51:17 The sacrifices God desires are a humble spirit 1 –
O God, a humble and repentant heart 2 you will not reject. 3
5:4 What more can I do for my vineyard
beyond what I have already done?
When I waited for it to produce edible grapes,
why did it produce sour ones instead?
5:5 Now I will inform you
what I am about to do to my vineyard:
I will remove its hedge and turn it into pasture, 4
I will break its wall and allow animals to graze there. 5
5:10 Indeed, a large vineyard 6 will produce just a few gallons, 7
and enough seed to yield several bushels 8 will produce less than a bushel.” 9
1 tn Heb “a broken spirit.”
2 tn Heb “a broken and crushed heart.”
3 tn Or “despise.”
4 tn Heb “and it will become [a place for] grazing.” בָּעַר (ba’ar, “grazing”) is a homonym of the more often used verb “to burn.”
5 tn Heb “and it will become a trampled place” (NASB “trampled ground”).
6 tn Heb “a ten-yoke vineyard.” The Hebrew term צֶמֶד (tsemed, “yoke”) is here a unit of square measure. Apparently a ten-yoke vineyard covered the same amount of land it would take ten teams of oxen to plow in a certain period of time. The exact size is unknown.
7 tn Heb “one bath.” A bath was a liquid measure. Estimates of its modern equivalent range from approximately six to twelve gallons.
8 tn Heb “a homer.” A homer was a dry measure, the exact size of which is debated. Cf. NCV “ten bushels”; CEV “five bushels.”
9 tn Heb “an ephah.” An ephah was a dry measure; there were ten ephahs in a homer. So this verse envisions major crop failure, where only one-tenth of the anticipated harvest is realized.