Yesaya 1:7

1:7 Your land is devastated,

your cities burned with fire.

Right before your eyes your crops

are being destroyed by foreign invaders. ¹ 

They leave behind devastation and destruction. ² 

Yesaya 1:15

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ³ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ⁴ 

Yesaya 37:17

37:17 Pay attention, Lord, and hear! Open your eyes, Lord, and observe! Listen to this entire message Sennacherib sent and how he taunts the living God! ⁵ 

[1:7]  ¹ tn Heb “As for your land, before you foreigners are devouring it.”

[1:7]  ² tn Heb “and [there is] devastation like an overthrow by foreigners.” The comparative preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like, as”) has here the rhetorical nuance, “in every way like.” The point is that the land has all the earmarks of a destructive foreign invasion because that is what has indeed happened. One could paraphrase, “it is desolate as it can only be when foreigners destroy.” On this use of the preposition in general, see GKC 376 §118.x. Many also prefer to emend “foreigners” here to “Sodom,” though there is no external attestation for such a reading in the mss or ancient versions. Such an emendation finds support from the following context (vv. 9-10) and usage of the preceding noun מַהְפֵּכָה (mahpekhah, “overthrow”). In its five other uses, this noun is associated with the destruction of Sodom. If one accepts the emendation, then one might translate, “the devastation resembles the destruction of Sodom.”

[1:15]  ³ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ⁴ sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

[37:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “Hear all the words of Sennacherib which he sent to taunt the living God.”