Isaiah 11:15-16

11:15 The Lord will divide ¹  the gulf ²  of the Egyptian Sea; ³ 

he will wave his hand over the Euphrates River ⁴  and send a strong wind, ⁵ 

he will turn it into seven dried-up streams, ⁶ 

and enable them to walk across in their sandals.

11:16 There will be a highway leading out of Assyria

for the remnant of his people, ⁷ 

just as there was for Israel,

when ⁸  they went up from the land of Egypt.

Isaiah 43:19

43:19 “Look, I am about to do something new.

Now it begins to happen! ⁹  Do you not recognize ¹⁰  it?

Yes, I will make a road in the desert

and paths ¹¹  in the wilderness.

Isaiah 49:11

49:11 I will make all my mountains into a road;

I will construct my roadways.”

Psalms 68:4

68:4 Sing to God! Sing praises to his name!

Exalt the one who rides on the clouds! ¹² 

For the Lord is his name! ¹³ 

Rejoice before him!

[11:15]  ¹ tn The verb is usually understood as “put under the ban, destroy,” or emended to חָרָב (kharav, “dry up”). However, HALOT 354 s.v. II חרם proposes a homonymic root meaning “divide.”

[11:15]  ² tn Heb “tongue” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[11:15]  ³ sn That is, the Red Sea.

[11:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “the river”; capitalized in some English versions (e.g., ASV, NASB, NRSV) as a reference to the Euphrates River.

[11:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “with the [?] of his wind” [or “breath”]. The Hebrew term עַיָם (’ayam) occurs only here. Some attempt to relate the word to an Arabic root and translate, “scorching [or “hot”] wind.” This interpretation fits especially well if one reads “dry up” in the previous line. Others prefer to emend the form to עֹצֶם (’otsem, “strong”). See HALOT 817 s.v. עֲצַם.

[11:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “seven streams.” The Hebrew term נַחַל (nakhal, “stream”) refers to a wadi, or seasonal stream, which runs during the rainy season, but is otherwise dry. The context (see v. 15b) here favors the translation, “dried up streams.” The number seven suggests totality and completeness. Here it indicates that God’s provision for escape will be thorough and more than capable of accommodating the returning exiles.

[11:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “and there will be a highway for the remnant of his people who remain, from Assyria.”

[11:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the day” (so KJV).

[43:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “sprouts up”; NASB “will spring forth.”

[43:19]  ¹⁰ tn Or “know” (KJV, ASV); NASB “be aware of”; NAB, NIV, NRSV “perceive.”

[43:19]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew texts has “streams,” probably under the influence of v. 20. The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has נתיבות (“paths”).

[68:4]  ¹² tn Traditionally the Hebrew term עֲרָבוֹת (’aravot) is taken as “steppe-lands” (often rendered “deserts”), but here the form is probably a homonym meaning “clouds.” Verse 33, which depicts God as the one who “rides on the sky” strongly favors this (see as well Deut 33:26), as does the reference in v. 9 to God as the source of rain. The term עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “cloud”) is cognate with Akkadian urpatu/erpetu and with Ugaritic ’rpt. The phrase rkb ’rpt (“one who rides on the clouds”) appears in Ugaritic mythological texts as an epithet of the storm god Baal. The nonphonemic interchange of the bilabial consonants b and p is attested elsewhere in roots common to Hebrew and Ugaritic, though the phenomenon is relatively rare.

[68:4]  ¹³ tc Heb “in the Lord his name.” If the MT is retained, the preposition -בְ (bet) is introducing the predicate (the so-called bet of identity), “the Lord is his name.” However, some prefer to emend the text to כִּי יָהּ שְׁמוֹ (ki yah shÿmo, “for Yah is his name”). This emendation, reflected in the present translation, assumes a confusion of bet (ב) and kaf (כ) and haplography of yod (י).