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 48:14

48:14 All of you, gather together and listen!

Who among them ⁷  announced these things?

The Lord’s ally ⁸  will carry out his desire against Babylon;

he will exert his power against the Babylonians. ⁹ 

Isaiah 56:10

56:10 All their watchmen ¹⁰  are blind,

they are unaware. ¹¹ 

All of them are like mute dogs,

unable to bark.

They pant, ¹²  lie down,

and love to snooze.

Isaiah 57:8

57:8 Behind the door and doorpost you put your symbols. ¹³ 

Indeed, ¹⁴  you depart from me ¹⁵  and go up

and invite them into bed with you. ¹⁶ 

You purchase favors from them, ¹⁷ 

you love their bed,

and gaze longingly ¹⁸  on their genitals. ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 61:8

61:8 For I, the Lord, love justice

and hate robbery and sin.

I will repay them because of my faithfulness; ²⁰ 

I will make a permanent covenant with them.

Isaiah 66:10

66:10 Be happy for Jerusalem

and rejoice with her, all you who love her!

Share in her great joy,

all you who have mourned over her!

[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.

[48:14]  ⁷ sn This probably refers to the idol gods (see v. 5).

[48:14]  ⁸ tn Or “friend,” or “covenant partner.”

[48:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “and his arm [against] the Babylonians.”

[56:10]  ¹³ sn The “watchmen” are probably spiritual leaders, most likely prophets and priests, responsible for giving the people moral direction.

[56:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “they do not know”; KJV “they are all ignorant”; NIV “they all lack knowledge.”

[56:10]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text has הֹזִים (hozim), which appears to be derived from an otherwise unattested verbal root הָזָה (hazah). On the basis of alleged cognates, BDB 223 s.v. הָזָה offers the definition “dream, rave” while HALOT 243 s.v. הזה lists “pant.” In this case the dog metaphor of the preceding lines continues. The reference to dogs at the beginning of v. 11 favors the extension of the metaphor. The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חזים (“seers”) here. In this case the “watchmen” are directly identified as prophets and depicted as lazy.

[57:8]  ¹⁹ tn The precise referent of זִכָּרוֹן (zikkaron) in this context is uncertain. Elsewhere the word refers to a memorial or commemorative sign. Here it likely refers to some type of idolatrous symbol.

[57:8]  ²⁰ tn Or “for” (KJV, NRSV).

[57:8]  ²¹ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “from me you uncover.” The translation assumes an emendation of the Piel form גִּלִּית (gillit, “you uncover”), which has no object expressed here, to the Qal גָּלִית (galit, “you depart”).

[57:8]  ²² tn Heb “you make wide your bed” (NASB similar).

[57:8]  ²³ tc Heb “and you [second masculine singular, unless the form be taken as third feminine singular] cut for yourself [feminine singular] from them.” Most English translations retain the MT reading in spite of at least three problems. This section makes significant use of feminine verbs and noun suffixes because of the sexual imagery. The verb in question is likely a 2nd person masculine singular verb. Nevertheless, this kind of fluctuation in gender appears elsewhere (GKC 127-28 §47.k and 462 §144.p; cf. Jer 3:5; Ezek 22:4; 23:32; cf. J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 2:473, n. 13). Secondly, when this verbal root signifies establishing a covenant, it is normally accompanied by the noun for “covenant” (בְּרִית, bÿrit). Finally, this juxtaposition of the verb “to cut” and “covenant” normally is followed by the preposition “with,” while here it is “from.” The translation above assumes an emendation of וַתִּכְרָת (vatikhrah, “and you cut”) to וְכָרִית (vÿkharit, “and you purchase”) from the root כָּרָה (kharah); see HALOT 497 s.v. II כרה.

[57:8]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew text has simply חָזָה (khazah, “gaze”). The adverb “longingly” is interpretive (see the context, where sexual lust is depicted).

[57:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “[at] a hand you gaze.” The term יָד (yad, “hand”) probably has the sense of “power, manhood” here, where it is used, as in Ugaritic, as a euphemism for the genitals. See HALOT 387 s.v. I יָד.

[61:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in faithfulness”; NASB, NRSV, NLT “faithfully.”