Yesaya 1:5

1:5 ¹ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ² 

Your head has a massive wound, ³ 

your whole body is weak. ⁴ 

Yesaya 22:22-23

22:22 I will place the key ⁵  to the house of David on his shoulder. When he opens the door, no one can close it; when he closes the door, no one can open it. 22:23 I will fasten him like a peg into a solid place; ⁶  he will bring honor and respect to his father’s family. ⁷ 

Yesaya 23:4

23:4 Be ashamed, O Sidon,

for the sea ⁸  says this, O fortress of the sea:

“I have not gone into labor

or given birth;

I have not raised young men

or brought up young women.” ⁹ 

Yesaya 24:6

24:6 So a treaty curse ¹⁰  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ¹¹ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ¹² 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ¹³ 

Yesaya 28:19

28:19 Whenever it sweeps by, it will overtake you;

indeed, ¹⁴  every morning it will sweep by,

it will come through during the day and the night.” ¹⁵ 

When this announcement is understood,

it will cause nothing but terror.

Yesaya 46:4

46:4 Even when you are old, I will take care of you, ¹⁶ 

even when you have gray hair, I will carry you.

I made you and I will support you;

I will carry you and rescue you. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 53:3

53:3 He was despised and rejected by people, ¹⁸ 

one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;

people hid their faces from him; ¹⁹ 

he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 53:5

53:5 He was wounded because of ²¹  our rebellious deeds,

crushed because of our sins;

he endured punishment that made us well; ²² 

because of his wounds we have been healed. ²³ 

Yesaya 53:8

53:8 He was led away after an unjust trial ²⁴  –

but who even cared? ²⁵ 

Indeed, he was cut off from the land of the living; ²⁶ 

because of the rebellion of his own ²⁷  people he was wounded.

Yesaya 54:4

54:4 Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame!

Don’t be intimidated, ²⁸  for you will not be humiliated!

You will forget about the shame you experienced in your youth;

you will no longer remember the disgrace of your abandonment. ²⁹ 

[1:5]  ¹ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ³ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[22:22]  ⁵ sn This may refer to a literal insignia worn by the chief administrator. Even so, it would still symbolize the administrator’s authority to grant or exclude access to the king. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:422.

[22:23]  ⁶ sn The metaphor depicts how secure his position will be.

[22:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “and he will become a glorious throne for the house of his father.”

[23:4]  ⁸ tn J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:430-31) sees here a reference to Yam, the Canaanite god of the sea. He interprets the phrase מָעוֹז הַיָּם (ma’oz hayyam, “fortress of the sea”) as a title of Yam, translating “Mighty One of the Sea.” A more traditional view is that the phrase refers to Sidon.

[23:4]  ⁹ tn Or “virgins” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB).

[23:4]  sn The sea is personified here as a lamenting childless woman. The foreboding language anticipates the following announcement of Tyre’s demise, viewed here as a child of the sea, as it were.

[24:6]  ¹⁰ sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ¹¹ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ¹² tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[28:19]  ¹⁴ tn Or “for” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[28:19]  ¹⁵ tn The words “it will come through” are supplied in the translation. The verb “will sweep by” does double duty in the parallel structure.

[46:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “until old age, I am he” (NRSV similar); NLT “I will be your God throughout your lifetime.”

[46:4]  ¹⁷ sn Unlike the weary idol gods, whose images must be carried by animals, the Lord carries his weary people.

[53:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “lacking of men.” If the genitive is taken as specifying (“lacking with respect to men”), then the idea is that he lacked company because he was rejected by people. Another option is to take the genitive as indicating genus or larger class (i.e., “one lacking among men”). In this case one could translate, “he was a transient” (cf. the use of חָדֵל [khadel] in Ps 39:5 HT [39:4 ET]).

[53:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “like a hiding of the face from him,” i.e., “like one before whom the face is hidden” (see BDB 712 s.v. מַסְתֵּר).

[53:3]  ²⁰ sn The servant is likened to a seriously ill person who is shunned by others because of his horrible disease.

[53:5]  ²¹ tn The preposition מִן (min) has a causal sense (translated “because of”) here and in the following clause.

[53:5]  ²² tn Heb “the punishment of our peace [was] on him.” שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) is here a genitive of result, i.e., “punishment that resulted in our peace.”

[53:5]  ²³ sn Continuing to utilize the imagery of physical illness, the group acknowledges that the servant’s willingness to carry their illnesses (v. 4) resulted in their being healed. Healing is a metaphor for forgiveness here.

[53:8]  ²⁴ tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The present translation assumes that מִן (min) here has an instrumental sense (“by, through”) and understands עֹצֶר וּמִמִּשְׁפָּט (’otser umimmishpat, “coercion and legal decision”) as a hendiadys meaning “coercive legal decision,” thus “an unjust trial.” Other interpretive options include: (1) “without [for this sense of מִן, see BDB 578 s.v. 1.b] hindrance and proper judicial process,” i.e., “unfairly and with no one to defend him,” (2) “from [in the sense of “after,” see BDB 581 s.v. 4.b] arrest and judgment.”

[53:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and his generation, who considers?” (NASB similar). Some understand “his generation” as a reference to descendants. In this case the question would suggest that he will have none. However, אֶת (’et) may be taken here as specifying a new subject (see BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 3). If “his generation” refers to the servant’s contemporary generation, one may then translate, “As for his contemporary generation, who took note?” The point would be that few were concerned about the harsh treatment he received.

[53:8]  ²⁶ sn The “land of the living” is an idiom for the sphere where people live, in contrast to the underworld realm of the dead. See, for example, Ezek 32:23-27.

[53:8]  ²⁷ tn The Hebrew text reads “my people,” a reading followed by most English versions, but this is problematic in a context where the first person plural predominates, and where God does not appear to speak again until v. 11b. Therefore, it is preferable to read with the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a עמו (“his people”). In this case, the group speaking in these verses is identified as the servant’s people (compare פְּשָׁעֵנוּ [pÿsha’enu, “our rebellious deeds”] in v. 5 with פֶּשַׁע עַמִּי [pesha’ ’ammi, “the rebellion of his people”] in v. 8).

[54:4]  ²⁸ tn Or “embarrassed”; NASB “humiliated…disgraced.”

[54:4]  ²⁹ tn Another option is to translate, “the disgrace of our widowhood” (so NRSV). However, the following context (vv. 6-7) refers to Zion’s husband, the Lord, abandoning her, not dying. This suggests that an אַלְמָנָה (’almanah) was a woman who had lost her husband, whether by death or abandonment.