Yesaya 1:12

1:12 When you enter my presence,

do you actually think I want this –

animals trampling on my courtyards? ¹ 

Yesaya 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ² 

they associate with ³  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ⁴  payoffs. ⁵ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁶ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ⁷ 

Yesaya 3:7

3:7 At that time ⁸  the brother will shout, ⁹ 

‘I am no doctor, ¹⁰ 

I have no food or coat in my house;

don’t make me a leader of the people!’”

Yesaya 10:15

10:15 Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it,

or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it? ¹¹ 

As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it,

or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!

Yesaya 27:12

27:12 At that time ¹²  the Lord will shake the tree, ¹³  from the Euphrates River ¹⁴  to the Stream of Egypt. Then you will be gathered up one by one, O Israelites. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 30:32

30:32 Every blow from his punishing cudgel, ¹⁶ 

with which the Lord will beat them, ¹⁷ 

will be accompanied by music from the ¹⁸  tambourine and harp,

and he will attack them with his weapons. ¹⁹ 

Yesaya 44:12

44:12 A blacksmith works with his tool ²⁰ 

and forges metal over the coals.

He forms it ²¹  with hammers;

he makes it with his strong arm.

He gets hungry and loses his energy; ²² 

he drinks no water and gets tired.

Yesaya 57:10

57:10 Because of the long distance you must travel, you get tired, ²³ 

but you do not say, ‘I give up.’ ²⁴ 

You get renewed energy, ²⁵ 

so you don’t collapse. ²⁶ 

[1:12]  ¹ tn Heb “When you come to appear before me, who requires this from your hand, trampling of my courtyards?” The rhetorical question sarcastically makes the point that God does not require this parade of livestock. The verb “trample” probably refers to the eager worshipers and their sacrificial animals walking around in the temple area.

[1:23]  ² tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ³ tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ⁷ 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.

[3:7]  ⁸ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[3:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “he will lift up [his voice].”

[3:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “wrapper [of wounds]”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “healer.”

[10:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”

[27:12]  ¹² tn Heb “and it will be in that day.” The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[27:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “the Lord will beat out.” The verb is used of beating seeds or grain to separate the husk from the kernel (see Judg 6:11; Ruth 2:17; Isa 28:27), and of beating the olives off the olive tree (Deut 24:20). The latter metaphor may be in view here, where a tree metaphor has been employed in the preceding verses. See also 17:6.

[27:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the river,” a frequent designation in the OT for the Euphrates. For clarity most modern English versions substitute the name “Euphrates” for “the river” here.

[27:12]  ¹⁵ sn The Israelites will be freed from exile (likened to beating the olives off the tree) and then gathered (likened to collecting the olives).

[30:32]  ¹⁶ tc The Hebrew text has “every blow from a founded [i.e., “appointed”?] cudgel.” The translation above, with support from a few medieval Hebrew mss, assumes an emendation of מוּסָדָה (musadah, “founded”) to מוּסָרֹה (musaroh, “his discipline”).

[30:32]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “which the Lord lays on him.”

[30:32]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “will be with” (KJV similar).

[30:32]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “and with battles of brandishing [weapons?] he will fight against him.” Some prefer to emend וּבְמִלְחֲמוֹת (uvÿmilkhamot, “and with battles of”) to וּבִמְחֹלוֹת (uvimkholot, “and with dancing”). Note the immediately preceding references to musical instruments.

[44:12]  ²⁰ tn The noun מַעֲצָד (ma’atsad), which refers to some type of tool used for cutting, occurs only here and in Jer 10:3. See HALOT 615 s.v. מַעֲצָד.

[44:12]  ²¹ tn Some English versions take the pronoun “it” to refer to an idol being fashioned by the blacksmith (cf. NIV, NCV, CEV). NLT understands the referent to be “a sharp tool,” which is then used by the carpenter in the following verse to carve an idol from wood.

[44:12]  ²² tn Heb “and there is no strength”; NASB “his strength fails.”

[57:10]  ²³ tn Heb “by the greatness [i.e., “length,” see BDB 914 s.v. רֹב 2] of your way you get tired.”

[57:10]  ²⁴ tn Heb “it is hopeless” (so NAB, NASB, NIV); NRSV “It is useless.”

[57:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the life of your hand you find.” The term חַיָּה (khayyah, “life”) is here used in the sense of “renewal” (see BDB 312 s.v.) while יָד (yad) is used of “strength.”

[57:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “you do not grow weak.”