Isaiah 1:16

1:16 ¹ Wash! Cleanse yourselves!

Remove your sinful deeds ² 

from my sight.

Stop sinning!

Isaiah 2:11

2:11 Proud men will be brought low,

arrogant men will be humiliated; ³ 

the Lord alone will be exalted ⁴ 

in that day.

Isaiah 11:3

11:3 He will take delight in obeying the Lord. ⁵ 

He will not judge by mere appearances, ⁶ 

or make decisions on the basis of hearsay. ⁷ 

Isaiah 13:18

13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ⁸ 

they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ⁹ 

they will not ¹⁰  look with pity on children.

Isaiah 17:7

17:7 At that time ¹¹  men will trust in their creator; ¹² 

they will depend on ¹³  the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 29:18

29:18 At that time ¹⁵  the deaf will be able to hear words read from a scroll,

and the eyes of the blind will be able to see through deep darkness. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 42:7

42:7 to open blind eyes, ¹⁷ 

to release prisoners ¹⁸  from dungeons,

those who live in darkness from prisons.

Isaiah 43:4

43:4 Since you are precious and special in my sight, ¹⁹ 

and I love you,

I will hand over people in place of you,

nations in place of your life.

Isaiah 44:18

44:18 They do not comprehend or understand,

for their eyes are blind and cannot see;

their minds do not discern. ²⁰ 

Isaiah 59:10

59:10 We grope along the wall like the blind,

we grope like those who cannot see; ²¹ 

we stumble at noontime as if it were evening.

Though others are strong, we are like dead men. ²² 

[1:16]  ¹ sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.

[1:16]  ² sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).

[2:11]  ³ tn Heb “and the eyes of the pride of men will be brought low, and the arrogance of men will be brought down.” The repetition of the verbs שָׁפַל (shafal) and שָׁחָח (shakhakh) from v. 9 draws attention to the appropriate nature of the judgment. Those proud men who “bow low” before idols will be forced to “bow low” before God when he judges their sin.

[2:11]  ⁴ tn Or “elevated”; CEV “honored.”

[11:3]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “and his smelling is in the fear of the Lord.” In Amos 5:21 the Hiphil of רוּחַ (ruakh, “smell”) carries the nuance of “smell with delight, get pleasure from.” There the Lord declares that he does not “smell with delight” (i.e., get pleasure from) Israel’s religious assemblies, which probably stand by metonymy for the incense offered during these festivals. In Isa 11:3 there is no sacrificial context to suggest such a use, but it is possible that “the fear of the Lord” is likened to incense. This coming king will get the same kind of delight from obeying (fearing) the Lord, as a deity does in the incense offered by worshipers. Some regard such an explanation as strained in this context, and prefer to omit this line from the text as a virtual dittograph of the preceding statement.

[11:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “by what appears to his eyes”; KJV “after the sight of his eyes”; NIV “by what he sees with his eyes.”

[11:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “by what is heard by his ears”; NRSV “by what his ears hear.”

[13:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.

[13:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”

[13:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.

[17:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “in that day” (so ASV, NASB, NIV); KJV “At that day.”

[17:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “man will gaze toward his maker.”

[17:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “his eyes will look toward.”

[17:7]  ¹² sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[29:18]  ¹¹ tn Or “In that day” (KJV).

[29:18]  ¹² tn Heb “and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.”

[42:7]  ¹³ sn This does not refer to literal physical healing of the blind. As the next two lines suggest, this refers metonymically to freeing captives from their dark prisons where their eyes have grown unaccustomed to light.

[42:7]  ¹⁴ sn This does not refer to hardened, dangerous criminals, who would have been executed for their crimes in ancient Near Eastern society. This verse refers to political prisoners or victims of social injustice.

[43:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Since you are precious in my eyes and you are honored.”

[44:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “for their eyes are smeared over so they cannot see, so their heart cannot be wise.”

[59:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “like there are no eyes.”

[59:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb among the strong, like dead men.”