Yesaya 3:5

3:5 The people will treat each other harshly;

men will oppose each other;

neighbors will fight. ¹ 

Youths will proudly defy the elderly

and riffraff will challenge those who were once respected. ² 

Yesaya 5:14

5:14 So Death ³  will open up its throat,

and open wide its mouth; ⁴ 

Zion’s dignitaries and masses will descend into it,

including those who revel and celebrate within her. ⁵ 

Yesaya 7:11

7:11 “Ask for a confirming sign from the Lord your God. You can even ask for something miraculous.” ⁶ 

Yesaya 9:5

9:5 Indeed every boot that marches and shakes the earth ⁷ 

and every garment dragged through blood

is used as fuel for the fire.

Yesaya 13:8

13:8 They panic –

cramps and pain seize hold of them

like those of a woman who is straining to give birth.

They look at one another in astonishment;

their faces are flushed red. ⁸ 

Yesaya 14:9

14:9 Sheol ⁹  below is stirred up about you,

ready to meet you when you arrive.

It rouses ¹⁰  the spirits of the dead for you,

all the former leaders of the earth; ¹¹ 

it makes all the former kings of the nations

rise from their thrones. ¹² 

Yesaya 29:5

29:5 But the horde of invaders will be like fine dust,

the horde of tyrants ¹³  like chaff that is blown away.

It will happen suddenly, in a flash.

Yesaya 30:20

30:20 The sovereign master ¹⁴  will give you distress to eat

and suffering to drink; ¹⁵ 

but your teachers will no longer be hidden;

your eyes will see them. ¹⁶ 

Yesaya 38:17

38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. ¹⁷ 

You delivered me ¹⁸  from the pit of oblivion. ¹⁹ 

For you removed all my sins from your sight. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 53:3

53:3 He was despised and rejected by people, ²¹ 

one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;

people hid their faces from him; ²² 

he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. ²³ 

Yesaya 53:11

53:11 Having suffered, he will reflect on his work,

he will be satisfied when he understands what he has done. ²⁴ 

“My servant ²⁵  will acquit many, ²⁶ 

for he carried their sins. ²⁷ 

Yesaya 57:9

57:9 You take olive oil as tribute ²⁸  to your king, ²⁹ 

along with many perfumes. ³⁰ 

You send your messengers to a distant place;

you go all the way to Sheol. ³¹ 

Yesaya 59:8

59:8 They are unfamiliar with peace;

their deeds are unjust. ³² 

They use deceitful methods,

and whoever deals with them is unfamiliar with peace. ³³ 

[3:5]  ¹ tn Heb “man against man, and a man against his neighbor.”

[3:5]  ² tn Heb “and those lightly esteemed those who are respected.” The verb רָהַב (rahav) does double duty in the parallelism.

[5:14]  ³ tn Heb “Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV); the underworld, the land of the dead, according to the OT world view. Cf. NAB “the nether world”; TEV, CEV “the world of the dead”; NLT “the grave.”

[5:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “so Sheol will make wide its throat, and open its mouth without limit.”

[5:14]  sn Death is portrayed in both the OT (Prov 1:12; Hab 2:5) and Canaanite myth as voraciously swallowing up its prey. In the myths Death is portrayed as having “a lip to the earth, a lip to the heavens … and a tongue to the stars.” (G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 69, text 5 ii 2-3.) Death describes his own appetite as follows: “But my appetite is the appetite of lions in the waste…If it is in very truth my desire to consume ‘clay’ [a reference to his human victims], then in truth by the handfuls I must eat it, whether my seven portions [indicating fullness and completeness] are already in the bowl or whether Nahar [the god of the river responsible for ferrying victims from the land of the living to the land of the dead] has to mix the cup.” (Driver, 68-69, text 5 i 14-22).

[5:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “and her splendor and her masses will go down, and her tumult and the one who exults in her.” The antecedent of the four feminine singular pronominal suffixes used in v. 14b is unclear. The likely referent is personified Zion/Jerusalem (see 3:25-26; 4:4-5).

[7:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “Make it as deep as Sheol or make it high upwards.” These words suggest that Ahaz can feel free to go beyond the bounds of ordinary human experience.

[9:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “Indeed every boot marching with shaking.” On the meaning of סְאוֹן (sÿ’on, “boot”) and the related denominative verb, both of which occur only here, see HALOT 738 s.v. סְאוֹן.

[13:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “their faces are faces of flames.” Their faces are flushed with fear and embarrassment.

[14:9]  ⁹ sn Sheol is the proper name of the subterranean world which was regarded as the land of the dead.

[14:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “arousing.” The form is probably a Polel infinitive absolute, rather than a third masculine singular perfect, for Sheol is grammatically feminine (note “stirred up”). See GKC 466 §145.t.

[14:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “all the rams of the earth.” The animal epithet is used metaphorically here for leaders. See HALOT 903 s.v. *עַתּוּד.

[14:9]  ¹² tn Heb “lifting from their thrones all the kings of the nations.” הֵקִים (heqim, a Hiphil perfect third masculine singular) should be emended to an infinitive absolute (הָקֵים, haqem). See the note on “rouses” earlier in the verse.

[29:5]  ¹³ tn Or “violent men”; cf. NASB “the ruthless ones.”

[30:20]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai).

[30:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the Master will give to you bread – distress, and water – oppression.”

[30:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “but your teachers will no longer be hidden, your eyes will be seeing your teachers.” The translation assumes that the form מוֹרֶיךָ (morekha) is a plural participle, referring to spiritual leaders such as prophets and priests. Another possibility is that the form is actually singular (see GKC 273-74 §93.ss) or a plural of respect, referring to God as the master teacher. See HALOT 560-61 s.v. III מוֹרֶה. For discussion of the views, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:560.

[38:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”

[38:17]  ¹⁸ tc The Hebrew text reads, “you loved my soul,” but this does not fit syntactically with the following prepositional phrase. חָשַׁקְתָּ (khashaqta, “you loved”), may reflect an aural error; most emend the form to חָשַׂכְת, (khasakht, “you held back”).

[38:17]  ¹⁹ tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”

[38:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”

[53:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “lacking of men.” If the genitive is taken as specifying (“lacking with respect to men”), then the idea is that he lacked company because he was rejected by people. Another option is to take the genitive as indicating genus or larger class (i.e., “one lacking among men”). In this case one could translate, “he was a transient” (cf. the use of חָדֵל [khadel] in Ps 39:5 HT [39:4 ET]).

[53:3]  ²² tn Heb “like a hiding of the face from him,” i.e., “like one before whom the face is hidden” (see BDB 712 s.v. מַסְתֵּר).

[53:3]  ²³ sn The servant is likened to a seriously ill person who is shunned by others because of his horrible disease.

[53:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he will be satisfied by his knowledge,” i.e., “when he knows.” The preposition is understood as temporal and the suffix as a subjective genitive. Some take בְּדַעְתּוֹ (bÿda’to, “by his knowledge”) with what follows and translate “by knowledge of him,” understanding the preposition as instrumental and the suffix as objective.

[53:11]  ²⁵ sn The song ends as it began (cf. 52:13-15), with the Lord announcing the servant’s vindication and exaltation.

[53:11]  ²⁶ tn Heb “he will acquit, a righteous one, my servant, many.” צַדִּיק (tsadiq) may refer to the servant, but more likely it is dittographic (note the preceding verb יַצְדִּיק, yatsdiq). The precise meaning of the verb (the Hiphil of צָדַק, tsadaq) is debated. Elsewhere the Hiphil is used at least six times in the sense of “make righteous” in a legal sense, i.e., “pronounce innocent, acquit” (see Exod 23:7; Deut 25:1; 1 Kgs 8:32 = 2 Chr 6:23; Prov 17:15; Isa 5:23). It can also mean “render justice” (as a royal function, see 2 Sam 15:4; Ps 82:3), “concede” (Job 27:5), “vindicate” (Isa 50:8), and “lead to righteousness” (by teaching and example, Dan 12:3). The preceding context and the next line suggest a legal sense here. Because of his willingness to carry the people’s sins, the servant is able to “acquit” them.

[53:11]  sn Some (e.g., H. M. Orlinsky, “The So-called ‘Suffering Servant’ in Isaiah 53,22,” VTSup 14 [1967]: 3-133) object to this legal interpretation of the language, arguing that it would be unjust for the righteous to suffer for the wicked and for the wicked to be declared innocent. However, such a surprising development is consistent with the ironic nature of this song. It does seem unfair for the innocent to die for the guilty. But what is God to do when all have sinned and wandered off like stray sheep (cf. v. 6)? Covenant law demands punishment, but punishment in this case would mean annihilation of what God has created. God’s justice, as demanded by the law, must be satisfied. To satisfy his justice, he does something seemingly unjust. He punishes his sinless servant, the only one who has not strayed off! In the progress of biblical revelation, we discover that the sinless servant is really God in the flesh, who offers himself because he is committed to the world he has created. If his justice can only be satisfied if he himself endures the punishment, then so be it. What appears to be an act of injustice is really love satisfying the demands of justice!

[53:11]  ²⁷ tn The circumstantial clause (note the vav [ו] + object + subject + verb pattern) is understood as causal here. The prefixed verb form is either a preterite or an imperfect used in a customary manner.

[57:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “you journey with oil.”

[57:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the king.” Since the context refers to idolatry and child sacrifice (see v. 5), some emend מֶלֶך (melekh, “king”) to “Molech.” Perhaps Israel’s devotion to her idols is likened here to a subject taking tribute to a ruler.

[57:9]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and you multiply your perfumes.”

[57:9]  ³¹ sn Israel’s devotion to her idols is inordinate, irrational, and self-destructive.

[59:8]  ³² tn Heb “a way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their pathways.”

[59:8]  ³³ tn Heb “their paths they make crooked, everyone who walks in it does not know peace.”