Isaiah 13:10

13:10 Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations

no longer give out their light; ¹ 

the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,

and the moon does not shine. ² 

Isaiah 24:6

24:6 So a treaty curse ³  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ⁴ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ⁵ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ⁶ 

Isaiah 26:14

26:14 The dead do not come back to life,

the spirits of the dead do not rise. ⁷ 

That is because ⁸  you came in judgment ⁹  and destroyed them,

you wiped out all memory of them.

Isaiah 27:6

27:6 The time is coming when Jacob will take root; ¹⁰ 

Israel will blossom and grow branches.

The produce ¹¹  will fill the surface of the world. ¹² 

Isaiah 28:12

28:12 In the past he said to them, ¹³ 

“This is where security can be found.

Provide security for the one who is exhausted!

This is where rest can be found.” ¹⁴ 

But they refused to listen.

Isaiah 40:27

40:27 Why do you say, Jacob,

Why do you say, Israel,

“The Lord is not aware of what is happening to me, ¹⁵ 

My God is not concerned with my vindication”? ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 45:7

45:7 I am ¹⁷  the one who forms light

and creates darkness; ¹⁸ 

the one who brings about peace

and creates calamity. ¹⁹ 

I am the Lord, who accomplishes all these things.

Isaiah 50:8

50:8 The one who vindicates me is close by.

Who dares to argue with me? Let us confront each other! ²⁰ 

Who is my accuser? ²¹  Let him challenge me! ²² 

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. ²³ 

[13:10]  ¹ tn Heb “do not flash forth their light.”

[13:10]  ² tn Heb “does not shed forth its light.”

[24:6]  ³ sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ⁴ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ⁵ tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[26:14]  ⁵ sn In light of what is said in verse 14b, the “dead” here may be the “masters” mentioned in verse 13.

[26:14]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term לָכֵן (lakhen) normally indicates a cause-effect relationship between what precedes and follows and is translated, “therefore.” Here, however, it infers the cause from the effect and brings out what is implicit in the previous statement. See BDB 487 s.v.

[26:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “visited [for harm]” (cf. KJV, ASV); NAB, NRSV “you have punished.”

[27:6]  ⁷ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “the coming ones, let Jacob take root.” הַבָּאִים (habba’im, “the coming ones”) should probably be emended to יָמִים בָאִים (yamim va’im, “days [are] coming”) or בְּיָמִים הַבָּאִים (biyamim habba’im, “in the coming days”).

[27:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “fruit” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[27:6]  ⁹ sn This apparently refers to a future population explosion. See 26:18.

[28:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “who said to them.”

[28:12]  ¹⁰ sn This message encapsulates the Lord’s invitation to his people to find security in his protection and blessing.

[40:27]  ¹¹ tn Heb “my way is hidden from the Lord” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[40:27]  ¹² tn Heb “and from my God my justice passes away”; NRSV “my right is disregarded by my God.”

[45:7]  ¹³ tn The words “I am” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text the participle at the beginning of v. 7 stands in apposition to “the Lord” in v. 6.

[45:7]  ¹⁴ tn On the surface v. 7a appears to describe God’s sovereign control over the cycle of day and night, but the following statement suggests that “light” and “darkness” symbolize “deliverance” and “judgment.”

[45:7]  ¹⁵ sn This verses affirms that God is ultimately sovereign over his world, including mankind and nations. In accordance with his sovereign will, he can cause wars to cease and peace to predominate (as he was about to do for his exiled people through Cyrus), or he can bring disaster and judgment on nations (as he was about to do to Babylon through Cyrus).

[50:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Let us stand together!”

[50:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Who is the master of my judgment?”

[50:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “let him approach me”; NAB, NIV “Let him confront me.”

[53:6]  ¹⁷ 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.