Isaiah 13:12

13:12 I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold,

and people more scarce ¹  than gold from Ophir.

Isaiah 13:7

13:7 For this reason all hands hang limp, ² 

every human heart loses its courage. ³ 

Isaiah 17:11

17:11 The day you begin cultivating, you do what you can to make it grow; ⁴ 

the morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make it sprout.

Yet the harvest will disappear ⁵  in the day of disease

and incurable pain.

Isaiah 33:8

33:8 Highways are empty, ⁶ 

there are no travelers. ⁷ 

Treaties are broken, ⁸ 

witnesses are despised, ⁹ 

human life is treated with disrespect. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 8:1

A Sign-Child is Born

8:1 The Lord told me, “Take a large tablet ¹¹  and inscribe these words ¹²  on it with an ordinary stylus: ¹³  ‘Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 24:6

24:6 So a treaty curse ¹⁵  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ¹⁶ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ¹⁷ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 51:7

51:7 Listen to me, you who know what is right,

you people who are aware of my law! ¹⁹ 

Don’t be afraid of the insults of men;

don’t be discouraged because of their abuse!

Isaiah 56:2

56:2 The people who do this will be blessed, ²⁰ 

the people who commit themselves to obedience, ²¹ 

who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,

who refrain from doing anything that is wrong. ²² 

[13:12]  ¹ tn The verb is supplied in the translation from the first line. The verb in the first line (“I will make scarce”) does double duty in the parallel structure of the verse.

[13:7]  ² tn Heb “drop”; KJV “be faint”; ASV “be feeble”; NAB “fall helpless.”

[13:7]  ³ tn Heb “melts” (so NAB).

[17:11]  ³ tn Heb “in the day of your planting you [?].” The precise meaning of the verb תְּשַׂגְשֵׂגִי (tÿsagsegi) is unclear. It is sometimes derived from שׂוּג/סוּג (sug, “to fence in”; see BDB 691 s.v. II סוּג). In this case one could translate “you build a protective fence.” However, the parallelism is tighter if one derives the form from שָׂגָא/שָׂגָה (saga’/sagah, “to grow”); see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:351, n. 4. For this verb, see BDB 960 s.v. שָׂגָא.

[17:11]  ⁴ tc The Hebrew text has, “a heap of harvest.” However, better sense is achieved if נֵד (ned, “heap”) is emended to a verb. Options include נַד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד [nadad, “flee, depart”]), נָדַד (Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד), נֹדֵד (noded, Qal active participle from נָדַד), and נָד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular, or participle masculine singular, from נוּד [nud, “wander, flutter”]). See BDB 626 s.v. נוּד and HALOT 672 s.v. I נדד. One could translate literally: “[the harvest] departs,” or “[the harvest] flies away.”

[33:8]  ⁴ tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”

[33:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”

[33:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”

[33:8]  ⁷ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “he despises cities.” The term עָרִים (’arim, “cities”) is probably a corruption of an original עֵדִים (’edim, “[legal] witnesses”), a reading that is preserved in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a. Confusion of dalet (ד) and resh (ר) is a well-attested scribal error.

[33:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”

[8:1]  ⁵ sn Probably made of metal, wood, or leather. See HALOT 193 s.v. גִּלָּיוֹן.

[8:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “write” (so KJV, ASV, NIV, NRSV).

[8:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “with the stylus of a man.” The significance of the qualifying genitive “a man” is uncertain. For various interpretations see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:219, n. 1.

[8:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “quickly, [the] plunder; it hurries, [the] loot.” The first word (מַהֵר, maher) is either a Piel imperative (“hurry [to]”) or infinitive (“hurrying,” or “quickly”). The third word (חָשׁ, khash) is either a third masculine singular perfect or a masculine singular participle, in either case from the root חוּשׁ (khush, “hurry”). Perhaps it is best to translate, “One hastens to the plunder, one hurries to the loot.” In this case מַהֵר is understood as an infinitive functioning as a verb, the subject of חוּשׁ is taken as indefinite, and the two nouns are understood as adverbial accusatives. As we discover in v. 3, this is the name of the son to be born to Isaiah through the prophetess.

[24:6]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[51:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “people (who have) my law in their heart.”

[56:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “blessed is the man who does this.”

[56:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “the son of mankind who takes hold of it.”

[56:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb and who keeps his hand from doing any evil.”