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 14:8

14:8 The evergreens also rejoice over your demise, ⁵ 

as do the cedars of Lebanon, singing, ⁶ 

‘Since you fell asleep, ⁷ 

no woodsman comes up to chop us down!’ ⁸ 

Yesaya 15:2

15:2 They went up to the temple, ⁹ 

the people of Dibon went up to the high places to lament. ¹⁰ 

Because of what happened to Nebo and Medeba, ¹¹  Moab wails.

Every head is shaved bare,

every beard is trimmed off. ¹² 

Yesaya 16:12

16:12 When the Moabites plead with all their might at their high places, ¹³ 

and enter their temples to pray, their prayers will be ineffective! ¹⁴ 

Yesaya 19:18

19:18 At that time five cities ¹⁵  in the land of Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord who commands armies. One will be called the City of the Sun. ¹⁶ 

Yesaya 21:8

21:8 Then the guard ¹⁷  cries out:

“On the watchtower, O sovereign master, ¹⁸ 

I stand all day long;

at my post

I am stationed every night.

Yesaya 22:9

22:9 You saw the many breaks

in the walls of the city of David; ¹⁹ 

you stored up water in the lower pool.

Yesaya 23:17

23:17 At the end of seventy years ²⁰  the Lord will revive ²¹  Tyre. She will start making money again by selling her services to all the earth’s kingdoms. ²² 

Yesaya 26:9-10

26:9 I ²³  look for ²⁴  you during the night,

my spirit within me seeks you at dawn,

for when your judgments come upon the earth,

those who live in the world learn about justice. ²⁵ 

26:10 If the wicked are shown mercy,

they do not learn about justice. ²⁶ 

Even in a land where right is rewarded, they act unjustly; ²⁷ 

they do not see the Lord’s majesty revealed.

Yesaya 30:8

30:8 Now go, write it ²⁸  down on a tablet in their presence, ²⁹ 

inscribe it on a scroll,

so that it might be preserved for a future time

as an enduring witness. ³⁰ 

Yesaya 53:9

53:9 They intended to bury him with criminals, ³¹ 

but he ended up in a rich man’s tomb, ³² 

because ³³  he had committed no violent deeds,

nor had he spoken deceitfully.

[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.”

[14:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “concerning you.”

[14:8]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “lay down” (in death); cf. NAB “laid to rest.”

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

[15:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “house.”

[15:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “even Dibon [to] the high places to weep.” The verb “went up” does double duty in the parallel structure.

[15:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “over [or “for”] Nebo and over [or “for”] Medeba.”

[15:2]  ¹² sn Shaving the head and beard were outward signs of mourning and grief.

[16:12]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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.”

[19:18]  ¹⁵ sn The significance of the number “five” in this context is uncertain. For a discussion of various proposals, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:376-77.

[19:18]  ¹⁶ tc The Hebrew text has עִיר הַהֶרֶס (’ir haheres, “City of Destruction”; cf. NASB, NIV) but this does not fit the positive emphasis of vv. 18-22. The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a and some medieval Hebrew mss read עִיר הָחֶרֶס (’ir hakheres, “City of the Sun,” i.e., Heliopolis). This reading also finds support from Symmachus’ Greek version, the Targum, and the Vulgate. See HALOT 257 s.v. חֶרֶס and HALOT 355 s.v. II חֶרֶס.

[21:8]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew text has, “the lion,” but this makes little sense here. אַרְיֵה (’aryeh, “lion”) is probably a corruption of an original הָרֹאֶה (haro’eh, “the one who sees”), i.e., the guard mentioned previously in v. 6.

[21:8]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay). Some translations take this to refer to the Lord (cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV), while others take it to refer to the guard’s human master (“my lord”; cf. NIV, NLT).

[22:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the breaks of the city of David, you saw that they were many.”

[23:17]  ²⁰ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[23:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “visit [with favor]” (cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “will deal with.”

[23:17]  ²² tn Heb “and she will return to her [prostitute’s] wages and engage in prostitution with all the kingdoms of the earth on the face of the earth.”

[26:9]  ²³ tn Heb “with my soul I.” This is a figure for the speaker himself (“I”).

[26:9]  ²⁴ tn Or “long for, desire.” The speaker acknowledges that he is eager to see God come in judgment (see vv. 8, 9b).

[26:9]  ²⁵ tn The translation understands צֶדֶק (tsedeq) in the sense of “justice,” but it is possible that it carries the nuance “righteousness,” in which case one might translate, “those who live in the world learn to live in a righteous manner” (cf. NCV).

[26:10]  ²⁶ tn As in verse 9b, the translation understands צֶדֶק (tsedeq) in the sense of “justice,” but it is possible that it carries the nuance “righteousness,” in which case one might translate, “they do not learn to live in a righteous manner.”

[26:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “in a land of uprightness they act unjustly”; NRSV “they deal perversely.”

[30:8]  ²⁸ tn The referent of the third feminine singular pronominal suffix is uncertain. Perhaps it refers to the preceding message, which accuses the people of rejecting the Lord’s help in favor of an alliance with Egypt.

[30:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “with them.” On the use of the preposition here, see BDB 86 s.v. II אֵת.

[30:8]  ³⁰ sn Recording the message will enable the prophet to use it in the future as evidence that God warned his people of impending judgment and clearly spelled out the nation’s guilt. An official record of the message will also serve as proof of the prophet’s authority as God’s spokesman.

[53:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “one assigned his grave with criminals.” The subject of the singular is impersonal; English typically uses “they” in such constructions.

[53:9]  ³² tn This line reads literally, “and with the rich in his death.” בְּמֹתָיו (bÿmotayv) combines a preposition, a plural form of the noun מוֹת (mot), and a third masculine singular suffix. The plural of the noun is problematic and the יו may be the result of virtual dittography. The form should probably be emended to בָּמָתוֹ (bamato, singular noun). The relationship between this line and the preceding one is uncertain. The parallelism appears to be synonymous (note “his grave” and “in his death”), but “criminals” and “the rich” hardly make a compatible pair in this context, for they would not be buried in the same kind of tomb. Some emend עָשִׁיר (’ashir, “rich”) to עָשֵׂי רָע (’ase ra’, “doers of evil”) but the absence of the ayin (ע) is not readily explained in this graphic environment. Others suggest an emendation to שְׂעִירִים (sÿ’irim, “he-goats, demons”), but the meaning in this case is not entirely transparent and the proposal assumes that the form suffered from both transposition and the inexplicable loss of a final mem. Still others relate עָשִׁיר (’ashir) to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “mob.” See HALOT 896 s.v. עָשִׁיר. Perhaps the parallelism is antithetical, rather than synonymous. In this case, the point is made that the servant’s burial in a rich man’s tomb, in contrast to a criminal’s burial, was appropriate, for he had done nothing wrong.

[53:9]  ³³ tn If the second line is antithetical, then עַל (’al) is probably causal here, explaining why the servant was buried in a rich man’s tomb, rather than that of criminal. If the first two lines are synonymous, then עַל is probably concessive: “even though….”