Yesaya 1:17

1:17 Learn to do what is right!

Promote justice!

Give the oppressed reason to celebrate! ¹ 

Take up the cause of the orphan!

Defend the rights of the widow! ² 

Yesaya 8:11

The Lord Encourages Isaiah

8:11 Indeed this is what the Lord told me. He took hold of me firmly and warned me not to act like these people: ³ 

Yesaya 8:16

8:16 Tie up the scroll as legal evidence, ⁴ 

seal the official record of God’s instructions and give it to my followers. ⁵ 

Yesaya 9:9

9:9 All the people were aware ⁶  of it,

the people of Ephraim and those living in Samaria. ⁷ 

Yet with pride and an arrogant attitude, they said, ⁸ 

Yesaya 13:12

13:12 I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold,

and people more scarce ⁹  than gold from Ophir.

Yesaya 14:4

14:4 you will taunt the king of Babylon with these words: ¹⁰ 

“Look how the oppressor has met his end!

Hostility ¹¹  has ceased!

Yesaya 14:24

14:24 ¹² The Lord who commands armies makes this solemn vow:

“Be sure of this:

Just as I have intended, so it will be;

just as I have planned, it will happen.

Yesaya 19:15

19:15 Egypt will not be able to do a thing,

head or tail, shoots and stalk. ¹³ 

Yesaya 26:8

26:8 Yes, as your judgments unfold, ¹⁴ 

O Lord, we wait for you.

We desire your fame and reputation to grow. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 26:18

26:18 We were pregnant, we strained,

we gave birth, as it were, to wind. ¹⁶ 

We cannot produce deliverance on the earth;

people to populate the world are not born. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 33:11

33:11 You conceive straw, ¹⁸ 

you give birth to chaff;

your breath is a fire that destroys you. ¹⁹ 

Yesaya 36:19

36:19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? ²⁰  Indeed, did any gods rescue Samaria ²¹  from my power? ²² 

Yesaya 37:11

37:11 Certainly you have heard how the kings of Assyria have annihilated all lands. ²³  Do you really think you will be rescued? ²⁴ 

Yesaya 45:7

45:7 I am ²⁵  the one who forms light

and creates darkness; ²⁶ 

the one who brings about peace

and creates calamity. ²⁷ 

I am the Lord, who accomplishes all these things.

Yesaya 48:15

48:15 I, I have spoken –

yes, I have summoned him;

I lead him and he will succeed. ²⁸ 

Yesaya 51:18

51:18 There was no one to lead her

among all the children she bore;

there was no one to take her by the hand

among all the children she raised.

Yesaya 57:7

57:7 On every high, elevated hill you prepare your bed;

you go up there to offer sacrifices.

Yesaya 58:1

The Lord Desires Genuine Devotion

58:1 “Shout loudly! Don’t be quiet!

Yell as loud as a trumpet!

Confront my people with their rebellious deeds; ²⁹ 

confront Jacob’s family with their sin! ³⁰ 

Yesaya 66:6

66:6 The sound of battle comes from the city;

the sound comes from the temple!

It is the sound of the Lord paying back his enemies.

[1:17]  ¹ tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The translation assumes an emendation of חָמוֹץ (khamots, “oppressor [?]”) to חָמוּץ (khamuts, “oppressed”), a passive participle from II חָמַץ (khamats, “oppress”; HALOT 329 s.v. II חמץ) and takes the verb II אָשַׁר (’ashar) in the sense of “make happy” (the delocutive Piel, meaning “call/pronounce happy,” is metonymic here, referring to actually effecting happiness). The parallelism favors this interpretation, for the next two lines speak of positive actions on behalf of the destitute. The other option is to retain the MT pointing and translate, “set right the oppressor,” but the nuance “set right” is not clearly attested elsewhere for the verb I אשׁר. This verb does appear as a participle in Isa 3:12 and 9:16 with the meaning “to lead or guide.” If it can mean to “lead” or “rebuke/redirect” in this verse, the prophet could be contrasting this appeal for societal reformation (v. 17c) with a command to reorder their personal lives (v. 17a-b). J. A. Motyer (The Prophecy of Isaiah, 47) suggests that these three statements (v. 17a-c) provide “the contrast between the two ends of imperfect society, the oppressor and the needy, the one inflicting and the other suffering the hurt. Isaiah looks for a transformed society wherever it needs transforming.”

[1:17]  ² tn This word refers to a woman who has lost her husband, by death or divorce. The orphan and widow are often mentioned in the OT as epitomizing the helpless and impoverished who have been left without the necessities of life due to the loss of a family provider.

[8:11]  ³ tc Heb “with strength of hand and he warned me from walking in the way of these people, saying.” Some want to change the pointing of the suffix and thereby emend the Qal imperfect יִסְּרֵנִי (yissÿreni, “he was warning me”) to the more common Piel perfect יִסְּרַנִי (yissÿrani, “he warned me”). Others follow the lead of the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a and read יְסִירֵנִי (yÿsireni, “he was turning me aside,” a Hiphil imperfect from סוּר, sur).

[8:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “tie up [the] testimony.” The “testimony” probably refers to the prophetic messages God has given him. When the prophecies are fulfilled, he will be able to produce this official, written record to confirm the authenticity of his ministry and to prove to the people that God is sovereign over events.

[8:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “seal [the] instruction among my followers.” The “instruction” probably refers to the prophet’s exhortations and warnings. When the people are judged for the sins, the prophet can produce these earlier messages and essentially say, “I told you so.” In this way he can authenticate his ministry and impress upon the people the reality of God’s authority over them.

[9:9]  ⁶ tn The translation assumes that vv. 9-10 describe the people’s response to a past judgment (v. 8). The perfect is understood as indicating simple past and the vav (ו) is taken as conjunctive. Another option is to take the vav on the perfect as consecutive and translate, “all the people will know.”

[9:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the people, all of them, knew; Ephraim and the residents of Samaria.”

[9:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “with pride and arrogance of heart, saying.”

[13:12]  ⁹ tn The verb is supplied in the translation from the first line. The verb in the first line (“I will make scarce”) does double duty in the parallel structure of the verse.

[14:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you will lift up this taunt over the king of Babylon, saying.”

[14:4]  ¹¹ tc The word in the Hebrew text (מַדְהֵבָה, madhevah) is unattested elsewhere and of uncertain meaning. Many (following the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a) assume a dalet-resh (ד-ר) confusion and emend the form to מַרְהֵבָה (marhevah, “onslaught”). See HALOT 548 s.v. II *מִדָּה and HALOT 633 s.v. *מַרְהֵבָה.

[14:24]  ¹² sn Having announced the downfall of the Chaldean empire, the Lord appends to this prophecy a solemn reminder that the Assyrians, the major Mesopotamian power of Isaiah’s day, would be annihilated, foreshadowing what would subsequently happen to Babylon and the other hostile nations.

[19:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “And there will not be for Egypt a deed, which head and tail, shoot and stalk can do.” In 9:14-15 the phrase “head or tail” refers to leaders and prophets, respectively. This interpretation makes good sense in this context, where both leaders and advisers (probably including prophets and diviners) are mentioned (vv. 11-14). Here, as in 9:14, “shoots and stalk” picture a reed, which symbolizes the leadership of the nation in its entirety.

[26:8]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew text has, “yes, the way of your judgments.” The translation assumes that “way” is related to the verb “we wait” as an adverbial accusative (“in the way of your judgments we wait”). מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ (mishpatekha, “your judgments”) could refer to the Lord’s commandments, in which case one might translate, “as we obey your commands.” However, in verse 9 the same form refers to divine acts of judgment on evildoers.

[26:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “your name and your remembrance [is] the desire of [our?] being.”

[26:18]  ¹⁶ tn On the use of כְּמוֹ (kÿmo, “like, as”) here, see BDB 455 s.v. Israel’s distress and suffering, likened here to the pains of childbirth, seemed to be for no purpose. A woman in labor endures pain with the hope that a child will be born; in Israel’s case no such positive outcome was apparent. The nation was like a woman who strains to bring forth a child, but can’t push the baby through to daylight. All her effort produces nothing.

[26:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and the inhabitants of the world do not fall.” The term נָפַל (nafal) apparently means here, “be born,” though the Qal form of the verb is not used with this nuance anywhere else in the OT. (The Hiphil appears to be used in the sense of “give birth” in v. 19, however.) The implication of verse 18b seems to be that Israel hoped its suffering would somehow end in deliverance and an increase in population. The phrase “inhabitants of the world” seems to refer to the human race in general, but the next verse, which focuses on Israel’s dead, suggests the referent may be more limited.

[33:11]  ¹⁸ tn The second person verb and pronominal forms in this verse are plural. The hostile nations are the addressed, as the next verse makes clear.

[33:11]  ¹⁹ sn The hostile nations’ plans to destroy God’s people will come to nothing; their hostility will end up being self-destructive.

[36:19]  ²⁰ tn The rhetorical questions in v. 34a suggest the answer, “Nowhere, they seem to have disappeared in the face of Assyria’s might.”

[36:19]  ²¹ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[36:19]  ²² tn Heb “that they rescued Samaria from my hand?” But this gives the impression that the gods of Sepharvaim were responsible for protecting Samaria, which is obviously not the case. The implied subject of the plural verb “rescued” must be the generic “gods of the nations/lands” (vv. 18, 20).

[37:11]  ²³ tn Heb “Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, annihilating them.”

[37:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and will you be rescued?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No, of course not!”

[45:7]  ²⁵ tn The words “I am” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text the participle at the beginning of v. 7 stands in apposition to “the Lord” in v. 6.

[45:7]  ²⁶ tn On the surface v. 7a appears to describe God’s sovereign control over the cycle of day and night, but the following statement suggests that “light” and “darkness” symbolize “deliverance” and “judgment.”

[45:7]  ²⁷ sn This verses affirms that God is ultimately sovereign over his world, including mankind and nations. In accordance with his sovereign will, he can cause wars to cease and peace to predominate (as he was about to do for his exiled people through Cyrus), or he can bring disaster and judgment on nations (as he was about to do to Babylon through Cyrus).

[48:15]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and his way will be prosperous.”

[58:1]  ²⁹ tn Heb “declare to my people their rebellion.”

[58:1]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and to the house of Jacob their sin.” The verb “declare” is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).