1:4 1 The sinful nation is as good as dead, 2
the people weighed down by evil deeds.
They are offspring who do wrong,
children 3 who do wicked things.
They have abandoned the Lord,
and rejected the Holy One of Israel. 4
They are alienated from him. 5
29:15 Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are as good as dead, 6
who do their work in secret and boast, 7
“Who sees us? Who knows what we’re doing?” 8
48:8 You did not hear,
you do not know,
you were not told beforehand. 9
For I know that you are very deceitful; 10
you were labeled 11 a rebel from birth.
48:2 Indeed, they live in the holy city; 12
they trust in 13 the God of Israel,
whose name is the Lord who commands armies.
33:9 The land 14 dries up 15 and withers away;
the forest of Lebanon shrivels up 16 and decays.
Sharon 17 is like the desert; 18
Bashan and Carmel 19 are parched. 20
33:10 “Now I will rise up,” says the Lord.
“Now I will exalt myself;
now I will magnify myself. 21
33:11 You conceive straw, 22
you give birth to chaff;
your breath is a fire that destroys you. 23
33:12 The nations will be burned to ashes; 24
like thorn bushes that have been cut down, they will be set on fire.
33:13 You who are far away, listen to what I have done!
You who are close by, recognize my strength!”
33:14 Sinners are afraid in Zion;
panic 25 grips the godless. 26
They say, 27 ‘Who among us can coexist with destructive fire?
Who among us can coexist with unquenchable 28 fire?’
33:15 The one who lives 29 uprightly 30
and speaks honestly;
the one who refuses to profit from oppressive measures
and rejects a bribe; 31
the one who does not plot violent crimes 32
and does not seek to harm others 33 –
33:16 This is the person who will live in a secure place; 34
he will find safety in the rocky, mountain strongholds; 35
he will have food
and a constant supply of water.
5:23 But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts.
They have turned aside and gone their own way. 36
9:9 They have sunk deep into corruption 37
as in the days of Gibeah.
He will remember their wrongdoing.
He will repay them for their sins.
1 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.
2 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.
3 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).
4 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.
5 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.
6 tn Heb “Woe [to] those who deeply hide counsel from the Lord.” This probably alludes to political alliances made without seeking the Lord’s guidance. See 30:1-2 and 31:1.
7 tn Heb “and their works are in darkness and they say.”
8 tn The rhetorical questions suggest the answer, “no one.” They are confident that their deeds are hidden from others, including God.
9 tn Heb “beforehand your ear did not open.”
10 tn Heb “deceiving, you deceive.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.
11 tn Or “called” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
12 tn Heb “they call themselves [or “are called”] from the holy city.” The precise meaning of the statement is uncertain. The Niphal of קָרָא (qara’) is combined with the preposition מִן (min) only here. When the Qal of קָרָא is used with מִן, the preposition often indicates the place from which one is summoned (see 46:11). So one could translate, “from the holy city they are summoned,” meaning that they reside there.
13 tn Heb “lean on” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB, NIV “rely on.”
14 tn Or “earth” (KJV); NAB “the country.”
15 tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. I אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism. See 24:4.
16 tn Heb “Lebanon is ashamed.” The Hiphil is exhibitive, expressing the idea, “exhibits shame.” In this context the statement alludes to the withering of vegetation.
17 sn Sharon was a fertile plain along the Mediterranean coast. See 35:2.
18 tn Or “the Arabah” (NIV). See 35:1.
19 sn Both of these areas were known for their trees and vegetation. See 2:13; 35:2.
20 tn Heb “shake off [their leaves]” (so ASV, NRSV); NAB “are stripped bare.”
21 tn Or “lift myself up” (KJV); NLT “show my power and might.”
22 tn The second person verb and pronominal forms in this verse are plural. The hostile nations are the addressed, as the next verse makes clear.
23 sn The hostile nations’ plans to destroy God’s people will come to nothing; their hostility will end up being self-destructive.
24 tn Heb “will be a burning to lime.” See Amos 2:1.
25 tn Or “trembling” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “shake with fear.”
26 tn Or “the defiled”; TEV “The sinful people of Zion”; NLT “The sinners in Jerusalem.”
27 tn The words “they say” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
28 tn Or “perpetual”; or “everlasting” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).
29 tn Heb “walks” (so NASB, NIV).
30 tn Or, possibly, “justly”; NAB “who practices virtue.”
31 tn Heb “[who] shakes off his hands from grabbing hold of a bribe.”
32 tn Heb “[who] shuts his ear from listening to bloodshed.”
33 tn Heb “[who] closes his eyes from seeing evil.”
34 tn Heb “he [in the] exalted places will live.”
35 tn Heb “mountain strongholds, cliffs [will be] his elevated place.”
36 tn The words, “their own way” are not in the text but are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity.
37 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”).