Isaiah 13:18

13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ¹ 

they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ² 

they will not ³  look with pity on children.

Isaiah 49:15

49:15 Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ⁴ 

Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ⁵ 

Even if mothers ⁶  were to forget,

I could never forget you! ⁷ 

Isaiah 44:2

44:2 This is what the Lord, the one who made you, says –

the one who formed you in the womb and helps you:

“Don’t be afraid, my servant Jacob,

Jeshurun, ⁸  whom I have chosen!

Isaiah 44:24

The Lord Empowers Cyrus

44:24 This is what the Lord, your protector, ⁹  says,

the one who formed you in the womb:

“I am the Lord, who made everything,

who alone stretched out the sky,

who fashioned the earth all by myself, ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 46:3

46:3 “Listen to me, O family of Jacob, ¹¹ 

all you who are left from the family of Israel, ¹² 

you who have been carried from birth, ¹³ 

you who have been supported from the time you left the womb. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 49:1

Ideal Israel Delivers the Exiles

49:1 Listen to me, you coastlands! ¹⁵ 

Pay attention, you people who live far away!

The Lord summoned me from birth; ¹⁶ 

he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world. ¹⁷ 

Isaiah 48:8

48:8 You did not hear,

you do not know,

you were not told beforehand. ¹⁸ 

For I know that you are very deceitful; ¹⁹ 

you were labeled ²⁰  a rebel from birth.

Isaiah 49:5

49:5 So now the Lord says,

the one who formed me from birth ²¹  to be his servant –

he did this ²²  to restore Jacob to himself,

so that Israel might be gathered to him;

and I will be honored ²³  in the Lord’s sight,

for my God is my source of strength ²⁴  –

[13:18]  ¹ tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.

[13:18]  ² tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”

[13:18]  ³ tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.

[49:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “her suckling”; NASB “her nursing child.”

[49:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb?”

[49:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “these” (so ASV, NASB).

[49:15]  ⁷ sn The argument of v. 15 seems to develop as follows: The Lord has an innate attachment to Zion, just like a mother does for her infant child. But even if mothers were to suddenly abandon their children, the Lord would never forsake Zion. In other words, the Lord’s attachment to Zion is like a mother’s attachment to her infant child, but even stronger.

[44:2]  ⁷ sn Jeshurun is a poetic name for Israel; it occurs here and in Deut 32:15; 33:5, 26.

[44:24]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:24]  ¹¹ tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has “Who [was] with me?” The marginal reading (Qere) is “from with me,” i.e., “by myself.” See BDB 87 s.v. II אֵת 4.c.

[46:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “house of Jacob”; TEV “descendants of Jacob.”

[46:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and all the remnant of the house of Israel.”

[46:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from the womb” (so NRSV); KJV “from the belly”; NAB “from your infancy.”

[46:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “who have been lifted up from the womb.”

[49:1]  ¹⁶ tn Or “islands” (NASB, NIV); NLT “in far-off lands.”

[49:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “called me from the womb.”

[49:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “from the inner parts of my mother he mentioned my name.”

[48:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “beforehand your ear did not open.”

[48:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “deceiving, you deceive.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[48:8]  ²¹ tn Or “called” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[49:5]  ²² tn Heb “from the womb” (so KJV, NASB).

[49:5]  ²³ tn The words “he did this” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text the infinitive construct of purpose is subordinated to the previous statement.

[49:5]  ²⁴ tn The vav (ו) + imperfect is translated here as a result clause; one might interpret it as indicating purpose, “and so I might be honored.”

[49:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and my God is [perhaps, “having been”] my strength.” The disjunctive structure (vav [ו] + subject + verb) is interpreted here as indicating a causal circumstantial clause.