Yesaya 4:1

4:1 Seven women will grab hold of

one man at that time. ¹ 

They will say, “We will provide ²  our own food,

we will provide ³  our own clothes;

but let us belong to you ⁴  –

take away our shame!” ⁵ 

Yesaya 7:4

7:4 Tell him, ‘Make sure you stay calm! ⁶  Don’t be afraid! Don’t be intimidated ⁷  by these two stubs of smoking logs, ⁸  or by the raging anger of Rezin, Syria, and the son of Remaliah.

Yesaya 28:15-16

28:15 For you say,

“We have made a treaty with death,

with Sheol ⁹  we have made an agreement. ¹⁰ 

When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by ¹¹ 

it will not reach us.

For we have made a lie our refuge,

we have hidden ourselves in a deceitful word.” ¹² 

28:16 Therefore, this is what the sovereign master, the Lord, says:

“Look, I am laying ¹³  a stone in Zion,

an approved ¹⁴  stone,

set in place as a precious cornerstone for the foundation. ¹⁵ 

The one who maintains his faith will not panic. ¹⁶ 

Yesaya 32:6

32:6 For a fool speaks disgraceful things; ¹⁷ 

his mind plans out sinful deeds. ¹⁸ 

He commits godless deeds ¹⁹ 

and says misleading things about the Lord;

he gives the hungry nothing to satisfy their appetite ²⁰ 

and gives the thirsty nothing to drink. ²¹ 

Yesaya 41:7

41:7 The craftsman encourages the metalsmith,

the one who wields the hammer encourages ²²  the one who pounds on the anvil.

He approves the quality of the welding, ²³ 

and nails it down so it won’t fall over.”

Yesaya 56:3

56:3 No foreigner who becomes a follower of ²⁴  the Lord should say,

‘The Lord will certainly ²⁵  exclude me from his people.’

The eunuch should not say,

‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”

Yesaya 63:17

63:17 Why, Lord, do you make us stray ²⁶  from your ways, ²⁷ 

and make our minds stubborn so that we do not obey you? ²⁸ 

Return for the sake of your servants,

the tribes of your inheritance!

[4:1]  ¹ tn Or “in that day” (ASV).

[4:1]  sn The seven to one ratio emphasizes the great disparity that will exist in the population due to the death of so many men in battle.

[4:1]  ² tn Heb “eat” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “buy.”

[4:1]  ³ tn Heb “wear” (so NASB, NRSV); NCV “make.”

[4:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “only let your name be called over us.” The Hebrew idiom “call the name over” indicates ownership. See 2 Sam 12:28, and BDB 896 s.v. I ָקרָא Niph. 2.d.(4). The language reflects the cultural reality of ancient Israel, where women were legally the property of their husbands.

[4:1]  ⁵ sn This refers to the humiliation of being unmarried and childless. The women’s words reflect the cultural standards of ancient Israel, where a woman’s primary duties were to be a wife and mother.

[7:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “guard yourself and be quiet,” but the two verbs should be coordinated.

[7:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “and let not your heart be weak”; ASV “neither let thy heart be faint.”

[7:4]  ⁸ sn The derogatory metaphor indicates that the power of Rezin and Pekah is ready to die out.

[28:15]  ⁹ sn Sheol is the underworld, land of the dead, according to the OT world view.

[28:15]  ¹⁰ tn Elsewhere the noun חֹזֶה (khozeh) refers to a prophet who sees visions. In v. 18 the related term חָזוּת (khazut, “vision”) is used. The parallelism in both verses (note “treaty”) seems to demand a meaning “agreement” for both nouns. Perhaps חֹזֶה and חזוּת are used in a metonymic sense in vv. 15 and 18. Another option is to propose a homonymic root. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:514, and HALOT 301 s.v. II חֹזֶה.

[28:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the overwhelming scourge, when it passes by” (NRSV similar).

[28:15]  ¹² sn “Lie” and “deceitful word” would not be the terms used by the people. They would likely use the words “promise” and “reliable word,” but the prophet substitutes “lie” and “deceitful word” to emphasize that this treaty with death will really prove to be disappointing.

[28:16]  ¹³ tc The Hebrew text has a third person verb form, which does not agree with the first person suffix that precedes. The form should be emended to יֹסֵד (yosed), a Qal active participle used in a present progressive or imminent future sense.

[28:16]  ¹⁴ tn Traditionally “tested,” but the implication is that it has passed the test and stands approved.

[28:16]  ¹⁵ sn The reality behind the metaphor is not entirely clear from the context. The stone appears to represent someone or something that gives Zion stability. Perhaps the ideal Davidic ruler is in view (see 32:1). Another option is that the image of beginning a building project by laying a precious cornerstone suggests that God is about to transform Zion through judgment and begin a new covenant community that will experience his protection (see 4:3-6; 31:5; 33:20-24; 35:10).

[28:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “will not hurry,” i.e., act in panic.

[32:6]  ¹⁷ tn Or “foolishness,” in a moral-ethical sense. See 9:17.

[32:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and his heart commits sin”; KJV, ASV “his heart will work iniquity”; NASB “inclines toward wickedness.”

[32:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “in order to do [or “so that he does”] what is godless [or “defiled”].”

[32:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “so that he leaves empty the appetite [or “desire”] of the hungry.”

[32:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “and the drink of the thirsty he causes to fail.”

[41:7]  ²² tn The verb “encourages” is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[41:7]  ²³ tn Heb “saying of the welding, ‘It is good.’”

[56:3]  ²⁴ tn Heb “who attaches himself to.”

[56:3]  ²⁵ tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[63:17]  ²⁶ tn Some suggest a tolerative use of the Hiphil here, “[why do] you allow us to stray?” (cf. NLT). Though the Hiphil of תָעָה (ta’ah) appears to be tolerative in Jer 50:6, elsewhere it is preferable or necessary to take it as causative. See Isa 3:12; 9:15; and 30:28, as well as Gen 20:13; 2 Kgs 21:9; Job 12:24-25; Prov 12:26; Jer 23:13, 32; Hos 4:12; Amos 2:4; Mic 3:5.

[63:17]  ²⁷ tn This probably refers to God’s commands.

[63:17]  ²⁸ tn Heb “[Why do] you harden our heart[s] so as not to fear you.” The interrogative particle is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[63:17]  sn How direct this hardening is, one cannot be sure. The speaker may envision direct involvement on the Lord’s part. The Lord has brought the exile as judgment for the nation’s sin and now he continues to keep them at arm’s length by blinding them spiritually. The second half of 64:7 might support this, though the precise reading of the final verb is uncertain. On the other hand, the idiom of lament is sometimes ironic and hyperbolically deterministic. For example, Naomi lamented that Shaddai was directly opposing her and bringing her calamity (Ruth 1:20-21), while the author of Ps 88 directly attributes his horrible suffering and loneliness to God (see especially vv. 6-8, 16-18). Both individuals make little, if any, room for intermediate causes or the principle of sin and death which ravages the human race. In the same way, the speaker in Isa 63:17 (who evidences great spiritual sensitivity and is anything but “hardened”) may be referring to the hardships of exile, which discouraged and even embittered the people, causing many of them to retreat from their Yahwistic faith. In this case, the “hardening” in view is more indirect and can be lifted by the Lord’s intervention. Whether the hardening here is indirect or direct, it is important to recognize that the speaker sees it as one of the effects of rebellion against the Lord (note especially 64:5-6).