Yesaya 1:20

1:20 But if you refuse and rebel,

you will be devoured ¹  by the sword.”

Know for certain that the Lord has spoken. ² 

Yesaya 1:25

1:25 I will attack you; ³ 

I will purify your metal with flux. ⁴ 

I will remove all your slag. ⁵ 

Yesaya 3:18

3:18 ⁶ At that time ⁷  the sovereign master will remove their beautiful ankle jewelry, ⁸  neck ornaments, crescent shaped ornaments,

Yesaya 4:6

4:6 By day it will be a shelter to provide shade from the heat,

as well as safety and protection from the heavy downpour. ⁹ 

Yesaya 6:6

6:6 But then one of the seraphs flew toward me. In his hand was a hot coal he had taken from the altar with tongs.

Yesaya 7:24

7:24 With bow and arrow ¹⁰  men will hunt ¹¹  there, for the whole land will be covered ¹²  with thorns and briers.

Yesaya 13:5

13:5 They come from a distant land,

from the horizon. ¹³ 

It is the Lord with his instruments of judgment, ¹⁴ 

coming to destroy the whole earth. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 13:18

13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ¹⁶ 

they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ¹⁷ 

they will not ¹⁸  look with pity on children.

Yesaya 19:6

19:6 The canals ¹⁹  will stink; ²⁰ 

the streams of Egypt will trickle and then dry up;

the bulrushes and reeds will decay,

Yesaya 19:15

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

head or tail, shoots and stalk. ²¹ 

Yesaya 20:1

20:1 The Lord revealed the following message during the year in which King Sargon of Assyria sent his commanding general to Ashdod, and he fought against it and captured it. ²² 

Yesaya 21:6

21:6 For this is what the sovereign master ²³  has told me:

“Go, post a guard!

He must report what he sees.

Yesaya 22:6

22:6 The Elamites picked up the quiver,

and came with chariots and horsemen; ²⁴ 

the men of Kir ²⁵  prepared ²⁶  the shield. ²⁷ 

Yesaya 22:15

22:15 This is what the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, says:

“Go visit this administrator, Shebna, who supervises the palace, ²⁸  and tell him: ²⁹ 

Yesaya 23:11

23:11 The Lord stretched out his hand over the sea, ³⁰ 

he shook kingdoms;

he ³¹  gave the order

to destroy Canaan’s fortresses. ³² 

Yesaya 24:1

The Lord Will Judge the Earth

24:1 Look, the Lord is ready to devastate the earth

and leave it in ruins;

he will mar its surface

and scatter its inhabitants.

Yesaya 26:16

26:16 O Lord, in distress they looked for you;

they uttered incantations because of your discipline. ³³ 

Yesaya 26:20

26:20 Go, my people! Enter your inner rooms!

Close your doors behind you!

Hide for a little while,

until his angry judgment is over! ³⁴ 

Yesaya 27:6

27:6 The time is coming when Jacob will take root; ³⁵ 

Israel will blossom and grow branches.

The produce ³⁶  will fill the surface of the world. ³⁷ 

Yesaya 29:2

29:2 I will threaten Ariel,

and she will mourn intensely

and become like an altar hearth ³⁸  before me.

Yesaya 34:3

34:3 Their slain will be left unburied, ³⁹ 

their corpses will stink; ⁴⁰ 

the hills will soak up their blood. ⁴¹ 

Yesaya 34:9

34:9 Edom’s ⁴²  streams will be turned into pitch

and her soil into brimstone;

her land will become burning pitch.

Yesaya 36:1

Sennacherib Invades Judah

36:1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, ⁴³  King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

Yesaya 36:5

36:5 Your claim to have a strategy and military strength is just empty talk. ⁴⁴  In whom are you trusting, that you would dare to rebel against me?

Yesaya 36:13

36:13 The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect, ⁴⁵  “Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria.

Yesaya 38:10

38:10 “I thought, ⁴⁶ 

‘In the middle of my life ⁴⁷  I must walk through the gates of Sheol,

I am deprived ⁴⁸  of the rest of my years.’

Yesaya 38:16

38:16 O sovereign master, your decrees can give men life;

may years of life be restored to me. ⁴⁹ 

Restore my health ⁵⁰  and preserve my life.’

Yesaya 41:5

41:5 The coastlands ⁵¹  see and are afraid;

the whole earth ⁵²  trembles;

they approach and come.

Yesaya 44:17

44:17 With the rest of it he makes a god, his idol;

he bows down to it and worships it.

He prays to it, saying,

‘Rescue me, for you are my god!’

Yesaya 45:17

45:17 Israel will be delivered once and for all by the Lord; ⁵³ 

you will never again be ashamed or humiliated. ⁵⁴ 

Yesaya 48:2

48:2 Indeed, they live in the holy city; ⁵⁵ 

they trust in ⁵⁶  the God of Israel,

whose name is the Lord who commands armies.

Yesaya 48:10

48:10 Look, I have refined you, but not as silver;

I have purified you ⁵⁷  in the furnace of misery.

Yesaya 48:13

48:13 Yes, my hand founded the earth;

my right hand spread out the sky.

I summon them;

they stand together.

Yesaya 49:12

49:12 Look, they come from far away!

Look, some come from the north and west,

and others from the land of Sinim! ⁵⁸ 

Yesaya 51:14-15

51:14 The one who suffers ⁵⁹  will soon be released;

he will not die in prison, ⁶⁰ 

he will not go hungry. ⁶¹ 

51:15 I am the Lord your God,

who churns up the sea so that its waves surge.

The Lord who commands armies is his name!

Yesaya 52:9

52:9 In unison give a joyful shout,

O ruins of Jerusalem!

For the Lord consoles his people;

he protects ⁶²  Jerusalem.

Yesaya 60:4

60:4 Look all around you! ⁶³ 

They all gather and come to you –

your sons come from far away

and your daughters are escorted by guardians.

Yesaya 63:19

63:19 We existed from ancient times, ⁶⁴ 

but you did not rule over them,

they were not your subjects. ⁶⁵ 

[1:20]  ¹ sn The wordplay in the Hebrew draws attention to the options. The people can obey, in which case they will “eat” v. 19 (תֹּאכֵלוּ [to’khelu], Qal active participle of אָכַל) God’s blessing, or they can disobey, in which case they will be devoured (Heb “eaten,” תְּאֻכְּלוּ, [tÿ’ukkÿlu], Qal passive/Pual of אָכַל) by God’s judgment.

[1:20]  ² tn Heb “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” The introductory כִּי (ki) may be asseverative (as reflected in the translation) or causal/explanatory, explaining why the option chosen by the people will become reality (it is guaranteed by the divine word).

[1:25]  ³ tn Heb “turn my hand against you.” The second person pronouns in vv. 25-26 are feminine singular. Personified Jerusalem is addressed. The idiom “turn the hand against” has the nuance of “strike with the hand, attack,” in Ps 81:15 HT (81:14 ET); Ezek 38:12; Am 1:8; Zech 13:7. In Jer 6:9 it is used of gleaning grapes.

[1:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will purify your dross as [with] flux.” “Flux” refers here to minerals added to the metals in a furnace to prevent oxides from forming. For this interpretation of II בֹּר (bor), see HALOT 153 s.v. II בֹּר and 750 s.v. סִיג.

[1:25]  ⁵ sn The metaphor comes from metallurgy; slag is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.

[3:18]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[3:18]  ⁸ tn Or “the beauty of [their] ankle jewelry.”

[4:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “a shelter it will be for shade by day from heat, and for a place of refuge and for a hiding place from cloudburst and rain.” Since both of the last nouns of this verse can mean rain, they can either refer to the rain storm and the rain as distinct items or together refer to a heavy downpour. Regardless, they do not represent unrelated phenomena.

[7:24]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “with arrows and a bow.” The more common English idiom is “bow[s] and arrow[s].”

[7:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “go” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “go hunting.”

[7:24]  ¹² tn Heb “will be” (so NASB, NRSV).

[13:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “from the end of the sky.”

[13:5]  ¹⁴ tn Or “anger”; cf. KJV, ASV “the weapons of his indignation.”

[13:5]  ¹⁵ tn Or perhaps, “land” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NLT). Even though the heading and subsequent context (see v. 17) indicate Babylon’s judgment is in view, the chapter has a cosmic flavor that suggests that the coming judgment is universal in scope. Perhaps Babylon’s downfall occurs in conjunction with a wider judgment, or the cosmic style is poetic hyperbole used to emphasize the magnitude and importance of the coming event.

[13:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.

[13:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”

[13:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.

[19:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “rivers” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, CEV “streams”; TEV “channels.”

[19:6]  ²⁰ tn The verb form appears as a Hiphil in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a; the form in MT may be a so-called “mixed form,” reflecting the Hebrew Hiphil stem and the functionally corresponding Aramaic Aphel stem. See HALOT 276 s.v. I זנח.

[19:15]  ²¹ 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.

[20:1]  ²² tn Heb “In the year the commanding general came to Ashdod, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and captured it.”

[20:1]  sn This probably refers to the Assyrian campaign against Philistia in 712 or 711 b.c.

[21:6]  ²³ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 8, 16 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[22:6]  ²⁴ tn Heb “[with] the chariots of men, horsemen.”

[22:6]  ²⁵ sn A distant region in the direction of Mesopotamia; see Amos 1:5; 9:7.

[22:6]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Kir uncovers” (so NAB, NIV).

[22:6]  ²⁷ sn The Elamites and men of Kir may here symbolize a fierce army from a distant land. If this oracle anticipates a Babylonian conquest of the city (see 39:5-7), then the Elamites and men of Kir are perhaps viewed here as mercenaries in the Babylonian army. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:410.

[22:15]  ²⁸ tn Heb “who is over the house” (so ASV); NASB “who is in charge of the royal household.”

[22:15]  ²⁹ tn The words “and tell him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[23:11]  ³⁰ tn Heb “his hand he stretched out over the sea.”

[23:11]  ³¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” For stylistic reasons the pronoun (“he”) has been used in the translation here.

[23:11]  ³² tn Heb “concerning Canaan, to destroy her fortresses.” NIV, NLT translate “Canaan” as “Phoenicia” here.

[26:16]  ³³ tn The meaning of this verse is unclear. It appears to read literally, “O Lord, in distress they visit you, they pour out [?] an incantation, your discipline to them.” פָּקַד (paqad) may here carry the sense of “seek with interest” (cf. Ezek 23:21 and BDB 823 s.v.) or “seek in vain” (cf. Isa 34:16), but it is peculiar for the Lord to be the object of this verb. צָקוּן (tsaqun) may be a Qal perfect third plural form from צוּק (tsuq, “pour out, melt”), though the verb is not used of pouring out words in its two other occurrences. Because of the appearance of צַר (tsar, “distress”) in the preceding line, it is tempting to emend the form to a noun and derive it from צוּק (“be in distress”) The term לַחַשׁ (lakhash) elsewhere refers to an incantation (Isa 3:3; Jer 8:17; Eccl 10:11) or amulet (Isa 3:20). Perhaps here it refers to ritualistic prayers or to magical incantations used to ward off evil.

[26:20]  ³⁴ tn Heb “until anger passes by.”

[27:6]  ³⁵ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “the coming ones, let Jacob take root.” הַבָּאִים (habba’im, “the coming ones”) should probably be emended to יָמִים בָאִים (yamim va’im, “days [are] coming”) or בְּיָמִים הַבָּאִים (biyamim habba’im, “in the coming days”).

[27:6]  ³⁶ tn Heb “fruit” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[27:6]  ³⁷ sn This apparently refers to a future population explosion. See 26:18.

[29:2]  ³⁸ tn The term אֲרִיאֵל (’ari’el, “Ariel”) is the word translated “altar hearth” here. The point of the simile is not entirely clear. Perhaps the image likens Jerusalem’s coming crisis to a sacrificial fire.

[34:3]  ³⁹ tn Heb “will be cast aside”; NASB, NIV “thrown out.”

[34:3]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “[as for] their corpses, their stench will arise.”

[34:3]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “hills will dissolve from their blood.”

[34:9]  ⁴² tn Heb “her”; the referent (Edom) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[36:1]  ⁴³ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[36:5]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “you say only a word of lips, counsel and might for battle.” Sennacherib’s message appears to be in broken Hebrew at this point. The phrase “word of lips” refers to mere or empty talk in Prov 14:23.

[36:13]  ⁴⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes “and he said.”

[38:10]  ⁴⁶ tn Or “I said” (KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[38:10]  ⁴⁷ tn The precise meaning of the phrase בִּדְמִי יָמַי (bidmi yamay, “in the [?] of my days”) is uncertain. According to HALOT 226 s.v. דְּמִי this word is a hapax legomenon meaning “half.” Others derive the form from דַּמִי (dami, “quiet, rest, peacefulness”).

[38:10]  ⁴⁸ tn The precise meaning of the verb is uncertain. The Pual of of פָּקַד (paqad) occurs only here and in Exod 38:21, where it appears to mean “passed in review” or “mustered.” Perhaps the idea is, “I have been called away for the remainder of my years.” To bring out the sense more clearly, one can translate, “I am deprived of the rest of my years.”

[38:16]  ⁴⁹ tn The translation offered here is purely speculative. The text as it stands is meaningless and probably corrupt. It reads literally, “O lord, on account of them [the suffix is masculine plural], they live, and to all in them [the suffix is feminine plural], life of my spirit.”

[38:16]  ⁵⁰ tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as indicative, “you restore my health,” but the following imperatival form suggests it be understood as an imperfect of request.

[41:5]  ⁵¹ tn Or “islands” (NIV, CEV); NCV “faraway places”; NLT “lands beyond the sea.”

[41:5]  ⁵² tn Heb “the ends of the earth,” but this is a merism, where the earth’s extremities stand for its entirety, i.e., the extremities and everything in between them.

[45:17]  ⁵³ tn Heb “Israel will be delivered by the Lord [with] a permanent deliverance.”

[45:17]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “you will not be ashamed and you will not be humiliated for ages of future time.”

[48:2]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “they call themselves [or “are called”] from the holy city.” The precise meaning of the statement is uncertain. The Niphal of קָרָא (qara’) is combined with the preposition מִן (min) only here. When the Qal of קָרָא is used with מִן, the preposition often indicates the place from which one is summoned (see 46:11). So one could translate, “from the holy city they are summoned,” meaning that they reside there.

[48:2]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “lean on” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB, NIV “rely on.”

[48:10]  ⁵⁷ tc The Hebrew text has בְּחַרְתִּיךָ (bÿkhartikha, “I have chosen you”), but the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads correctly בחנתיכה (“I have tested you”). The metallurgical background of the imagery suggests that purification through testing is the idea.

[49:12]  ⁵⁸ tc The MT reads “Sinim” here; the Dead Sea Scrolls read “Syene,” a location in Egypt associated with modern Aswan. A number of recent translations adopt this reading: “Syene” (NAB, NRSV); “Aswan” (NIV); “Egypt” (NLT).

[49:12]  sn The precise location of the land of Sinim is uncertain, but since the north and west are mentioned in the previous line, it was a probably located in the distant east or south.

[51:14]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “who is stooped over” (under a burden).

[51:14]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “the pit” (so KJV); ASV, NAB “die and go down into the pit”; NASB, NIV “dungeon”; NCV “prison.”

[51:14]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “he will not lack his bread.”

[52:9]  ⁶² tn Or “redeems.” See the note at 41:14.

[60:4]  ⁶³ tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see!”

[63:19]  ⁶⁴ tn Heb “we were from antiquity” (see v. 16). The collocation עוֹלָם + מִן + הָיָה (hayah + min + ’olam) occurs only here.

[63:19]  ⁶⁵ tn Heb “you did not rule them, your name was not called over them.” The expression “the name is called over” indicates ownership; see the note at 4:1. As these two lines stand they are very difficult to interpret. They appear to be stating that the adversaries just mentioned in v. 18 have not been subject to the Lord’s rule in the past, perhaps explaining why they could commit the atrocity described in v. 18b.