Yesaya 3:1

A Coming Leadership Crisis

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

is about to remove from Jerusalem ²  and Judah

every source of security, including ³ 

all the food and water, ⁴ 

Yesaya 4:2

The Branch of the Lord

4:2 At that time ⁵ 

the crops given by the Lord will bring admiration and honor; ⁶ 

the produce of the land will be a source of pride and delight

to those who remain in Israel. ⁷ 

Yesaya 7:21

7:21 At that time ⁸  a man will keep alive a young cow from the herd and a couple of goats.

Yesaya 9:20

9:20 They devoured ⁹  on the right, but were still hungry,

they ate on the left, but were not satisfied.

People even ate ¹⁰  the flesh of their own arm! ¹¹ 

Yesaya 13:9-11

13:9 Look, the Lord’s day of judgment ¹²  is coming;

it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, ¹³ 

destroying ¹⁴  the earth ¹⁵ 

and annihilating its sinners.

13:10 Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations

no longer give out their light; ¹⁶ 

the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,

and the moon does not shine. ¹⁷ 

13:11 ¹⁸ I will punish the world for its evil, ¹⁹ 

and wicked people for their sin.

I will put an end to the pride of the insolent,

I will bring down the arrogance of tyrants. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 17:11

17:11 The day you begin cultivating, you do what you can to make it grow; ²¹ 

the morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make it sprout.

Yet the harvest will disappear ²²  in the day of disease

and incurable pain.

Yesaya 17:14

17:14 In the evening there is sudden terror; ²³ 

by morning they vanish. ²⁴ 

This is the fate of those who try to plunder us,

the destiny of those who try to loot us! ²⁵ 

Yesaya 19:17

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. ²⁶ 

Yesaya 24:13

24:13 This is what will happen throughout ²⁷  the earth,

among the nations.

It will be like when they beat an olive tree,

and just a few olives are left at the end of the harvest. ²⁸ 

Yesaya 38:3

38:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you ²⁹  faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, ³⁰  and how I have carried out your will.” ³¹  Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. ³² 

Yesaya 40:10

40:10 Look, the sovereign Lord comes as a victorious warrior; ³³ 

his military power establishes his rule. ³⁴ 

Look, his reward is with him;

his prize goes before him. ³⁵ 

Yesaya 42:1

The Lord Commissions His Special Servant

42:1 ³⁶ “Here is my servant whom I support,

my chosen one in whom I take pleasure.

I have placed my spirit on him;

he will make just decrees ³⁷  for the nations. ³⁸ 

Yesaya 45:24

45:24 they will say about me,

“Yes, the Lord is a powerful deliverer.”’” ³⁹ 

All who are angry at him will cower before him. ⁴⁰ 

Yesaya 51:20

51:20 Your children faint;

they lie at the head of every street

like an antelope in a snare.

They are left in a stupor by the Lord’s anger,

by the battle cry of your God. ⁴¹ 

Yesaya 52:5

52:5 And now, what do we have here?” ⁴²  says the Lord.

“Indeed my people have been carried away for nothing,

those who rule over them taunt,” ⁴³  says the Lord,

“and my name is constantly slandered ⁴⁴  all day long.

Yesaya 56:2

56:2 The people who do this will be blessed, ⁴⁵ 

the people who commit themselves to obedience, ⁴⁶ 

who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,

who refrain from doing anything that is wrong. ⁴⁷ 

Yesaya 59:15

59:15 Honesty has disappeared;

the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed.

The Lord watches and is displeased, ⁴⁸ 

for there is no justice.

[3:1]  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 1:9.

[3:1]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:1]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “all the support of food, and all the support of water.”

[4:2]  ⁵ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[4:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “and the vegetation of the Lord will become beauty and honor.” Many English versions understand the phrase צֶמַח יְהוָה (tsemakh yÿhvah) as a messianic reference and render it, “the Branch of the Lord” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT, and others). Though צֶמַח (tsemakh) is used by later prophets of a royal descendant (Jer 23;5; 33:15; Zech 3:8; 6:12), those passages contain clear contextual indicators that a human ruler is in view and that the word is being used in a metaphorical way of offspring. However, in Isa 4:2 there are no such contextual indicators. To the contrary, in the parallel structure of the verse צֶמַח יְהוָה corresponds to “produce of the land,” a phrase that refers elsewhere exclusively to literal agricultural produce (see Num 13:20, 26; Deut 1:25). In the majority of its uses צֶמַח refers to literal crops or vegetation (in Ps 65:10 the Lord is the source of this vegetation). A reference to the Lord restoring crops would make excellent sense in Isa 4 and the prophets frequently included this theme in their visions of the future age (see Isa 30:23-24; 32:20; Jer 31:12; Ezek 34:26-29; and Amos 9:13-14).

[4:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the fruit of the land will become pride and beauty for the remnant of Israel.”

[7:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “in that day.” The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[9:20]  ⁹ tn Or “cut.” The verb גָּזַר (gazar) means “to cut.” If it is understood here, then one might paraphrase, “They slice off meat on the right.” However, HALOT 187 s.v. I גזר, proposes here a rare homonym meaning “to devour.”

[9:20]  ¹⁰ tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.

[9:20]  ¹¹ tn Some suggest that זְרֹעוֹ (zÿro’o, “his arm”) be repointed זַרְעוֹ (zar’o, “his offspring”). In either case, the metaphor is that of a desperately hungry man who resorts to an almost unthinkable act to satisfy his appetite. He eats everything he can find to his right, but still being unsatisfied, then turns to his left and eats everything he can find there. Still being desperate for food, he then resorts to eating his own flesh (or offspring, as this phrase is metaphorically understood by some English versions, e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT). The reality behind the metaphor is the political turmoil of the period, as the next verse explains. There was civil strife within the northern kingdom; even the descendants of Joseph were at each other’s throats. Then the northern kingdom turned on their southern brother, Judah.

[13:9]  ¹² tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[13:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “[with] cruelty, and fury, and rage of anger.” Three synonyms for “anger” are piled up at the end of the line to emphasize the extraordinary degree of divine anger that will be exhibited in this judgment.

[13:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “making desolate.”

[13:9]  ¹⁵ tn Or “land” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT).

[13:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “do not flash forth their light.”

[13:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “does not shed forth its light.”

[13:11]  ¹⁸ sn The Lord is definitely speaking (again?) at this point. See the note at v. 4.

[13:11]  ¹⁹ tn Or “I will bring disaster on the world.” Hebrew רָעָה (ra’ah) could refer to the judgment (i.e., disaster, calamity) or to the evil that prompts it. The structure of the parallel line favors the latter interpretation.

[13:11]  ²⁰ tn Or perhaps, “the violent”; cf. NASB, NIV “the ruthless.”

[17:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “in the day of your planting you [?].” The precise meaning of the verb תְּשַׂגְשֵׂגִי (tÿsagsegi) is unclear. It is sometimes derived from שׂוּג/סוּג (sug, “to fence in”; see BDB 691 s.v. II סוּג). In this case one could translate “you build a protective fence.” However, the parallelism is tighter if one derives the form from שָׂגָא/שָׂגָה (saga’/sagah, “to grow”); see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:351, n. 4. For this verb, see BDB 960 s.v. שָׂגָא.

[17:11]  ²² tc The Hebrew text has, “a heap of harvest.” However, better sense is achieved if נֵד (ned, “heap”) is emended to a verb. Options include נַד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד [nadad, “flee, depart”]), נָדַד (Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד), נֹדֵד (noded, Qal active participle from נָדַד), and נָד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular, or participle masculine singular, from נוּד [nud, “wander, flutter”]). See BDB 626 s.v. נוּד and HALOT 672 s.v. I נדד. One could translate literally: “[the harvest] departs,” or “[the harvest] flies away.”

[17:14]  ²³ tn Heb “at the time of evening, look, sudden terror.”

[17:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “before morning he is not.”

[17:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “this is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who loot us.”

[19:17]  ²⁶ 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.”

[24:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “in the midst of” (so KJV, ASV, NASB).

[24:13]  ²⁸ sn The judgment will severely reduce the earth’s population. See v. 6.

[38:3]  ²⁹ tn Heb “walked before you.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254.

[38:3]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and with a complete heart”; KJV, ASV “with a perfect heart.”

[38:3]  ³¹ tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”

[38:3]  ³² tn Heb “wept with great weeping”; NCV “cried loudly”; TEV “began to cry bitterly.”

[40:10]  ³³ tn Heb “comes as a strong one”; ASV “will come as a mighty one.” The preposition בְּ (bet) here carries the nuance “in the capacity of.” It indicates that the Lord possesses the quality expressed by the noun. See GKC 379 §119.i and HALOT 104 s.v. בְּ.

[40:10]  ³⁴ tn Heb “his arm rules for him” (so NIV, NRSV). The Lord’s “arm” symbolizes his military power (see Isa 51:9-10; 63:5).

[40:10]  ³⁵ tn As the Lord returns to Jerusalem as a victorious warrior, he brings with him the spoils of victory, called here his “reward” and “prize.” These terms might also be translated “wages” and “recompense.” Verse 11 indicates that his rescued people, likened to a flock of sheep, are his reward.

[42:1]  ³⁶ sn Verses 1-7 contain the first of Isaiah’s “servant songs,” which describe the ministry of a special, ideal servant who accomplishes God’s purposes for Israel and the nations. This song depicts the servant as a just king who brings justice to the earth and relief for the oppressed. The other songs appear in 49:1-13; 50:4-11; and 52:13-53:12.

[42:1]  ³⁷ tn Heb “he will bring out justice” (cf. ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[42:1]  ³⁸ sn Like the ideal king portrayed in Isa 11:1-9, the servant is energized by the divine spirit and establishes justice on the earth.

[45:24]  ³⁹ tn Heb “‘Yes, in the Lord,’ one says about me, ‘is deliverance and strength.’”

[45:24]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “will come to him and be ashamed.”

[51:20]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “those who are full of the anger of the Lord, the shout [or “rebuke”] of your God.”

[52:5]  ⁴² tn Heb “and now what [following the marginal reading (Qere)] to me here?”

[52:5]  ⁴³ tn The verb appears to be a Hiphil form from the root יָלַל (yalal, “howl”), perhaps here in the sense of “mock.” Some emend the form to יְהוֹלָּלוֹ (yÿhollalo) and understand a Polel form of the root הָלַל meaning here “mock, taunt.”

[52:5]  ⁴⁴ tn The verb is apparently a Hitpolal form (with assimilated tav, ת) from the root נָאַץ (na’ats), but GKC 151-52 §55.b explains it as a mixed form, combining Pual and Hitpolel readings.

[56:2]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “blessed is the man who does this.”

[56:2]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “the son of mankind who takes hold of it.”

[56:2]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb and who keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

[59:15]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “and it is displeasing in his eyes.”