71:22 I will express my thanks to you with a stringed instrument,
praising 1 your faithfulness, O my God!
I will sing praises to you accompanied by a harp,
O Holy One of Israel! 2
1:4 3 The sinful nation is as good as dead, 4
the people weighed down by evil deeds.
They are offspring who do wrong,
children 5 who do wicked things.
They have abandoned the Lord,
and rejected the Holy One of Israel. 6
They are alienated from him. 7
12:6 Cry out and shout for joy, O citizens of Zion,
for the Holy One of Israel 8 acts mightily 9 among you!”
29:19 The downtrodden will again rejoice in the Lord;
the poor among humankind will take delight 10 in the Holy One of Israel. 11
30:11 Turn aside from the way,
stray off the path. 12
Remove from our presence the Holy One of Israel.” 13
43:3 For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, 14 your deliverer.
I have handed over Egypt as a ransom price,
Ethiopia and Seba 15 in place of you.
43:14 This is what the Lord says,
your protector, 16 the Holy One of Israel: 17
“For your sake I send to Babylon
and make them all fugitives, 18
turning the Babylonians’ joyful shouts into mourning songs. 19
1 tn The word “praising” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
2 sn The basic sense of the word “holy” is “set apart from that which is commonplace, special, unique.” The
3 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.
4 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.
5 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).
6 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.
7 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.
8 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
9 tn Or “is great” (TEV). However, the context emphasizes his mighty acts of deliverance (cf. NCV), not some general or vague character quality.
10 tn Or “will rejoice” (NIV, NCV, NLT).
11 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
12 sn The imagery refers to the way or path of truth, as revealed by God to the prophet.
13 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
14 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
15 sn Seba is not the same as Sheba in southern Arabia; cf. Gen 1:10; 1 Chr 1:9.
16 tn Or “kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.
17 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
18 tn Heb “and I bring down [as] fugitives all of them.”
19 tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “as for the Babylonians, in ships their joyful shout.” This might be paraphrased, “even the Babylonians in the ships [over which] they joyfully shouted.” The point would be that the Lord caused the Babylonians to flee for safety in the ships in which they took such great pride. A slight change in vocalization yields the reading “into mourning songs,” which provides a good contrast with “joyful shout.” The prefixed bet (בְּ) would indicate identity.