2:9

2:9 Men bow down to them in homage,

they lie flat on the ground in worship. ¹ 

Don’t spare them! ² 

Yesaya 5:15

5:15 Men will be humiliated,

they will be brought low;

the proud will be brought low. ³ 

Yesaya 32:17

32:17 Fairness will produce peace ⁴ 

and result in lasting security. ⁵ 

Yesaya 41:24

41:24 Look, you are nothing, and your accomplishments are nonexistent;

the one who chooses to worship you is disgusting. ⁶ 

Yesaya 57:2

57:2 Those who live uprightly enter a place of peace;

they rest on their beds. ⁷ 

[2:9]  ¹ tn Heb “men bow down, men are low.” Since the verbs שָׁחָח (shakhakh) and שָׁפַל (shafal) are used later in this discourse to describe how God will humiliate proud men (see vv. 11, 17), some understand v. 9a as a prediction of judgment, “men will be brought down, men will be humiliated.” However, these prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive appear to carry on the description that precedes and are better taken with the accusation. They draw attention to the fact that human beings actually bow down and worship before the lifeless products of their own hands.

[2:9]  ² tn Heb “don’t lift them up.” The idiom “lift up” (נָשָׂא with לְ, nasa’ with preposition lamed) can mean “spare, forgive” (see Gen 18:24, 26). Here the idiom plays on the preceding verbs. The idolaters are bowed low as they worship their false gods; the prophet asks God not to “lift them up.”

[5:15]  ³ tn Heb “men are brought down, men are brought low, the eyes of pride are brought low.”

[32:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the product of fairness will be peace.”

[32:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “and the work of fairness [will be] calmness and security forever.”

[41:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “an object of disgust [is he who] chooses you.”

[57:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “he enters peace, they rest on their beds, the one who walks straight ahead of himself.” The tomb is here viewed in a fairly positive way as a place where the dead are at peace and sleep undisturbed.