Isaiah 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ¹ 

they associate with ²  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ³  payoffs. ⁴ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁵ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ⁶ 

Isaiah 3:14

3:14 The Lord comes to pronounce judgment

on the leaders of his people and their officials.

He says, ⁷  “It is you ⁸  who have ruined ⁹  the vineyard! ¹⁰ 

You have stashed in your houses what you have stolen from the poor. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 31:9

31:9 They will surrender their stronghold ¹²  because of fear; ¹³ 

their officers will be afraid of the Lord’s battle flag.” ¹⁴ 

This is what the Lord says –

the one whose fire is in Zion,

whose firepot is in Jerusalem. ¹⁵ 

[1:23]  ¹ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ² tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ³ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁴ sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).

[1:23]  ⁵ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ⁶ sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.

[3:14]  ⁷ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[3:14]  ⁸ tn The pronominal element is masculine plural; the leaders are addressed.

[3:14]  ⁹ tn The verb בָּעַר (ba’ar, “graze, ruin”; HALOT 146 s.v. II בער) is a homonym of the more common בָּעַר (ba’ar, “burn”; see HALOT 145 s.v. I בער).

[3:14]  ¹⁰ sn The vineyard is a metaphor for the nation here. See 5:1-7.

[3:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the plunder of the poor [is] in your houses” (so NASB).

[31:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “rocky cliff” (cf. ASV, NASB “rock”), viewed metaphorically as a place of defense and security.

[31:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “His rocky cliff, because of fear, will pass away [i.e., “perish”].”

[31:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and they will be afraid of the flag, his officers.”

[31:9]  ¹⁶ sn The “fire” and “firepot” here symbolize divine judgment, which is heating up like a fire in Jerusalem, waiting to be used against the Assyrians when they attack the city.