Isaiah 1:6

1:6 From the soles of your feet to your head,

there is no spot that is unharmed. ¹ 

There are only bruises, cuts,

and open wounds.

They have not been cleansed ²  or bandaged,

nor have they been treated ³  with olive oil. ⁴ 

Isaiah 3:7

3:7 At that time ⁵  the brother will shout, ⁶ 

‘I am no doctor, ⁷ 

I have no food or coat in my house;

don’t make me a leader of the people!’”

Isaiah 5:27

5:27 None tire or stumble,

they don’t stop to nap or sleep.

They don’t loosen their belts,

or unstrap their sandals to rest. ⁸ 

Isaiah 33:19

33:19 You will no longer see a defiant ⁹  people

whose language you do not comprehend, ¹⁰ 

whose derisive speech you do not understand. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 34:10

34:10 Night and day it will burn; ¹² 

its smoke will ascend continually.

Generation after generation it will be a wasteland

and no one will ever pass through it again.

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. ¹³ 

He does not get tired or weary;

there is no limit to his wisdom. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 44:6

The Absurdity of Idolatry

44:6 This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says,

their protector, ¹⁵  the Lord who commands armies:

“I am the first and I am the last,

there is no God but me.

Isaiah 45:9

The Lord Gives a Warning

45:9 One who argues with his creator is in grave danger, ¹⁶ 

one who is like a mere ¹⁷  shard among the other shards on the ground!

The clay should not say to the potter, ¹⁸ 

“What in the world ¹⁹  are you doing?

Your work lacks skill!” ²⁰ 

Isaiah 47:10

47:10 You were complacent in your evil deeds; ²¹ 

you thought, ²²  ‘No one sees me.’

Your self-professed ²³  wisdom and knowledge lead you astray,

when you say, ‘I am unique! No one can compare to me!’ ²⁴ 

Isaiah 47:14

47:14 Look, they are like straw,

which the fire burns up;

they cannot rescue themselves

from the heat ²⁵  of the flames.

There are no coals to warm them,

no firelight to enjoy. ²⁶ 

Isaiah 59:4

59:4 No one is concerned about justice; ²⁷ 

no one sets forth his case truthfully.

They depend on false words ²⁸  and tell lies;

they conceive of oppression ²⁹ 

and give birth to sin.

Isaiah 59:15

59:15 Honesty has disappeared;

the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed.

The Lord watches and is displeased, ³⁰ 

for there is no justice.

Isaiah 63:3

63:3 “I have stomped grapes in the winepress all by myself;

no one from the nations joined me.

I stomped on them ³¹  in my anger;

I trampled them down in my rage.

Their juice splashed on my garments,

and stained ³²  all my clothes.

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “there is not in it health”; NAB “there is no sound spot.”

[1:6]  ² tn Heb “pressed out.”

[1:6]  ³ tn Heb “softened” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “soothed.”

[1:6]  ⁴ sn This verse describes wounds like those one would receive in battle. These wounds are comprehensive and without remedy.

[3:7]  ⁵ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[3:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “he will lift up [his voice].”

[3:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “wrapper [of wounds]”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “healer.”

[5:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the belt on his waist is not opened, and the thong of his sandals is not torn in two.”

[33:19]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew form נוֹעָז (no’az) is a Niphal participle derived from יָעַז (ya’az, an otherwise unattested verb) or from עָזָז (’azaz, “be strong,” unattested elsewhere in the Niphal). Some prefer to emend the form to לוֹעֵז (lo’ez) which occurs in Ps 114:1 with the meaning “speak a foreign language.” See HALOT 809 s.v. עזז, 533 s.v. לעז. In this case, one might translate “people who speak a foreign language.”

[33:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a people too deep of lip to hear.” The phrase “deep of lip” must be an idiom meaning “lips that speak words that are unfathomable [i.e., incomprehensible].”

[33:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “derision of tongue there is no understanding.” The Niphal of לָעַג (la’ag) occurs only here. In the Qal and Hiphil the verb means “to deride, mock.” A related noun is used in 28:11.

[34:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “it will not be extinguished.”

[40:28]  ²¹ 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]  ²² 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).

[44:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “his kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[45:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who argues with the one who formed him.”

[45:9]  ³⁰ tn The words “one who is like a mere” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and clarification.

[45:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “Should the clay say to the one who forms it?” The rhetorical question anticipates a reply, “Of course not!”

[45:9]  ³² tn The words “in the world” are supplied in the translation to approximate in English idiom the force of the sarcastic question.

[45:9]  ³³ tn Heb “your work, there are no hands for it,” i.e., “your work looks like something made by a person who has no hands.”

[47:10]  ³³ tn Heb “you trusted in your evil”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “wickedness.”

[47:10]  ³⁴ tn Or “said”; NAB “said to yourself”’ NASB “said in your heart.”

[47:10]  ³⁵ tn The words “self-professed” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[47:10]  ³⁶ tn See the note at v. 8.

[47:14]  ³⁷ tn Heb “hand,” here a metaphor for the strength or power of the flames.

[47:14]  ³⁸ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “there is no coal [for?] their food, light to sit before it.” Some emend לַחְמָם (lakhmam, “their food”) to לְחֻמָּם (lÿkhummam, “to warm them”; see HALOT 328 s.v. חמם). This statement may allude to Isa 44:16, where idolaters are depicted warming themselves over a fire made from wood, part of which was used to form idols. The fire of divine judgment will be no such campfire; its flames will devour and destroy.

[59:4]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “no one pleads with justice.”

[59:4]  ⁴² tn Heb “nothing”; NAB “emptiness.”

[59:4]  ⁴³ tn Or “trouble” (NIV), or “harm.”

[59:15]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “and it is displeasing in his eyes.”

[63:3]  ⁴⁹ sn Nations, headed by Edom, are the object of the Lord’s anger (see v. 6). He compares military slaughter to stomping on grapes in a vat.

[63:3]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “and I stained.” For discussion of the difficult verb form, see HALOT 170 s.v. II גאל. Perhaps the form is mixed, combining the first person forms of the imperfect (note the alef prefix) and perfect (note the תי- ending).