24:6 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says:
Woe to the city of bloodshed,
the pot whose rot 1 is in it,
whose rot has not been removed 2 from it!
Empty it piece by piece.
No lot has fallen on it. 3
24:13 You mix uncleanness with obscene conduct. 4
I tried to cleanse you, 5 but you are not clean.
You will not be cleansed from your uncleanness 6
until I have exhausted my anger on you.
6:5 But the Lord saw 7 that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination 8 of the thoughts 9 of their minds 10 was only evil 11 all the time. 12 6:6 The Lord regretted 13 that he had made humankind on the earth, and he was highly offended. 14 6:7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth – everything from humankind to animals, 15 including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them.”
1:5 23 Why do you insist on being battered?
Why do you continue to rebel? 24
Your head has a massive wound, 25
your whole body is weak. 26
5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. 27
But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. 28
Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.
They have become as hardheaded as a rock. 29
They refuse to change their ways. 30
1 tn Or “rust.”
2 tn Heb “has not gone out.”
3 tn Here “lot” may refer to the decision made by casting lots; it is not chosen at all.
4 tn Heb “in your uncleanness (is) obscene conduct.”
5 tn Heb “because I cleansed you.” In this context (see especially the very next statement), the statement must refer to divine intention and purpose. Despite God’s efforts to cleanse his people, they resisted him and remained morally impure.
6 tn The Hebrew text adds the word “again.”
7 sn The Hebrew verb translated “saw” (רָאָה, ra’ah), used here of God’s evaluation of humankind’s evil deeds, contrasts with God’s evaluation of creative work in Gen 1, when he observed that everything was good.
8 tn The noun יֵצֶר (yetser) is related to the verb יָצָר (yatsar, “to form, to fashion [with a design]”). Here it refers to human plans or intentions (see Gen 8:21; 1 Chr 28:9; 29:18). People had taken their God-given capacities and used them to devise evil. The word יֵצֶר (yetser) became a significant theological term in Rabbinic literature for what might be called the sin nature – the evil inclination (see also R. E. Murphy, “Yeser in the Qumran Literature,” Bib 39 [1958]: 334-44).
9 tn The related verb הָשָׁב (hashav) means “to think, to devise, to reckon.” The noun (here) refers to thoughts or considerations.
10 tn Heb “his heart” (referring to collective “humankind”). The Hebrew term לֵב (lev, “heart”) frequently refers to the seat of one’s thoughts (see BDB 524 s.v. לֵב). In contemporary English this is typically referred to as the “mind.”
11 sn Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil. There is hardly a stronger statement of the wickedness of the human race than this. Here is the result of falling into the “knowledge of good and evil”: Evil becomes dominant, and the good is ruined by the evil.
12 tn Heb “all the day.”
13 tn Or “was grieved”; “was sorry.” In the Niphal stem the verb נָחָם (nakham) can carry one of four semantic meanings, depending on the context: (1) “to experience emotional pain or weakness,” “to feel regret,” often concerning a past action (see Exod 13:17; Judg 21:6, 15; 1 Sam 15:11, 35; Job 42:6; Jer 31:19). In several of these texts כִּי (ki, “because”) introduces the cause of the emotional sorrow. (2) Another meaning is “to be comforted” or “to comfort oneself” (sometimes by taking vengeance). See Gen 24:67; 38:12; 2 Sam 13:39; Ps 77:3; Isa 1:24; Jer 31:15; Ezek 14:22; 31:16; 32:31. (This second category represents a polarization of category one.) (3) The meaning “to relent from” or “to repudiate” a course of action which is already underway is also possible (see Judg 2:18; 2 Sam 24:16 = 1 Chr 21:15; Pss 90:13; 106:45; Jer 8:6; 20:16; 42:10). (4) Finally, “to retract” (a statement) or “to relent or change one’s mind concerning,” “to deviate from” (a stated course of action) is possible (see Exod 32:12, 14; 1 Sam 15:29; Ps 110:4; Isa 57:6; Jer 4:28; 15:6; 18:8, 10; 26:3, 13, 19; Ezek 24:14; Joel 2:13-14; Am 7:3, 6; Jonah 3:9-10; 4:2; Zech 8:14). See R. B. Chisholm, “Does God ‘Change His Mind’?” BSac 152 (1995): 388. The first category applies here because the context speaks of God’s grief and emotional pain (see the following statement in v. 6) as a result of a past action (his making humankind). For a thorough study of the word נָחָם, see H. Van Dyke Parunak, “A Semantic Survey of NHM,” Bib 56 (1975): 512-32.
14 tn Heb “and he was grieved to his heart.” The verb עָצָב (’atsav) can carry one of three semantic senses, depending on the context: (1) “to be injured” (Ps 56:5; Eccl 10:9; 1 Chr 4:10); (2) “to experience emotional pain”; “to be depressed emotionally”; “to be worried” (2 Sam 19:2; Isa 54:6; Neh 8:10-11); (3) “to be embarrassed”; “to be offended” (to the point of anger at another or oneself); “to be insulted” (Gen 34:7; 45:5; 1 Sam 20:3, 34; 1 Kgs 1:6; Isa 63:10; Ps 78:40). This third category develops from the second by metonymy. In certain contexts emotional pain leads to embarrassment and/or anger. In this last use the subject sometimes directs his anger against the source of grief (see especially Gen 34:7). The third category fits best in Gen 6:6 because humankind’s sin does not merely wound God emotionally. On the contrary, it prompts him to strike out in judgment against the source of his distress (see v. 7). The verb וַיִּתְעַצֵּב (vayyit’atsev), a Hitpael from עָצָב, alludes to the judgment oracles in Gen 3:16-19. Because Adam and Eve sinned, their life would be filled with pain; but sin in the human race also brought pain to God. The wording of v. 6 is ironic when compared to Gen 5:29. Lamech anticipated relief (נָחָם, nakham) from their work (מַעֲשֶׂה, ma’aseh) and their painful toil (עִצְּבֹן, ’itsÿvon), but now we read that God was sorry (נָחָם, nakham) that he had made (עָשָׂה, ’asah) humankind for it brought him great pain (עָצָב, ’atsav).
15 tn The text simply has “from man to beast, to creatures, and to birds of the air.” The use of the prepositions עַד…מִן (min...’ad) stresses the extent of the judgment in creation.
16 tn The
17 tn Heb “and the
18 tn Heb “in his heart.”
19 tn Here the Hebrew word translated “curse” is קָלָל (qalal), used in the Piel verbal stem.
20 tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can be used in a concessive sense (see BDB 473 s.v. כִּי), which makes good sense in this context. Its normal causal sense (“for”) does not fit the context here very well.
21 tn Heb “the inclination of the heart of humankind.”
22 tn Heb “from his youth.”
23 sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).
24 tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”
25 tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”
26 tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).
27 tn Heb “O
28 tn Commentaries and lexicons debate the meaning of the verb here. The MT is pointed as though from a verb meaning “to writhe in anguish or contrition” (חוּל [khul]; see, e.g., BDB 297 s.v. חוּל 2.c), but some commentaries and lexicons repoint the text as though from a verb meaning “to be sick,” thus “to feel pain” (חָלָה [khalah]; see, e.g., HALOT 304 s.v. חָלָה 3). The former appears more appropriate to the context.
29 tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”
30 tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”
31 tn Heb “the word [or message] you have spoken to us in the name of the
32 tn Heb “that went out of our mouth.” I.e., everything we said, promised, or vowed.
33 tn Heb “sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” The expressions have been combined to simplify and shorten the sentence. The same combination also occurs in vv. 18, 19.
34 tn Heb “saw [or experienced] no disaster/trouble/harm.”
35 tn Heb “we have not pacified the face of.”
36 tn Or “by gaining insight.”
37 tn Heb “by your truth.” The Hebrew term does not refer here to abstract truth, however, but to the reliable moral guidance found in the covenant law. See vv 10-11.
38 tn Or “righteous.”
39 tn Heb “in all his deeds which he has done.”
40 tn Heb “we have not listened to his voice.”