Yesaya 5:8

Disaster is Coming

5:8 Those who accumulate houses are as good as dead, ¹ 

those who also accumulate landed property ² 

until there is no land left, ³ 

and you are the only landowners remaining within the land. ⁴ 

Yesaya 10:28

10:28 ⁵ They ⁶  attacked ⁷  Aiath,

moved through Migron,

depositing their supplies at Micmash.

Yesaya 16:12

16:12 When the Moabites plead with all their might at their high places, ⁸ 

and enter their temples to pray, their prayers will be ineffective! ⁹ 

Yesaya 24:15

24:15 So in the east ¹⁰  extol the Lord,

along the seacoasts extol ¹¹  the fame ¹²  of the Lord God of Israel.

Yesaya 40:22

40:22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; ¹³ 

its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. ¹⁴ 

He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, ¹⁵ 

and spreads it out ¹⁶  like a pitched tent. ¹⁷ 

Yesaya 41:1

The Lord Challenges the Nations

41:1 “Listen to me in silence, you coastlands! ¹⁸ 

Let the nations find renewed strength!

Let them approach and then speak;

let us come together for debate! ¹⁹ 

Yesaya 62:10-11

62:10 Come through! Come through the gates!

Prepare the way for the people!

Build it! Build the roadway!

Remove the stones!

Lift a signal flag for the nations!

62:11 Look, the Lord announces to the entire earth: ²⁰ 

“Say to Daughter Zion,

‘Look, your deliverer comes!

Look, his reward is with him

and his reward goes before him!’” ²¹ 

[5:8]  ¹ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who make a house touch a house.” The exclamation הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) was used in funeral laments (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5) and carries the connotation of death.

[5:8]  ² tn Heb “[who] bring a field near a field.”

[5:8]  sn This verse does not condemn real estate endeavors per se, but refers to the way in which the rich bureaucrats of Judah accumulated property by exploiting the poor, in violation of the covenantal principle that the land belonged to God and that every family was to have its own portion of land. See the note at 1:23.

[5:8]  ³ tn Heb “until the end of the place”; NASB “until there is no more room.”

[5:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.”

[10:28]  ⁵ sn Verses 28-31 display a staccato style; the statements are short and disconnected (no conjunctions appear in the Hebrew text). The translation to follow strives for a choppy style that reflects the mood of the speech.

[10:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “he,” that is, the Assyrians (as the preceding context suggests). Cf. NCV “The army of Assyria.”

[10:28]  sn Verses 28-32 describe an invasion of Judah from the north. There is no scholarly consensus on when this particular invasion took place, if at all. J. H. Hayes and S. A. Irvine (Isaiah, 209-10) suggest the text describes the Israelite-Syrian invasion of Judah (ca. 735 b.c.), but this proposal disregards the preceding context, which prophesies the destruction of Assyria. Some suggest that this invasion occurred in conjunction with Sargon’s western campaign of 713-711 b.c., but there is no historical evidence of such an invasion at that time. Many others identify the invasion as Sennacherib’s in 701 b.c., but historical records indicate Sennacherib approached Jerusalem from the southwest. J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:274-75) prefers to see the description as rhetorical and as not corresponding to any particular historical event, but Hayes and Irvine argue that the precise geographical details militate against such a proposal. Perhaps it is best to label the account as rhetorical-prophetic. The prophecy of the invasion was not necessarily intended to be a literal itinerary of the Assyrians’ movements; rather its primary purpose was to create a foreboding mood. Geographical references contribute to this purpose, but they merely reflect how one would expect an Assyrian invasion to proceed, not necessarily how the actual invasion would progress. Despite its rhetorical nature, the prophecy does point to the invasion of 701 b.c., as the announcement of the invaders’ downfall in vv. 33-34 makes clear; it was essentially fulfilled at that time. For further discussion of the problem, see R. E. Clements, Isaiah (NCBC), 117-19. On the geographical details of the account, see Y. Aharoni, Land of the Bible, 393.

[10:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “came against,” or “came to.”

[16:12]  ⁸ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[16:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “when he appears, when he grows tired, Moab on the high places, and enters his temple to pray, he will not prevail.” It is possible that “when he grows tired” is an explanatory gloss for the preceding “when he appears.”

[24:15]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “in the lights,” interpreted by some to mean “in the region of light,” referring to the east. Some scholars have suggested the emendation of בָּאֻרִים (ba’urim) to בְּאִיֵּי הַיָּם (bÿ’iyyey hayyam, “along the seacoasts”), a phrase that is repeated in the next line. In this case, the two lines form synonymous parallelism. If one retains the MT reading (as above), “in the east” and “along the seacoasts” depict the two ends of the earth to refer to all the earth (as a merism).

[24:15]  ¹¹ tn The word “extol” is supplied in the translation; the verb in the first line does double duty in the parallelism.

[24:15]  ¹² tn Heb “name,” which here stands for God’s reputation achieved by his mighty deeds.

[40:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “the circle of the earth” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[40:22]  ¹⁴ tn The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[40:22]  ¹⁵ tn The otherwise unattested noun דֹּק (doq), translated here “thin curtain,” is apparently derived from the verbal root דקק (“crush”) from which is derived the adjective דַּק (daq, “thin”; see HALOT 229 s.v. דקק). The nuance “curtain” is implied from the parallelism (see “tent” in the next line).

[40:22]  ¹⁶ tn The meaning of the otherwise unattested verb מָתַח (matakh, “spread out”) is determined from the parallelism (note the corresponding verb “stretch out” in the previous line) and supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic cognates. See HALOT 654 s.v. *מתה.

[40:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; NAB, NASB “like a tent to dwell (live NIV, NRSV) in.”

[41:1]  ¹⁸ tn Or “islands” (KJV, NIV, CEV); TEV “distant lands”; NLT “lands beyond the sea.”

[41:1]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew term מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) could be translated “judgment,” but here it seems to refer to the dispute or debate between the Lord and the nations.

[62:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “to the end of the earth” (so NASB, NRSV).

[62:11]  ²¹ sn As v. 12 indicates, the returning exiles are the Lord’s reward/prize. See also 40:10 and the note there.