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 11:14

11:14 They will swoop down ⁶  on the Philistine hills to the west; ⁷ 

together they will loot the people of the east.

They will take over Edom and Moab, ⁸ 

and the Ammonites will be their subjects.

Isaiah 23:4

23:4 Be ashamed, O Sidon,

for the sea ⁹  says this, O fortress of the sea:

“I have not gone into labor

or given birth;

I have not raised young men

or brought up young women.” ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 56:3

56:3 No foreigner who becomes a follower of ¹¹  the Lord should say,

‘The Lord will certainly ¹²  exclude me from his people.’

The eunuch should not say,

‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’”

Isaiah 56:6

56:6 As for foreigners who become followers of ¹³  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 ¹⁴  my covenant –

[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.

[11:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “fly.” Ephraim/Judah are compared to a bird of prey.

[11:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “on the shoulder of Philistia toward the sea.” This refers to the slopes of the hill country west of Judah. See HALOT 506 s.v. כָּתֵף.

[11:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “Edom and Moab [will be the place of] the outstretching of their hand,” i.e., included in their area of jurisdiction (see HALOT 648 s.v. ח(וֹ)מִשְׁלֹ).

[23:4]  ¹¹ tn J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:430-31) sees here a reference to Yam, the Canaanite god of the sea. He interprets the phrase מָעוֹז הַיָּם (ma’oz hayyam, “fortress of the sea”) as a title of Yam, translating “Mighty One of the Sea.” A more traditional view is that the phrase refers to Sidon.

[23:4]  ¹² tn Or “virgins” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB).

[56:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “who attaches himself to.”

[56:3]  ¹⁷ tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[56:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “who attach themselves to.”

[56:6]  ²² tn Heb “and take hold of”; NAB “hold to”; NIV, NRSV “hold fast.”