Isaiah 11:14

11:14 They will swoop down ¹  on the Philistine hills to the west; ² 

together they will loot the people of the east.

They will take over Edom and Moab, ³ 

and the Ammonites will be their subjects.

Isaiah 37:26

37:26 ⁴ Certainly you must have heard! ⁵ 

Long ago I worked it out,

in ancient times I planned ⁶  it,

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ⁷ 

Isaiah 51:9

51:9 Wake up! Wake up!

Clothe yourself with strength, O arm of the Lord! ⁸ 

Wake up as in former times, as in antiquity!

Did you not smash ⁹  the Proud One? ¹⁰ 

Did you not ¹¹  wound the sea monster? ¹² 

[11:14]  ¹ tn Heb “fly.” Ephraim/Judah are compared to a bird of prey.

[11:14]  ² 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]  ³ 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).

[37:26]  ⁴ tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

[37:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.

[37:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “formed” (so KJV, ASV).

[37:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.

[51:9]  ⁷ tn The arm of the Lord is a symbol of divine military power. Here it is personified and told to arouse itself from sleep and prepare for action.

[51:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “Are you not the one who smashed?” The feminine singular forms agree grammatically with the feminine noun “arm.” The Hebrew text has ַהמַּחְצֶבֶת (hammakhtsevet), from the verbal root חָצַב (khatsav, “hew, chop”). The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has, probably correctly, המחצת, from the verbal root מָחַץ (makhats, “smash”) which is used in Job 26:12 to describe God’s victory over “the Proud One.”

[51:9]  ⁹ tn This title (רַהַב, rahav, “proud one”) is sometimes translated as a proper name: “Rahab” (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV). It is used here of a symbolic sea monster, known elsewhere in the Bible and in Ugaritic myth as Leviathan. This sea creature symbolizes the forces of chaos that seek to destroy the created order. In the Bible “the Proud One” opposes God’s creative work, but is defeated (see Job 26:12; Ps 89:10). Here the title refers to Pharaoh’s Egyptian army that opposed Israel at the Red Sea (see v. 10, and note also Isa 30:7 and Ps 87:4, where the title is used of Egypt).

[51:9]  ¹⁰ tn The words “did you not” are understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line). The rhetorical questions here and in v. 10 expect the answer, “Yes, you certainly did!”

[51:9]  ¹¹ tn Hebrew תַּנִּין (tannin) is another name for the symbolic sea monster. See the note at 27:1. In this context the sea creature represents Egypt. See the note on the title “Proud One” earlier in this verse.