Isaiah 1:4

1:4 ¹ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ² 

the people weighed down by evil deeds.

They are offspring who do wrong,

children ³  who do wicked things.

They have abandoned the Lord,

and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ⁴ 

They are alienated from him. ⁵ 

Isaiah 10:14

10:14 My hand discovered the wealth of the nations, as if it were in a nest,

as one gathers up abandoned eggs,

I gathered up the whole earth.

There was no wing flapping,

or open mouth chirping.” ⁶ 

Isaiah 42:16

42:16 I will lead the blind along an unfamiliar way; ⁷ 

I will guide them down paths they have never traveled. ⁸ 

I will turn the darkness in front of them into light,

and level out the rough ground. ⁹ 

This is what I will do for them.

I will not abandon them.

Isaiah 58:2

58:2 They seek me day after day;

they want to know my requirements, ¹⁰ 

like a nation that does what is right

and does not reject the law of their God.

They ask me for just decrees;

they want to be near God.

[1:4]  ¹ 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.

[1:4]  ² 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.

[1:4]  ³ 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).

[1:4]  ⁴ 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.

[1:4]  ⁵ 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.

[10:14]  ⁶ sn The Assyrians’ conquests were relatively unopposed, like robbing a bird’s nest of its eggs when the mother bird is absent.

[42:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a way they do not know” (so NASB); NRSV “a road they do not know.”

[42:16]  ¹² tn Heb “in paths they do not know I will make them walk.”

[42:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “and the rough ground into a level place.”

[58:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “ways” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV); NLT “my laws.”