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 3:6

3:6 Indeed, a man will grab his brother

right in his father’s house ⁷  and say, ⁸ 

‘You own a coat –

you be our leader!

This heap of ruins will be under your control.’ ⁹ 

Isaiah 26:18

26:18 We were pregnant, we strained,

we gave birth, as it were, to wind. ¹⁰ 

We cannot produce deliverance on the earth;

people to populate the world are not born. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 37:36

37:36 The Lord’s messenger ¹²  went out and killed 185,000 troops ¹³  in the Assyrian camp. When they ¹⁴  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! ¹⁵ 

Isaiah 40:20

40:20 To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; ¹⁶ 

he then seeks a skilled craftsman

to make ¹⁷  an idol that will not fall over.

Isaiah 40:28

40:28 Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is an eternal God,

the creator of the whole earth. ¹⁸ 

He does not get tired or weary;

there is no limit to his wisdom. ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 44:24

The Lord Empowers Cyrus

44:24 This is what the Lord, your protector, ²⁰  says,

the one who formed you in the womb:

“I am the Lord, who made everything,

who alone stretched out the sky,

who fashioned the earth all by myself, ²¹ 

Isaiah 45:1

45:1 This is what the Lord says to his chosen ²²  one,

to Cyrus, whose right hand I hold ²³ 

in order to subdue nations before him,

and disarm kings, ²⁴ 

to open doors before him,

so gates remain unclosed:

Isaiah 45:3

45:3 I will give you hidden treasures, ²⁵ 

riches stashed away in secret places,

so you may recognize that I am the Lord,

the one who calls you by name, the God of Israel.

Isaiah 45:19

45:19 I have not spoken in secret,

in some hidden place. ²⁶ 

I did not tell Jacob’s descendants,

‘Seek me in vain!’ ²⁷ 

I am the Lord,

the one who speaks honestly,

who makes reliable announcements. ²⁸ 

Isaiah 51:10

51:10 Did you not dry up the sea,

the waters of the great deep?

Did you not make ²⁹  a path through the depths of the sea,

so those delivered from bondage ³⁰  could cross over?

Isaiah 51:12

51:12 “I, I am the one who consoles you. ³¹ 

Why are you afraid of mortal men,

of mere human beings who are as short-lived as grass? ³² 

Isaiah 56:6

56:6 As for foreigners who become followers of ³³  the Lord and serve him,

who love the name of the Lord and want to be his servants –

all who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,

and who are faithful to ³⁴  my covenant –

Isaiah 58:12

58:12 Your perpetual ruins will be rebuilt; ³⁵ 

you will reestablish the ancient foundations.

You will be called, ‘The one who repairs broken walls,

the one who makes the streets inhabitable again.’ ³⁶ 

[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.

[3:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “[in] the house of his father” (so ASV); NIV “at his father’s home.”

[3:6]  ⁸ tn The words “and say” are supplied for stylistic reasons.

[3:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “your hand”; NASB “under your charge.”

[26:18]  ¹³ tn On the use of כְּמוֹ (kÿmo, “like, as”) here, see BDB 455 s.v. Israel’s distress and suffering, likened here to the pains of childbirth, seemed to be for no purpose. A woman in labor endures pain with the hope that a child will be born; in Israel’s case no such positive outcome was apparent. The nation was like a woman who strains to bring forth a child, but can’t push the baby through to daylight. All her effort produces nothing.

[26:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and the inhabitants of the world do not fall.” The term נָפַל (nafal) apparently means here, “be born,” though the Qal form of the verb is not used with this nuance anywhere else in the OT. (The Hiphil appears to be used in the sense of “give birth” in v. 19, however.) The implication of verse 18b seems to be that Israel hoped its suffering would somehow end in deliverance and an increase in population. The phrase “inhabitants of the world” seems to refer to the human race in general, but the next verse, which focuses on Israel’s dead, suggests the referent may be more limited.

[37:36]  ¹⁹ tn Traditionally, “the angel of the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[37:36]  ²⁰ tn The word “troops” is supplied in the translation for smoothness and clarity.

[37:36]  ²¹ tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.

[37:36]  ²² tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies”; NLT “they found corpses everywhere.”

[40:20]  ²⁵ tn The first two words of the verse (הַמְסֻכָּן תְּרוּמָה, hamsukan tÿrumah) are problematic. Some take מְסֻכָּן as an otherwise unattested Pual participle from סָכַן (sakhan, “be poor”) and translate “the one who is impoverished.” תְּרוּמָה (tÿrumah, “contribution”) can then be taken as an adverbial accusative, “with respect to a contribution,” and the entire line translated, “the one who is too impoverished for such a contribution [i.e., the metal idol of v. 19?] selects wood that will not rot.” However, מְסֻכָּן is probably the name of a tree used in idol manufacturing (cognate with Akkadian musukkanu, cf. H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 133). מְסֻכָּן may be a scribal interpretive addition attempting to specify עֵץ (’ets) or עֵץ may be a scribal attempt to categorize מְסֻכָּן. How an idol constitutes a תְּרוּמָה (“contribution”) is not entirely clear.

[40:20]  ²⁶ tn Or “set up” (ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NASB “to prepare.”

[40:28]  ³¹ tn Heb “the ends of the earth,” but this is a merism, where the earth’s extremities stand for its entirety, i.e., the extremities and everything in between them.

[40:28]  ³² sn Exiled Israel’s complaint (v. 27) implies that God might be limited in some way. Perhaps he, like so many of the pagan gods, has died. Or perhaps his jurisdiction is limited to Judah and does not include Babylon. Maybe he is unable to devise an adequate plan to rescue his people, or is unable to execute it. But v. 28 affirms that he is not limited temporally or spatially nor is his power and wisdom restricted in any way. He can and will deliver his people, if they respond in hopeful faith (v. 31a).

[44:24]  ³⁷ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:24]  ³⁸ tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has “Who [was] with me?” The marginal reading (Qere) is “from with me,” i.e., “by myself.” See BDB 87 s.v. II אֵת 4.c.

[45:1]  ⁴³ tn Heb “anointed” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NCV “his appointed king.”

[45:1]  ⁴⁴ sn The “right hand” is a symbol of activity and strength; the Lord directs Cyrus’ activities and assures his success.

[45:1]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “and the belts of kings I will loosen”; NRSV “strip kings of their robes”; NIV “strip kings of their armor.”

[45:3]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “treasures of darkness” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “treasures from dark, secret places.”

[45:19]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “in a place of a land of darkness” (ASV similar); NASB “in some dark land.”

[45:19]  ⁵⁶ tn “In vain” translates תֹהוּ (tohu), used here as an adverbial accusative: “for nothing.”

[45:19]  ⁵⁷ tn The translation above assumes that צֶדֶק (tsedeq) and מֵישָׁרִים (mesharim) are adverbial accusatives (see 33:15). If they are taken as direct objects, indicating the content of what is spoken, one might translate, “who proclaims deliverance, who announces justice.”

[51:10]  ⁶¹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made…?”

[51:10]  ⁶² tn Heb “the redeemed” (so ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV “the ransomed.”

[51:12]  ⁶⁷ tc The plural suffix should probably be emended to the second masculine singular (which is used in v. 13). The final mem (ם) is probably dittographic; note the mem at the beginning of the next word.

[51:12]  ⁶⁸ tn Heb “Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, and of the son of man who [as] grass is given up?” The feminine singular forms should probably be emended to the masculine singular (see v. 13). They have probably been influenced by the construction אַתְּ־הִיא (’at-hi’) in vv. 9-10.

[56:6]  ⁷³ tn Heb “who attach themselves to.”

[56:6]  ⁷⁴ tn Heb “and take hold of”; NAB “hold to”; NIV, NRSV “hold fast.”

[58:12]  ⁷⁹ tn Heb “and they will build from you ancient ruins.”

[58:12]  ⁸⁰ tc The Hebrew text has “the one who restores paths for dwelling.” The idea of “paths to dwell in” is not a common notion. Some have proposed emending נְתִיבוֹת (nÿtivot, “paths”) to נְתִיצוֹת (nÿtitsot, “ruins”), a passive participle from נָתַץ (natats, “tear down”; see HALOT 732 s.v. *נְתִיצָה), because tighter parallelism with the preceding line is achieved. However, none of the textual sources support this emendation. The line may mean that paths must be repaired in order to dwell in the land.