Yesaya 3:14

3:14 The Lord comes to pronounce judgment

on the leaders of his people and their officials.

He says, ¹  “It is you ²  who have ruined ³  the vineyard! ⁴ 

You have stashed in your houses what you have stolen from the poor. ⁵ 

Yesaya 19:11

19:11 The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; ⁶ 

Pharaoh’s wise advisers give stupid advice.

How dare you say to Pharaoh,

“I am one of the sages,

one well-versed in the writings of the ancient kings?” ⁷ 

Yesaya 26:19

26:19 ⁸ Your dead will come back to life;

your corpses will rise up.

Wake up and shout joyfully, you who live in the ground! ⁹ 

For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, ¹⁰ 

and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits. ¹¹ 

Yesaya 49:18

49:18 Look all around you! ¹² 

All of them gather to you.

As surely as I live,” says the Lord,

“you will certainly wear all of them like jewelry;

you will put them on as if you were a bride.

Yesaya 65:5

65:5 They say, ‘Keep to yourself!

Don’t get near me, for I am holier than you!’

These people are like smoke in my nostrils,

like a fire that keeps burning all day long.

[3:14]  ¹ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[3:14]  ² tn The pronominal element is masculine plural; the leaders are addressed.

[3:14]  ³ tn The verb בָּעַר (ba’ar, “graze, ruin”; HALOT 146 s.v. II בער) is a homonym of the more common בָּעַר (ba’ar, “burn”; see HALOT 145 s.v. I בער).

[3:14]  ⁴ sn The vineyard is a metaphor for the nation here. See 5:1-7.

[3:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “the plunder of the poor [is] in your houses” (so NASB).

[19:11]  ⁶ tn Or “certainly the officials of Zoan are fools.” אַךְ (’akh) can carry the sense, “only, nothing but,” or “certainly, surely.”

[19:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “A son of wise men am I, a son of ancient kings.” The term בֶּן (ben, “son of”) could refer to literal descent, but many understand the word, at least in the first line, in its idiomatic sense of “member [of a guild].” See HALOT 138 s.v. בֶּן and J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:371. If this is the case, then one can take the word in a figurative sense in the second line as well, the “son of ancient kings” being one devoted to their memory as preserved in their literature.

[26:19]  ⁸ sn At this point the Lord (or prophet) gives the people an encouraging oracle.

[26:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “dust” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[26:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for the dew of lights [is] your dew.” The pronominal suffix on “dew” is masculine singular, like the suffixes on “your dead” and “your corpses” in the first half of the verse. The statement, then, is addressed to collective Israel, the speaker in verse 18. The plural form אוֹרֹת (’orot) is probably a plural of respect or magnitude, meaning “bright light” (i.e., morning’s light). Dew is a symbol of fertility and life. Here Israel’s “dew,” as it were, will soak the dust of the ground and cause the corpses of the dead to spring up to new life, like plants sprouting up from well-watered soil.

[26:19]  ¹¹ sn It is not certain whether the resurrection envisioned here is intended to be literal or figurative. A comparison with 25:8 and Dan 12:2 suggests a literal interpretation, but Ezek 37:1-14 uses resurrection as a metaphor for deliverance from exile and the restoration of the nation (see Isa 27:12-13).

[49:18]  ¹² tn Heb “Lift up around your eyes and see.”