Yesaya 11:3

11:3 He will take delight in obeying the Lord. ¹ 

He will not judge by mere appearances, ² 

or make decisions on the basis of hearsay. ³ 

Yesaya 25:3

25:3 So a strong nation will extol you;

the towns of ⁴  powerful nations will fear you.

Yesaya 29:20

29:20 For tyrants will disappear,

those who taunt will vanish,

and all those who love to do wrong will be eliminated ⁵  –

Yesaya 33:11

33:11 You conceive straw, ⁶ 

you give birth to chaff;

your breath is a fire that destroys you. ⁷ 

Yesaya 46:2

46:2 Together they bend low and kneel down;

they are unable to rescue the images; ⁸ 

they themselves ⁹  head off into captivity. ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 55:9

55:9 for just as the sky ¹¹  is higher than the earth,

so my deeds ¹²  are superior to ¹³  your deeds

and my plans ¹⁴  superior to your plans.

[11:3]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “and his smelling is in the fear of the Lord.” In Amos 5:21 the Hiphil of רוּחַ (ruakh, “smell”) carries the nuance of “smell with delight, get pleasure from.” There the Lord declares that he does not “smell with delight” (i.e., get pleasure from) Israel’s religious assemblies, which probably stand by metonymy for the incense offered during these festivals. In Isa 11:3 there is no sacrificial context to suggest such a use, but it is possible that “the fear of the Lord” is likened to incense. This coming king will get the same kind of delight from obeying (fearing) the Lord, as a deity does in the incense offered by worshipers. Some regard such an explanation as strained in this context, and prefer to omit this line from the text as a virtual dittograph of the preceding statement.

[11:3]  ² tn Heb “by what appears to his eyes”; KJV “after the sight of his eyes”; NIV “by what he sees with his eyes.”

[11:3]  ³ tn Heb “by what is heard by his ears”; NRSV “by what his ears hear.”

[25:3]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text has a singular form, but it should be emended to a plural or eliminated altogether. The noun may have been accidentally copied from the preceding verse.

[29:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “and all the watchers of wrong will be cut off.”

[33:11]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ sn The hostile nations’ plans to destroy God’s people will come to nothing; their hostility will end up being self-destructive.

[46:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “[the] burden,” i.e., their images, the heavy burden carried by the animals.

[46:2]  ⁹ tn נַפְשָׁם (nafsham, “their souls/lives”) is equivalent here to a third masculine plural suffix, but the third feminine singular verb הָלָכָה (halakhah, “they go”) agrees with the feminine noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, life”).

[46:2]  ¹⁰ sn The downfall of Babylon is depicted here. The idols are carried off by the victorious enemy; the gods are likened to defeated captives who cower before the enemy and are taken into exile.

[55:9]  ¹¹ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[55:9]  ¹² tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).

[55:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “are higher than.”

[55:9]  ¹⁴ tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).