Isaiah 1:5

1:5 ¹ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ² 

Your head has a massive wound, ³ 

your whole body is weak. ⁴ 

Isaiah 2:12-13

2:12 Indeed, the Lord who commands armies has planned a day of judgment, ⁵ 

for ⁶  all the high and mighty,

for all who are proud – they will be humiliated;

2:13 for all the cedars of Lebanon,

that are so high and mighty,

for all the oaks of Bashan; ⁷ 

Isaiah 13:7

13:7 For this reason all hands hang limp, ⁸ 

every human heart loses its courage. ⁹ 

Isaiah 14:26

14:26 This is the plan I have devised for the whole earth;

my hand is ready to strike all the nations.” ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 22:3

22:3 ¹¹ All your leaders ran away together –

they fled to a distant place;

all your refugees ¹²  were captured together –

they were captured without a single arrow being shot. ¹³ 

Isaiah 23:9

23:9 The Lord who commands armies planned it –

to dishonor the pride that comes from all her beauty, ¹⁴ 

to humiliate all the dignitaries of the earth.

Isaiah 40:4

40:4 Every valley must be elevated,

and every mountain and hill leveled.

The rough terrain will become a level plain,

the rugged landscape a wide valley.

Isaiah 51:18

51:18 There was no one to lead her

among all the children she bore;

there was no one to take her by the hand

among all the children she raised.

Isaiah 53:6

53:6 All of us had wandered off like sheep;

each of us had strayed off on his own path,

but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. ¹⁵ 

[1:5]  ¹ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ³ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[2:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “indeed [or “for”] the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] has a day.”

[2:12]  ⁶ tn Or “against” (NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[2:13]  ⁹ sn The cedars of Lebanon and oaks of Bashan were well-known for their size and prominence. They make apt symbols here for powerful men who think of themselves as prominent and secure.

[13:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “drop”; KJV “be faint”; ASV “be feeble”; NAB “fall helpless.”

[13:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “melts” (so NAB).

[14:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and this is the hand that is outstretched over all the nations.”

[22:3]  ²¹ tn Verse 3 reads literally, “All your leaders ran away, apart from a bow they were captured, all your found ones were captured together, to a distant place they fled.” J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:403, n. 3) suggests that the lines of the verse are arranged chiastically; lines 1 and 4 go together, while lines 2 and 3 are parallel. To translate the lines in the order they appear in the Hebrew text is misleading to the English reader, who is likely unfamiliar with, or at least insensitive to, chiastic parallelism. Consequently, the translation above arranges the lines as follows: line 1 (Hebrew) = line 1 (in translation); line 2 (Hebrew) = line 4 (in translation); line 3 (Hebrew) = line 3 (in translation); line 4 (Hebrew) = line 2 (in translation).

[22:3]  ²² tn Heb “all your found ones.” To achieve tighter parallelism (see “your leaders”) some prefer to emend the form to אַמִּיצַיִךְ (’ammitsayikh, “your strong ones”) or to נֶאֱמָצַיִךְ (ne’ematsayikh, “your strengthened ones”).

[22:3]  ²³ tn Heb “apart from [i.e., without] a bow they were captured”; cf. NAB, NRSV “without the use of a bow.”

[23:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the pride of all the beauty.”

[53:6]  ²⁹ tn Elsewhere the Hiphil of פָגַע (paga’) means “to intercede verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25) or “to intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16), but neither nuance fits here. Apparently here the Hiphil is the causative of the normal Qal meaning, “encounter, meet, touch.” The Qal sometimes refers to a hostile encounter or attack; when used in this way the object is normally introduced by the preposition -בְּ (bet, see Josh 2:16; Judg 8:21; 15:12, etc.). Here the causative Hiphil has a double object – the Lord makes “sin” attack “him” (note that the object attacked is introduced by the preposition -בְּ. In their sin the group was like sheep who had wandered from God’s path. They were vulnerable to attack; the guilt of their sin was ready to attack and destroy them. But then the servant stepped in and took the full force of the attack.