Yesaya 1:24

1:24 Therefore, the sovereign Lord who commands armies, ¹ 

the powerful ruler of Israel, ²  says this:

“Ah, I will seek vengeance ³  against my adversaries,

I will take revenge against my enemies. ⁴ 

Yesaya 3:1

A Coming Leadership Crisis

3:1 Look, the sovereign Lord who commands armies ⁵ 

is about to remove from Jerusalem ⁶  and Judah

every source of security, including ⁷ 

all the food and water, ⁸ 

Yesaya 5:9

5:9 The Lord who commands armies told me this: ⁹ 

“Many houses will certainly become desolate,

large, impressive houses will have no one living in them. ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 5:16

5:16 The Lord who commands armies will be exalted ¹¹  when he punishes, ¹² 

the sovereign God’s authority will be recognized when he judges. ¹³ 

Yesaya 9:13

9:13 The people did not return to the one who struck them,

they did not seek reconciliation ¹⁴  with the Lord who commands armies.

Yesaya 9:19

9:19 Because of the anger of the Lord who commands armies, the land was scorched, ¹⁵ 

and the people became fuel for the fire. ¹⁶ 

People had no compassion on one another. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 10:16

10:16 For this reason ¹⁸  the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, will make his healthy ones emaciated. ¹⁹  His majestic glory will go up in smoke. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 10:26

10:26 The Lord who commands armies is about to beat them ²¹  with a whip, similar to the way he struck down Midian at the rock of Oreb. ²²  He will use his staff against the sea, lifting it up as he did in Egypt. ²³ 

Yesaya 10:33

10:33 Look, the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies,

is ready to cut off the branches with terrifying power. ²⁴ 

The tallest trees ²⁵  will be cut down,

the loftiest ones will be brought low.

Yesaya 13:4

13:4 ²⁶ There is a loud noise on the mountains –

it sounds like a large army! ²⁷ 

There is great commotion among the kingdoms ²⁸  –

nations are being assembled!

The Lord who commands armies is mustering

forces for battle.

Yesaya 14:22-23

14:22 “I will rise up against them,”

says the Lord who commands armies.

“I will blot out all remembrance of Babylon and destroy all her people, ²⁹ 

including the offspring she produces,” ³⁰ 

says the Lord.

14:23 “I will turn her into a place that is overrun with wild animals ³¹ 

and covered with pools of stagnant water.

I will get rid of her, just as one sweeps away dirt with a broom,” ³² 

says the Lord who commands armies.

Yesaya 14:27

14:27 Indeed, ³³  the Lord who commands armies has a plan,

and who can possibly frustrate it?

His hand is ready to strike,

and who can possibly stop it? ³⁴ 

Yesaya 17:3

17:3 Fortified cities will disappear from Ephraim,

and Damascus will lose its kingdom. ³⁵ 

The survivors in Syria

will end up like the splendor of the Israelites,”

says the Lord who commands armies.

Yesaya 19:4

19:4 I will hand Egypt over to a harsh master;

a powerful king will rule over them,”

says the sovereign master, ³⁶  the Lord who commands armies.

Yesaya 19:16-18

19:16 At that time ³⁷  the Egyptians ³⁸  will be like women. ³⁹  They will tremble and fear because the Lord who commands armies brandishes his fist against them. ⁴⁰  19:17 The land of Judah will humiliate Egypt. Everyone who hears about Judah will be afraid because of what the Lord who commands armies is planning to do to them. ⁴¹ 

19:18 At that time five cities ⁴²  in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord who commands armies. One will be called the City of the Sun. ⁴³ 

Yesaya 19:25

19:25 The Lord who commands armies will pronounce a blessing over the earth, saying, ⁴⁴  “Blessed be my people, Egypt, and the work of my hands, Assyria, and my special possession, ⁴⁵  Israel!”

Yesaya 21:10

21:10 O my downtrodden people, crushed like stalks on the threshing floor, ⁴⁶ 

what I have heard

from the Lord who commands armies,

the God of Israel,

I have reported to you.

Yesaya 22:5

22:5 For the sovereign master, ⁴⁷  the Lord who commands armies,

has planned a day of panic, defeat, and confusion. ⁴⁸ 

In the Valley of Vision ⁴⁹  people shout ⁵⁰ 

and cry out to the hill. ⁵¹ 

Yesaya 22:12

22:12 At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning,

for shaved heads and sackcloth. ⁵² 

Yesaya 23:9

23:9 The Lord who commands armies planned it –

to dishonor the pride that comes from all her beauty, ⁵³ 

to humiliate all the dignitaries of the earth.

Yesaya 28:22

28:22 So now, do not mock,

or your chains will become heavier!

For I have heard a message about decreed destruction,

from the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, against the entire land. ⁵⁴ 

Yesaya 31:5

31:5 Just as birds hover over a nest, ⁵⁵ 

so the Lord who commands armies will protect Jerusalem. ⁵⁶ 

He will protect and deliver it;

as he passes over ⁵⁷  he will rescue it.

Yesaya 37:16

37:16 “O Lord who commands armies, O God of Israel, who is enthroned on the cherubim! ⁵⁸  You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the sky ⁵⁹  and the earth.

Yesaya 37:32

37:32 “For a remnant will leave Jerusalem;

survivors will come out of Mount Zion.

The intense devotion of the Lord who commands armies ⁶⁰  will accomplish this.

Yesaya 44:6

The Absurdity of Idolatry

44:6 This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says,

their protector, ⁶¹  the Lord who commands armies:

“I am the first and I am the last,

there is no God but me.

[1:24]  ¹ tn Heb “the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].” On the title “the Lord who commands armies,” see the note at v. 9.

[1:24]  ² tn Heb “the powerful [one] of Israel.”

[1:24]  ³ tn Heb “console myself” (i.e., by getting revenge); NRSV “pour out my wrath on.”

[1:24]  ⁴ sn The Lord here identifies with the oppressed and comes as their defender and vindicator.

[3:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].” On the title “the Lord who commands armies,” see the note at 1:9.

[3:1]  ⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “support and support.” The masculine and feminine forms of the noun are placed side-by-side to emphasize completeness. See GKC 394 §122.v.

[3:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “all the support of food, and all the support of water.”

[5:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “in my ears, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].”

[5:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “great and good [houses], without a resident.”

[5:16]  ¹¹ tn Or “elevated”; TEV “the Lord Almighty shows his greatness.”

[5:16]  ¹² tn Heb “by judgment/justice.” When God justly punishes the evildoers denounced in the preceding verses, he will be recognized as a mighty warrior.

[5:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “The holy God will be set apart by fairness.” In this context God’s holiness is his sovereign royal authority, which implies a commitment to justice (see the note on the phrase “the sovereign king of Israel” in 1:4). When God judges evildoers as they deserve, his sovereignty will be acknowledged.

[5:16]  sn The appearance of מִשְׁפָט (mishpat, “justice”) and צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “fairness”) here is rhetorically significant, when one recalls v. 7. There God denounces his people for failing to produce a society where “justice” and “fairness” are valued and maintained. God will judge his people for their failure, taking “justice” and “fairness” into his own hands.

[9:13]  ¹⁴ tn This verse describes the people’s response to the judgment described in vv. 11-12. The perfects are understood as indicating simple past.

[9:19]  ¹⁵ tn The precise meaning of the verb עְתַּם (’ÿtam), which occurs only here, is uncertain, though the context strongly suggests that it means “burn, scorch.”

[9:19]  ¹⁶ sn The uncontrollable fire of the people’s wickedness (v. 18) is intensified by the fire of the Lord’s judgment (v. 19). God allows (or causes) their wickedness to become self-destructive as civil strife and civil war break out in the land.

[9:19]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “men were not showing compassion to their brothers.” The idiom “men to their brothers” is idiomatic for reciprocity. The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav (ו) consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.

[10:16]  ¹⁸ sn The irrational arrogance of the Assyrians (v. 15) will prompt the judgment about to be described.

[10:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “will send leanness against his healthy ones”; NASB, NIV “will send a wasting disease.”

[10:16]  ²⁰ tc Heb “and in the place of his glory burning will burn, like the burning of fire.” The highly repetitive text (יֵקַד יְקֹד כִּיקוֹד אֵשׁ, yeqad yiqod kiqod ’esh) may be dittographic; if the second consonantal sequence יקד is omitted, the text would read “and in the place of his glory, it will burn like the burning of fire.”

[10:26]  ²¹ tn Heb “him” (so KJV, ASV, NASB); the singular refers to the leader or king who stands for the entire nation. This is specified by NCV, CEV as “the Assyrians.”

[10:26]  ²² sn According to Judg 7:25, the Ephraimites executed the Midianite general Oreb at a rock which was subsequently named after the executed enemy.

[10:26]  ²³ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and his staff [will be] against the sea, and he will lift it in the way [or “manner”] of Egypt.” If the text is retained, “the sea” symbolizes Assyria’s hostility, the metaphor being introduced because of the reference to Egypt. The translation above assumes an emendation of עַל הַיָּם (’al hayyam, “against the sea”) to עַלֵיהֶם (’alehem, “against them”). The proposed shift from the third singular pronoun (note “beat him” earlier in the verse) to the plural is not problematic, for the singular is collective. Note that a third plural pronoun is used at the end of v. 25 (“their destruction”). The final phrase, “in the way/manner of Egypt,” probably refers to the way in which God used the staff of Moses to bring judgment down on Egypt.

[10:33]  ²⁴ tc The Hebrew text reads “with terrifying power,” or “with a crash.” מַעֲרָצָה (ma’aratsah, “terrifying power” or “crash”) occurs only here. Several have suggested an emendation to מַעֲצָד (ma’atsad, “ax”) parallel to “ax” in v. 34; see HALOT 615 s.v. מַעֲצָד and H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:448.

[10:33]  sn As in vv. 12 (see the note there) and 18, the Assyrians are compared to a tree/forest in vv. 33-34.

[10:33]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the exalted of the height.” This could refer to the highest branches (cf. TEV) or the tallest trees (cf. NIV, NRSV).

[13:4]  ²⁶ sn In vv. 4-10 the prophet appears to be speaking, since the Lord is referred to in the third person. However, since the Lord refers to himself in the third person later in this chapter (see v. 13), it is possible that he speaks throughout the chapter.

[13:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “a sound, a roar [is] on the mountains, like many people.”

[13:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “a sound, tumult of kingdoms.”

[14:22]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I will cut off from Babylon name and remnant” (ASV, NAB, and NRSV all similar).

[14:22]  ³⁰ tn Heb “descendant and child.”

[14:23]  ³¹ tn Heb “I will make her into a possession of wild animals.” It is uncertain what type of animal קִפֹּד (qippod) refers to. Some suggest a rodent (cf. NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”), others an owl (cf, NAB, NIV, TEV).

[14:23]  ³² tn Heb “I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction.”

[14:27]  ³³ tn Or “For” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[14:27]  ³⁴ tn Heb “His hand is outstretched and who will turn it back?”

[17:3]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and kingship from Damascus”; cf. NASB “And sovereignty from Damascus.”

[19:4]  ³⁶ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[19:16]  ³⁷ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV), likewise at the beginning of vv. 18 and 19.

[19:16]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Egypt,” which stands by metonymy for the country’s inhabitants.

[19:16]  ³⁹ sn As the rest of the verse indicates, the point of the simile is that the Egyptians will be relatively weak physically and will wilt in fear before the Lord’s onslaught.

[19:16]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “and he will tremble and be afraid because of the brandishing of the hand of the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts], which he brandishes against him.” Since according to the imagery here the Lord’s “hand” is raised as a weapon against the Egyptians, the term “fist” has been used in the translation.

[19:17]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and the land of Judah will become [a source of] shame to Egypt, everyone to whom one mentions it [i.e., the land of Judah] will fear because of the plan of the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] which he is planning against him.”

[19:18]  ⁴² sn The significance of the number “five” in this context is uncertain. For a discussion of various proposals, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:376-77.

[19:18]  ⁴³ tc The Hebrew text has עִיר הַהֶרֶס (’ir haheres, “City of Destruction”; cf. NASB, NIV) but this does not fit the positive emphasis of vv. 18-22. The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a and some medieval Hebrew mss read עִיר הָחֶרֶס (’ir hakheres, “City of the Sun,” i.e., Heliopolis). This reading also finds support from Symmachus’ Greek version, the Targum, and the Vulgate. See HALOT 257 s.v. חֶרֶס and HALOT 355 s.v. II חֶרֶס.

[19:25]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “which the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] will bless [it], saying.” The third masculine singular suffix on the form בֵּרֲכוֹ (berakho) should probably be emended to a third feminine singular suffix בֵּרֲכָהּ (berakhah), for its antecedent would appear to be the feminine noun אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) at the end of v. 24.

[19:25]  ⁴⁵ tn Or “my inheritance” (NAB, NASB, NIV).

[21:10]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “My trampled one, and the son of the threshing floor.”

[22:5]  ⁴⁷ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 12, 14, 15 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[22:5]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “For [there is] a day of panic, and trampling, and confusion for the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].”

[22:5]  ⁴⁹ tn The traditional accentuation of the Hebrew text suggests that this phrase goes with what precedes.

[22:5]  ⁵⁰ tn The precise meaning of this statement is unclear. Some take קִר (qir) as “wall” and interpret the verb to mean “tear down.” However, tighter parallelism (note the reference to crying for help in the next line) is achieved if one takes both the verb and noun from a root, attested in Ugaritic and Arabic, meaning “make a sound.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:404, n. 5.

[22:5]  ⁵¹ sn Perhaps “the hill” refers to the temple mount.

[22:12]  ⁵² tn Heb “for baldness and the wearing of sackcloth.” See the note at 15:2.

[23:9]  ⁵³ tn Heb “the pride of all the beauty.”

[28:22]  ⁵⁴ tn Or “the whole earth” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NCV).

[31:5]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “just as birds fly.” The words “over a nest” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[31:5]  ⁵⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[31:5]  ⁵⁷ tn The only other occurrence of this verb is in Exod 12:13, 23, 27, where the Lord “passes over” (i.e., “spares”) the Israelite households as he comes to judge their Egyptian oppressors. The noun פֶּסַח (pesakh, “Passover”) is derived from the verb. The use of the verb in Isa 31:5 is probably an intentional echo of the Exodus event. As in the days of Moses the Lord will spare his people as he comes to judge their enemies.

[37:16]  ⁵⁸ sn Cherubim (singular “cherub”) refers to the images of winged angelic creatures that were above the ark of the covenant.

[37:16]  ⁵⁹ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[37:32]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “the zeal of the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].” In this context the Lord’s “zeal” refers to his intense devotion to and love for his people which prompts him to protect and restore them.

[44:6]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “his kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.