Yesaya 7:8

7:8 For Syria’s leader is Damascus,

and the leader of Damascus is Rezin.

Within sixty-five years Ephraim will no longer exist as a nation. ¹ 

Yesaya 8:1

A Sign-Child is Born

8:1 The Lord told me, “Take a large tablet ²  and inscribe these words ³  on it with an ordinary stylus: ⁴  ‘Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ ⁵ 

Yesaya 8:9

8:9 You will be broken, ⁶  O nations;

you will be shattered! ⁷ 

Pay attention, all you distant lands of the earth!

Get ready for battle, and you will be shattered!

Get ready for battle, and you will be shattered! ⁸ 

Yesaya 13:9

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

it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, ¹⁰ 

destroying ¹¹  the earth ¹² 

and annihilating its sinners.

Yesaya 18:5

18:5 For before the harvest, when the bud has sprouted,

and the ripening fruit appears, ¹³ 

he will cut off the unproductive shoots ¹⁴  with pruning knives;

he will prune the tendrils. ¹⁵ 

Yesaya 22:5

22:5 For the sovereign master, ¹⁶  the Lord who commands armies,

has planned a day of panic, defeat, and confusion. ¹⁷ 

In the Valley of Vision ¹⁸  people shout ¹⁹ 

and cry out to the hill. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 27:9

27:9 So in this way Jacob’s sin will be forgiven, ²¹ 

and this is how they will show they are finished sinning: ²² 

They will make all the stones of the altars ²³ 

like crushed limestone,

and the Asherah poles and the incense altars will no longer stand. ²⁴ 

Yesaya 31:8

31:8 Assyria will fall by a sword, but not one human-made; ²⁵ 

a sword not made by humankind will destroy them. ²⁶ 

They will run away from this sword ²⁷ 

and their young men will be forced to do hard labor.

Yesaya 34:11

34:11 Owls and wild animals ²⁸  will live there, ²⁹ 

all kinds of wild birds ³⁰  will settle in it.

The Lord ³¹  will stretch out over her

the measuring line of ruin

and the plumb line ³²  of destruction. ³³ 

Yesaya 37:19

37:19 They have burned the gods of the nations, ³⁴  for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them. ³⁵ 

Yesaya 50:9

50:9 Look, the sovereign Lord helps me.

Who dares to condemn me?

Look, all of them will wear out like clothes;

a moth will eat away at them.

[7:8]  ¹ tn Heb “Ephraim will be too shattered to be a nation”; NIV “to be a people.”

[7:8]  sn This statement is problematic for several reasons. It seems to intrude stylistically, interrupting the symmetry of the immediately preceding and following lines. Furthermore, such a long range prophecy lacks punch in the midst of the immediate crisis. After all, even if Israel were destroyed sometime within the next 65 years, a lot could still happen during that time, including the conquest of Judah and the demise of the Davidic family. Finally the significance of the time frame is uncertain. Israel became an Assyrian province within the next 15 years and ceased to exist as a nation. For these reasons many regard the statement as a later insertion, but why a later editor would include the reference to “65 years” remains a mystery. Some try to relate the prophecy to the events alluded to in Ezra 4:2, 10, which refers to how the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal settled foreigners in former Israelite territory, perhaps around 670 b.c. However, even if the statement is referring to these events, it lacks rhetorical punch in its immediate context and has the earmarks of a later commentary that has been merged with the text in the process of transmission.

[8:1]  ² sn Probably made of metal, wood, or leather. See HALOT 193 s.v. גִּלָּיוֹן.

[8:1]  ³ tn Heb “write” (so KJV, ASV, NIV, NRSV).

[8:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “with the stylus of a man.” The significance of the qualifying genitive “a man” is uncertain. For various interpretations see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:219, n. 1.

[8:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “quickly, [the] plunder; it hurries, [the] loot.” The first word (מַהֵר, maher) is either a Piel imperative (“hurry [to]”) or infinitive (“hurrying,” or “quickly”). The third word (חָשׁ, khash) is either a third masculine singular perfect or a masculine singular participle, in either case from the root חוּשׁ (khush, “hurry”). Perhaps it is best to translate, “One hastens to the plunder, one hurries to the loot.” In this case מַהֵר is understood as an infinitive functioning as a verb, the subject of חוּשׁ is taken as indefinite, and the two nouns are understood as adverbial accusatives. As we discover in v. 3, this is the name of the son to be born to Isaiah through the prophetess.

[8:9]  ⁶ tn The verb רֹעוּ (ro’u) is a Qal imperative, masculine plural from רָעַע (ra’a’, “break”). Elsewhere both transitive (Job 34:24; Ps 2:9; Jer 15:12) and intransitive (Prov 25:19; Jer 11:16) senses are attested for the Qal of this verb. Because no object appears here, the form is likely intransitive: “be broken.” In this case the imperative is rhetorical (like “be shattered” later in the verse) and equivalent to a prediction, “you will be broken.” On the rhetorical use of the imperative in general, see IBHS 572 §34.4c; GKC 324 §110.c.

[8:9]  ⁷ tn The imperatival form (Heb “be shattered”) is rhetorical and expresses the speaker’s firm conviction of the outcome of the nations’ attack. See the note on “be broken.”

[8:9]  ⁸ tn The initial imperative (“get ready for battle”) acknowledges the reality of the nations’ hostility; the concluding imperative (Heb “be shattered”) is rhetorical and expresses the speakers’ firm conviction of the outcome of the nations’ attack. (See the note on “be broken.”) One could paraphrase, “Okay, go ahead and prepare for battle since that’s what you want to do, but your actions will backfire and you’ll be shattered.” This rhetorical use of the imperatives is comparable to saying to a child who is bent on climbing a high tree, “Okay, go ahead, climb the tree and break your arm!” What this really means is: “Okay, go ahead and climb the tree since that’s what you really want to do, but your actions will backfire and you’ll break your arm.” The repetition of the statement in the final two lines of the verse gives the challenge the flavor of a taunt (ancient Israelite “trash talking,” as it were).

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

[13:9]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “making desolate.”

[13:9]  ¹² tn Or “land” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT).

[18:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “and the unripe, ripening fruit is maturing.”

[18:5]  ¹⁴ tn On the meaning of זַלְזַל (zalzal, “shoot [of the vine] without fruit buds”) see HALOT 272 s.v. *זַלְזַל.

[18:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the tendrils he will remove, he will cut off.”

[22:5]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 12, 14, 15 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[22:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “For [there is] a day of panic, and trampling, and confusion for the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].”

[22:5]  ¹⁸ tn The traditional accentuation of the Hebrew text suggests that this phrase goes with what precedes.

[22:5]  ¹⁹ tn The precise meaning of this statement is unclear. Some take קִר (qir) as “wall” and interpret the verb to mean “tear down.” However, tighter parallelism (note the reference to crying for help in the next line) is achieved if one takes both the verb and noun from a root, attested in Ugaritic and Arabic, meaning “make a sound.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:404, n. 5.

[22:5]  ²⁰ sn Perhaps “the hill” refers to the temple mount.

[27:9]  ²¹ tn Or “be atoned for” (NIV); cf. NRSV “be expiated.”

[27:9]  ²² tn Heb “and this [is] all the fruit of removing his sin.” The meaning of the statement is not entirely clear, though “removing his sin” certainly parallels “Jacob’s sin will be removed” in the preceding line. If original, “all the fruit” may refer to the result of the decision to remove sin, but the phrase may be a corruption of לְכַפֵּר (lekhaper, “to atone for”), which in turn might be a gloss on הָסִר (hasir, “removing”).

[27:9]  ²³ tn Heb “when he makes the stones of an altar.” The singular “altar” is collective here; pagan altars are in view, as the last line of the verse indicates. See also 17:8.

[27:9]  ²⁴ sn As interpreted and translated above, this verse says that Israel must totally repudiate its pagan religious practices in order to experience God’s forgiveness and restoration. Another option is to understand “in this way” and “this” in v. 9a as referring back to the judgment described in v. 8. In this case כָּפַר (kafar, “atone for”) is used in a sarcastic sense; Jacob’s sin is “atoned for” and removed through severe judgment. Following this line of interpretation, one might paraphrase the verse as follows: “So in this way (through judgment) Jacob’s sin will be “atoned for,” and this is the way his sin will be removed, when he (i.e., God) makes all the altar stones like crushed limestone….” This interpretation is more consistent with the tone of judgment in vv. 8 and 10-11.

[31:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Assyria will fall by a sword, not of a man.”

[31:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and a sword not of humankind will devour him.”

[31:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “he will flee for himself from before a sword.”

[34:11]  ²⁸ tn קָאַת (qa’at) refers to some type of bird (cf. Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17) that was typically found near ruins (see Zeph 2:14). קִפּוֹד (qippod) may also refer to a type of bird (NAB “hoot owl”; NIV “screech owl”; TEV “ravens”), but some have suggested a rodent may be in view (cf. NCV “small animals”; ASV “porcupine”; NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”).

[34:11]  ²⁹ tn Heb “will possess it” (so NIV).

[34:11]  ³⁰ tn The Hebrew text has יַנְשׁוֹף וְעֹרֵב (yanshof vÿ’orev). Both the יַנְשׁוֹף (“owl”; see Lev 11:17; Deut 14:16) and עֹרֵב (“raven”; Lev 11:15; Deut 14:14) were types of wild birds.

[34:11]  ³¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:11]  ³² tn Heb “stones,” i.e., the stones used in a plumb bob.

[34:11]  ³³ sn The metaphor in v. 11b emphasizes that God has carefully planned Edom’s demise.

[37:19]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and they put their gods in the fire.”

[37:19]  ³⁵ tn Heb “so they destroyed them” (NASB similar).