Yesaya 3:16-26
Konteks3:16 The Lord says,
“The women 1 of Zion are proud.
They walk with their heads high 2
and flirt with their eyes.
They skip along 3
and the jewelry on their ankles jingles. 4
3:17 So 5 the sovereign master 6 will afflict the foreheads of Zion’s women 7 with skin diseases, 8
the Lord will make the front of their heads bald.” 9
3:18 10 At that time 11 the sovereign master will remove their beautiful ankle jewelry, 12 neck ornaments, crescent shaped ornaments, 3:19 earrings, bracelets, veils, 3:20 headdresses, ankle ornaments, sashes, sachets, 13 amulets, 3:21 rings, nose rings, 3:22 festive dresses, robes, shawls, purses, 3:23 garments, vests, head coverings, and gowns. 14
3:24 A putrid stench will replace the smell of spices, 15
a rope will replace a belt,
baldness will replace braided locks of hair,
a sackcloth garment will replace a fine robe,
and a prisoner’s brand will replace beauty.
3:25 Your 16 men will fall by the sword,
your strong men will die in battle. 17
3:26 Her gates will mourn and lament;
deprived of her people, she will sit on the ground. 18
Yesaya 24:6-12
Konteks24:6 So a treaty curse 19 devours the earth;
its inhabitants pay for their guilt. 20
This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, 21
and are reduced to just a handful of people. 22
24:7 The new wine dries up,
the vines shrivel up,
all those who like to celebrate 23 groan.
24:8 The happy sound 24 of the tambourines stops,
the revelry of those who celebrate comes to a halt,
the happy sound of the harp ceases.
24:9 They no longer sing and drink wine; 25
the beer tastes bitter to those who drink it.
24:10 The ruined town 26 is shattered;
all of the houses are shut up tight. 27
24:11 They howl in the streets because of what happened to the wine; 28
all joy turns to sorrow; 29
celebrations disappear from the earth. 30
24:12 The city is left in ruins; 31
the gate is reduced to rubble. 32
Yesaya 32:9-14
Konteksget up and listen to me!
You carefree 34 daughters,
pay attention to what I say!
you carefree ones will shake with fear,
for the grape 36 harvest will fail,
and the fruit harvest will not arrive.
32:11 Tremble, you complacent ones!
Shake with fear, you carefree ones!
Strip off your clothes and expose yourselves –
put sackcloth on your waist! 37
32:12 Mourn over the field, 38
over the delightful fields
and the fruitful vine!
32:13 Mourn 39 over the land of my people,
which is overgrown with thorns and briers,
and over all the once-happy houses 40
in the city filled with revelry. 41
32:14 For the fortress is neglected;
the once-crowded 42 city is abandoned.
Hill 43 and watchtower
are permanently uninhabited. 44
Wild donkeys love to go there,
and flocks graze there. 45
[3:16] 1 tn Heb “daughters” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV).
[3:16] 2 tn Heb “with an outstretched neck.” They proudly hold their heads high so that others can see the jewelry around their necks.
[3:16] 3 tn Heb “walking and skipping, they walk.”
[3:16] 4 tn Heb “and with their feet they jingle.”
[3:17] 5 tn In the Hebrew text vv. 16-17 and one long sentence, “Because the daughters of Zion are proud and walk…, the sovereign master will afflict….” In v. 17 the Lord refers to himself in the third person.
[3:17] 6 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in v. 18 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
[3:17] 7 tn Heb “the daughters of Zion.”
[3:17] 8 tn Or “a scab” (KJV, ASV); NIV, NCV, CEV “sores.”
[3:17] 9 tn The precise meaning of this line is unclear because of the presence of the rare word פֹּת (pot). Since the verb in the line means “lay bare, make naked,” some take פֹּת as a reference to the genitals (cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV, CEV). (In 1 Kgs 7:50 a noun פֹּת appears, with the apparent meaning “socket.”) J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:139, n. 2), basing his argument on alleged Akkadian evidence and the parallelism of the verse, takes פֹּת as “forehead.”
[3:18] 10 sn The translation assumes that the direct quotation ends with v. 17. The introductory formula “in that day” and the shift from a poetic to prosaic style indicate that a new speech unit begins in v. 18.
[3:18] 11 tn Or “in that day” (KJV).
[3:18] 12 tn Or “the beauty of [their] ankle jewelry.”
[3:20] 13 tn Heb “houses of breath.” HALOT 124 s.v. בַּיִת defines them as “scent-bottles”; cf. NAB, NRSV “perfume boxes.”
[3:23] 14 tn The precise meaning of many of the words in this list is uncertain.
[3:23] sn The rhetorical purpose for such a lengthy list is to impress on the audience the guilt of these women with their proud, materialistic attitude, whose husbands and fathers have profited at the expense of the poor.
[3:24] 15 tn Heb “and it will be in place of spices there will be a stench.” The nouns for “spices” and “stench” are right next to each other in the MT for emphatic contrast. The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.
[3:25] 16 tn The pronoun is feminine singular, suggesting personified Zion, as representative of its women, is the addressee. The reference to “her gates’ in v. 26 makes this identification almost certain.
[3:25] 17 tn Heb “your strength in battle.” The verb in the first clause provides the verbal idea for the second clause.
[3:26] 18 tn Heb “she will be empty, on the ground she will sit.” Jerusalem is personified as a destitute woman who sits mourning the empty city.
[24:6] 19 sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.
[24:6] 20 tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).
[24:6] 21 tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).
[24:6] 22 tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”
[24:7] 23 tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “all the joyful in heart,” but the context specifies the context as parties and drinking bouts.
[24:8] 24 tn Heb “the joy” (again later in this verse).
[24:9] 25 tn Heb “with a song they do not drink wine.”
[24:10] 26 tn Heb “the city of chaos” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV). Isaiah uses the term תֹּהוּ (tohu) rather frequently of things (like idols) that are empty and worthless (see BDB 1062 s.v.), so the word might characterize the city as rebellious or morally worthless. However, in this context, which focuses on the effects of divine judgment, it probably refers to the ruined or worthless condition in which the city is left (note the use of the word in Isa 34:11). For a discussion of the identity of this city, see R. Chisholm, “The ‘Everlasting Covenant’ and the ‘City of Chaos’: Intentional Ambiguity and Irony in Isaiah 24,” CTR 6 (1993): 237-53. In the context of universal judgment depicted in Isa 24, this city represents all the nations and cities of the world which, like Babylon of old and the powers/cities mentioned in chapters 13-23, rebel against God’s authority. Behind the stereotypical language one can detect various specific manifestations of this symbolic and paradigmatic city, including Babylon, Moab, and Jerusalem, all of which are alluded or referred to in chapters 24-27.
[24:10] 27 tn Heb “every house is closed up from entering.”
[24:11] 28 tn Heb “[there is] an outcry over the wine in the streets.”
[24:11] 29 tn Heb “all joy turns to evening,” the darkness of evening symbolizing distress and sorrow.
[24:11] 30 tn Heb “the joy of the earth disappears.”
[24:12] 31 tn Heb “and there is left in the city desolation.”
[24:12] 32 tn Heb “and [into] rubble the gate is crushed.”
[32:9] 33 tn Or “self-assured”; NASB, NRSV “who are at ease.”
[32:9] 34 tn Or “self-confident”; NAB “overconfident.”
[32:10] 35 tn Heb “days upon a year.”
[32:10] 36 tn Or perhaps, “olive.” See 24:13.
[32:11] 37 tn The imperatival forms in v. 11 are problematic. The first (חִרְדוּ, khirdu, “tremble”) is masculine plural in form, though spoken to a feminine plural addressee (שַׁאֲנַנּוֹת, sha’anannot, “complacent ones”). The four imperatival forms that follow (רְגָזָה, rÿgazah, “shake with fear”; פְּשֹׁטָה, pÿshotah, “strip off your clothes”; עֹרָה, ’orah, “expose yourselves”; and חֲגוֹרָה, khagorah, “put on”) all appear to be lengthened (so-called “emphatic”) masculine singular forms, even though they too appear to be spoken to a feminine plural addressee. GKC 131-32 §48.i suggests emending חִרְדוּ (khirdu) to חֲרָדָה (kharadah) and understanding all five imperatives as feminine plural “aramaized” forms.
[32:12] 38 tc The Hebrew text has “over mourning breasts.” The reference to “breasts” would make sense in light of v. 11, which refers to the practice of women baring their breasts as a sign of sorrow (see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 1:585). However, one expects the preposition עַל (’al) to introduce the source or reason for mourning (see vv. 12b-13a) and the participle סֹפְדִים (sofedim, “mourning”) seems odd modifying “breasts.” The translation above assumes a twofold emendation: (1) שָׁדַיִם (shadayim, “breasts”) is emended to [ם]שָׂדַי (saday[m], “field,” a term that also appears in Isa 56:9). The final mem (ם) would be enclitic in this case, not a plural indicator. (The Hebrew noun שָׂדֶה (sadeh, “field”) forms its plural with an וֹת- [-ot] ending). (2) The plural participle סֹפְדִים is emended to סְפֹדָה (sÿfodah), a lengthened imperatival form, meaning “mourn.” For an overview of various suggestions that have been made for this difficult line, see Oswalt, 586, n. 12).
[32:13] 39 tn “Mourn” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 12-13 are one long sentence.
[32:13] 40 tn Heb “indeed, over all the houses of joy.” It is not certain if this refers to individual homes or to places where parties and celebrations were held.
[32:13] 41 sn This same phrase is used in 22:2.
[32:14] 42 tn Or “noisy” (NAB, NIV, NCV).
[32:14] 43 tn Hebrew עֹפֶל (’ofel), probably refers here to a specific area within the city of Jerusalem. See HALOT 861 s.v. II עֹפֶל.
[32:14] 44 tn The Hebrew text has בְעַד מְעָרוֹת (vÿ’ad mÿ’arot). The force of בְעַד, which usually means “behind, through, round about,” or “for the benefit of,” is uncertain here. HALOT 616 s.v. *מְעָרָה takes מְעָרוֹת (mÿ’arot) as a homonym of “cave” and define it here as “cleared field.” Despite these lexical problems, the general point of the statement seems clear – the city will be uninhabited.
[32:14] 45 tn Heb “the joy of wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks.”
