Yesaya 6:11

6:11 I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said,

“Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated,

and houses are uninhabited,

and the land is ruined and devastated,

Yesaya 10:24

10:24 So ¹  here is what the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, says: “My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria, even though they beat you with a club and lift their cudgel against you as Egypt did. ² 

Yesaya 28:13

28:13 So the Lord’s word to them will sound like

meaningless gibberish,

senseless babbling,

a syllable here, a syllable there. ³ 

As a result, they will fall on their backsides when they try to walk, ⁴ 

and be injured, ensnared, and captured. ⁵ 

Yesaya 29:23

29:23 For when they see their children,

whom I will produce among them, ⁶ 

they will honor ⁷  my name.

They will honor the Holy One of Jacob; ⁸ 

they will respect ⁹  the God of Israel.

Yesaya 30:23

30:23 He will water the seed you plant in the ground,

and the ground will produce crops in abundance. ¹⁰ 

At that time ¹¹  your cattle will graze in wide pastures.

Yesaya 49:23

49:23 Kings will be your children’s ¹²  guardians;

their princesses will nurse your children. ¹³ 

With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you

and they will lick the dirt on ¹⁴  your feet.

Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;

those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

Yesaya 50:1

50:1 This is what the Lord says:

“Where is your mother’s divorce certificate

by which I divorced her?

Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? ¹⁵ 

Look, you were sold because of your sins; ¹⁶ 

because of your rebellious acts I divorced your mother. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 65:25--66:1

65:25 A wolf and a lamb will graze together; ¹⁸ 

a lion, like an ox, will eat straw, ¹⁹ 

and a snake’s food will be dirt. ²⁰ 

They will no longer injure or destroy

on my entire royal mountain,” ²¹  says the Lord.

66:1 This is what the Lord says:

“The heavens are my throne

and the earth is my footstool.

Where then is the house you will build for me?

Where is the place where I will rest?

[10:24]  ¹ tn Heb “therefore.” The message that follows is one of encouragement, for it focuses on the eventual destruction of the Assyrians. Consequently “therefore” relates back to vv. 5-21, not to vv. 22-23, which must be viewed as a brief parenthesis in an otherwise positive speech.

[10:24]  ² tn Heb “in the way [or “manner”] of Egypt.”

[28:13]  ³ tn Heb “And the word of the Lord will be to them, ‘tsahv latsahv,’ etc.” See the note at v. 10. In this case the “Lord’s word” is not the foreigner’s strange sounding words (as in v. 10), but the Lord’s repeated appeals to them (like the one quoted in v. 12). As time goes on, the Lord’s appeals through the prophets will have no impact on the people; they will regard prophetic preaching as gibberish.

[28:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “as a result they will go and stumble backward.” Perhaps an infant falling as it attempts to learn to walk is the background image here (cf. v. 9b). The Hebrew term לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) could be taken as indicating purpose (“in order that”), rather than simple result. In this case the people’s insensitivity to the message is caused by the Lord as a means of expediting their downfall.

[28:13]  ⁵ sn When divine warnings and appeals become gibberish to the spiritually insensitive, they have no guidance and are doomed to destruction.

[29:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “for when he sees his children, the work of my hands in his midst.”

[29:23]  ⁷ tn Or “treat as holy” (also in the following line); NASB, NRSV “will sanctify.”

[29:23]  ⁸ sn Holy One of Jacob is similar to the phrase “Holy One of Israel” common throughout Isaiah; see the sn at Isa 1:4.

[29:23]  ⁹ tn Or “fear,” in the sense of “stand in awe of.”

[30:23]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and he will give rain for your seed which you plant in the ground, and food [will be] the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and abundant.”

[30:23]  ¹¹ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[49:23]  ¹² tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).

[49:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.

[49:23]  ¹⁴ tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”

[50:1]  ¹⁵ sn The Lord challenges the exiles (Zion’s children) to bring incriminating evidence against him. The rhetorical questions imply that Israel accused the Lord of divorcing his wife (Zion) and selling his children (the Israelites) into slavery to pay off a debt.

[50:1]  ¹⁶ sn The Lord admits that he did sell the Israelites, but it was because of their sins, not because of some debt he owed. If he had sold them to a creditor, they ought to be able to point him out, but the preceding rhetorical question implies they would not be able to do so.

[50:1]  ¹⁷ sn The Lord admits he did divorce Zion, but that too was the result of the nation’s sins. The force of the earlier rhetorical question comes into clearer focus now. The question does not imply that a certificate does not exist and that no divorce occurred. Rather, the question asks for the certificate to be produced so the accuser can see the reason for the divorce in black and white. The Lord did not put Zion away arbitrarily.

[65:25]  ¹⁸ sn A similar statement appears in 11:6.

[65:25]  ¹⁹ sn These words also appear in 11:7.

[65:25]  ²⁰ sn Some see an allusion to Gen 3:14 (note “you will eat dirt”). The point would be that even in this new era the snake (often taken as a symbol of Satan) remains under God’s curse. However, it is unlikely that such an allusion exists. Even if there is an echo of Gen 3:14, the primary allusion is to 11:8, where snakes are pictured as no longer dangerous. They will no longer attack other living creatures, but will be content to crawl along the ground. (The statement “you will eat dirt” in Gen 3:14 means “you will crawl on the ground.” In the same way the statement “dirt will be its food” in Isa 65:25 means “it will crawl on the ground.”)

[65:25]  ²¹ tn Heb “in all my holy mountain.” These same words appear in 11:9. See the note there.

[65:25]  sn As in 11:1-9 the prophet anticipates a time when the categories predator-prey no longer exist. See the note at the end of 11:8.