Isaiah 1:7

1:7 Your land is devastated,

your cities burned with fire.

Right before your eyes your crops

are being destroyed by foreign invaders. ¹ 

They leave behind devastation and destruction. ² 

Isaiah 61:5

61:5 ³ “Foreigners will take care of ⁴  your sheep;

foreigners will work in your fields and vineyards.

Isaiah 25:5

25:5 like heat ⁵  in a dry land,

you humble the boasting foreigners. ⁶ 

Just as the shadow of a cloud causes the heat to subside, ⁷ 

so he causes the song of tyrants to cease. ⁸ 

Isaiah 29:5

29:5 But the horde of invaders will be like fine dust,

the horde of tyrants ⁹  like chaff that is blown away.

It will happen suddenly, in a flash.

Isaiah 17:10

17:10 For you ignore ¹⁰  the God who rescues you;

you pay no attention to your strong protector. ¹¹ 

So this is what happens:

You cultivate beautiful plants

and plant exotic vines. ¹² 

Isaiah 25:2

25:2 Indeed, ¹³  you have made the city ¹⁴  into a heap of rubble,

the fortified town into a heap of ruins;

the fortress of foreigners ¹⁵  is no longer a city,

it will never be rebuilt.

Isaiah 28:21

28:21 For the Lord will rise up, as he did at Mount Perazim, ¹⁶ 

he will rouse himself, as he did in the Valley of Gibeon, ¹⁷ 

to accomplish his work,

his peculiar work,

to perform his task,

his strange task. ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 43:12

43:12 I decreed and delivered and proclaimed,

and there was no other god among you.

You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “that I am God.

Isaiah 1:4

1:4 ¹⁹ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ²⁰ 

the people weighed down by evil deeds.

They are offspring who do wrong,

children ²¹  who do wicked things.

They have abandoned the Lord,

and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ²² 

They are alienated from him. ²³ 

[1:7]  ¹ tn Heb “As for your land, before you foreigners are devouring it.”

[1:7]  ² tn Heb “and [there is] devastation like an overthrow by foreigners.” The comparative preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like, as”) has here the rhetorical nuance, “in every way like.” The point is that the land has all the earmarks of a destructive foreign invasion because that is what has indeed happened. One could paraphrase, “it is desolate as it can only be when foreigners destroy.” On this use of the preposition in general, see GKC 376 §118.x. Many also prefer to emend “foreigners” here to “Sodom,” though there is no external attestation for such a reading in the mss or ancient versions. Such an emendation finds support from the following context (vv. 9-10) and usage of the preceding noun מַהְפֵּכָה (mahpekhah, “overthrow”). In its five other uses, this noun is associated with the destruction of Sodom. If one accepts the emendation, then one might translate, “the devastation resembles the destruction of Sodom.”

[61:5]  ³ sn The Lord speaks in vv. 7-8 (and possibly v. 9). It is not clear where the servant’s speech (see vv. 1-3a) ends and the Lord’s begins. Perhaps the direct address to the people signals the beginning of the Lord’s speech.

[61:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “will stand [in position] and shepherd.”

[25:5]  ⁵ tn Or “drought” (TEV).

[25:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “the tumult of foreigners.”

[25:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “[like] heat in the shadow of a cloud.”

[25:5]  ⁸ tn The translation assumes that the verb יַעֲנֶה (ya’aneh) is a Hiphil imperfect from עָנָה (’anah, “be afflicted, humiliated”). In this context with “song” as object it means to “quiet” (see HALOT 853-54 s.v. II ענה). Some prefer to emend the form to the second person singular, so that it will agree with the second person verb earlier in the verse. BDB 776 s.v. III עָנָה Qal.1 understands the form as Qal, with “song” as subject, in which case one might translate “the song of tyrants will be silent.” An emendation of the form to a Niphal (יֵעָנֶה, ye’aneh) would yield the same translation.

[29:5]  ⁷ tn Or “violent men”; cf. NASB “the ruthless ones.”

[17:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “you have forgotten” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[17:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and the rocky cliff of your strength you do not remember.”

[17:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a vine, a strange one.” The substantival adjective זָר (zar) functions here as an appositional genitive. It could refer to a cultic plant of some type, associated with a pagan rite. But it is more likely that it refers to an exotic, or imported, type of vine, one that is foreign (i.e., “strange”) to Israel.

[25:2]  ¹¹ tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[25:2]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text has “you have made from the city.” The prefixed mem (מ) on עִיר (’ir, “city”) was probably originally an enclitic mem suffixed to the preceding verb. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:456, n. 3.

[25:2]  ¹³ tc Some with support from the LXX emend זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”) to זֵדִים (zedim, “the insolent”).

[28:21]  ¹³ sn This probably alludes to David’s victory over the Philistines at Baal Perazim. See 2 Sam 5:20.

[28:21]  ¹⁴ sn This probably alludes to the Lord’s victory over the Canaanites at Gibeon, during the days of Joshua. See Josh 10:10-11.

[28:21]  ¹⁵ sn God’s judgment of his own people is called “his peculiar work” and “his strange task,” because he must deal with them the way he treated their enemies in the past.

[1:4]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ 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.