32:7 The Lord spoke to Moses: “Go quickly, descend, 9 because your 10 people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have acted corruptly.
1:4 14 The sinful nation is as good as dead, 15
the people weighed down by evil deeds.
They are offspring who do wrong,
children 16 who do wicked things.
They have abandoned the Lord,
and rejected the Holy One of Israel. 17
They are alienated from him. 18
9:9 They have sunk deep into corruption 19
as in the days of Gibeah.
He will remember their wrongdoing.
He will repay them for their sins.
3:7 I thought, 20 ‘Certainly you will respect 21 me!
Now you will accept correction!’
If she had done so, her home 22 would not be destroyed 23
by all the punishments I have threatened. 24
But they eagerly sinned
in everything they did. 25
3:2 She is disobedient; 26
she refuses correction. 27
She does not trust the Lord;
she does not seek the advice of 28 her God.
1:3 We always 29 give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,
1 tn The words “I say this” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text v. 16 is subordinated to “Be careful” in v. 15, but this makes for an unduly long sentence in English.
2 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “totally.”
3 tn Heb “do the evil.”
4 tn Heb “the work of your hands.”
5 tn Or “God saw how corrupt the earth was.”
6 tn The repetition in the text (see v. 11) emphasizes the point.
7 tn Heb “flesh.” Since moral corruption is in view here, most modern western interpreters understand the referent to be humankind. However, the phrase “all flesh” is used consistently of humankind and the animals in Gen 6-9 (6:17, 19; 7:15-16, 21; 8:17; 9:11, 15-17), suggesting that the author intends to picture all living creatures, humankind and animals, as guilty of moral failure. This would explain why the animals, not just humankind, are victims of the ensuing divine judgment. The OT sometimes views animals as morally culpable (Gen 9:5; Exod 21:28-29; Jonah 3:7-8). The OT also teaches that a person’s sin can contaminate others (people and animals) in the sinful person’s sphere (see the story of Achan, especially Josh 7:10). So the animals could be viewed here as morally contaminated because of their association with sinful humankind.
8 tn Heb “had corrupted its way.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix on “way” refers to the collective “all flesh.” The construction “corrupt one’s way” occurs only here (though Ezek 16:47 uses the Hiphil in an intransitive sense with the preposition בְּ [bet, “in”] followed by “ways”). The Hiphil of שָׁחָת (shakhat) means “to ruin, to destroy, to corrupt,” often as here in a moral/ethical sense. The Hebrew term דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “way”) here refers to behavior or moral character, a sense that it frequently carries (see BDB 203 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 6.a).
9 tn The two imperatives could also express one idea: “get down there.” In other words, “Make haste to get down.”
10 sn By giving the people to Moses in this way, God is saying that they have no longer any right to claim him as their God, since they have shared his honor with another. This is God’s talionic response to their “These are your gods who brought you up.” The use of these pronoun changes also would form an appeal to Moses to respond, since Moses knew that God had brought them up from Egypt.
11 tn Grk “these are the ones who cause divisions.”
12 tn Or “natural,” that is, living on the level of instincts, not on a spiritual level (the same word occurs in 1 Cor 2:14 as a description of nonbelievers).
13 tn Grk “not having [the] Spirit.”
14 sn Having summoned the witnesses and announced the Lord’s accusation against Israel, Isaiah mourns the nation’s impending doom. The third person references to the Lord in the second half of the verse suggest that the quotation from the Lord (cf. vv. 2-3) has concluded.
15 tn Heb “Woe [to the] sinful nation.” The Hebrew term 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. In highly dramatic fashion the prophet acts out Israel’s funeral in advance, emphasizing that their demise is inevitable if they do not repent soon.
16 tn Or “sons” (NASB). The prophet contrasts four terms of privilege – nation, people, offspring, children – with four terms that depict Israel’s sinful condition in Isaiah’s day – sinful, evil, wrong, wicked (see J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 43).
17 sn Holy One of Israel is one of Isaiah’s favorite divine titles for God. It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.
18 tn Heb “they are estranged backward.” The LXX omits this statement, which presents syntactical problems and seems to be outside the synonymous parallelistic structure of the verse.
19 tn Or more literally, “they are deeply corrupted.” The two verbs הֶעְמִיקוּ־שִׁחֵתוּ (he’miqu-shikhetu; literally, “they have made deep, they act corruptly”) are coordinated without a conjunction vav to form a verbal hendiadys: the second verb represents the main idea, while the first functions adverbially (GKC 386-87 §120.g). Here Gesenius suggests “they are deeply/radically corrupted.” Several translations mirror the syntax of this hendiadys: “They have deeply corrupted themselves” (KJV, ASV, NRSV), “They have been grievously corrupt” (NJPS), and “They are hopelessly evil” (TEV). Others reverse the syntax for the sake of a more graphic English idiom: “They have gone deep in depravity” (NASB) and “They have sunk deep into corruption” (NIV). Some translations fail to represent the hendiadys at all: “You are brutal and corrupt” (CEV). The translation “They are deeply corrupted” mirrors the Hebrew syntax, but “They have sunk deep into corruption” is a more graphic English idiom and is preferred here (cf. NAB “They have sunk to the depths of corruption”).
20 tn Heb “said.”
21 tn Or “fear.” The second person verb form (“you will respect”) is feminine singular, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed.
22 tn Or “dwelling place.”
23 tn Heb “cut off.”
24 tn Heb “all which I have punished her.” The precise meaning of this statement and its relationship to what precedes are unclear.
25 tn Heb “But they got up early, they made corrupt all their actions.” The phrase “they got up early” probably refers to their eagerness to engage in sinful activities.
26 tn Heb “she does not hear a voice” Refusing to listen is equated with disobedience.
27 tn Heb “she does not receive correction.” The Hebrew phrase, when negated, refers elsewhere to rejecting verbal advice (Jer 17:23; 32:33; 35:13) and refusing to learn from experience (Jer 2:30; 5:3).
28 tn Heb “draw near to.” The present translation assumes that the expression “draw near to” refers to seeking God’s will (see 1 Sam 14:36).
29 tn The adverb πάντοτε (pantote) is understood to modify the indicative εὐχαριστοῦμεν (eucaristoumen) because it precedes περὶ ὑμῶν (peri Jumwn) which probably modifies the indicative and not the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseucomenoi). But see 1:9 where the same expression occurs and περὶ ὑμῶν modifies the participle “praying” (προσευχόμενοι).