Yesaya 14:8

14:8 The evergreens also rejoice over your demise, ¹ 

as do the cedars of Lebanon, singing, ² 

‘Since you fell asleep, ³ 

no woodsman comes up to chop us down!’ ⁴ 

Yesaya 34:1

The Lord Will Judge Edom

34:1 Come near, you nations, and listen!

Pay attention, you people!

The earth and everything it contains must listen,

the world and everything that lives in it. ⁵ 

Yesaya 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ⁶ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ⁷  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ⁸ 

[14:8]  ¹ tn Heb “concerning you.”

[14:8]  ² tn The word “singing” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. Note that the personified trees speak in the second half of the verse.

[14:8]  ³ tn Heb “lay down” (in death); cf. NAB “laid to rest.”

[14:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “the [wood]cutter does not come up against us.”

[34:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “the world and its offspring”; NASB “the world and all that springs from it.”

[55:3]  ⁶ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  sn To live here refers to covenantal blessing, primarily material prosperity and national security (see vv. 4-5, 13, and Deut 30:6, 15, 19-20).

[55:3]  ⁷ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”