Isaiah 13:2

13:2 ¹ On a bare hill raise a signal flag,

shout to them,

wave your hand,

so they might enter the gates of the princes!

Isaiah 13:18

13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ² 

they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ³ 

they will not ⁴  look with pity on children.

Isaiah 13:22

13:22 Wild dogs will yip in her ruined fortresses,

jackals will yelp in the once-splendid palaces. ⁵ 

Her time is almost up, ⁶ 

her days will not be prolonged. ⁷ 

Isaiah 14:8

14:8 The evergreens also rejoice over your demise, ⁸ 

as do the cedars of Lebanon, singing, ⁹ 

‘Since you fell asleep, ¹⁰ 

no woodsman comes up to chop us down!’ ¹¹ 

Isaiah 14:12

14:12 Look how you have fallen from the sky,

O shining one, son of the dawn! ¹² 

You have been cut down to the ground,

O conqueror ¹³  of the nations! ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 14:23

14:23 “I will turn her into a place that is overrun with wild animals ¹⁵ 

and covered with pools of stagnant water.

I will get rid of her, just as one sweeps away dirt with a broom,” ¹⁶ 

says the Lord who commands armies.

Isaiah 21:1

The Lord Will Judge Babylon

21:1 Here is a message about the Desert by the Sea: ¹⁷ 

Like strong winds blowing in the south, ¹⁸ 

one invades from the desert,

from a land that is feared.

Isaiah 52:4

52:4 For this is what the sovereign Lord says:

“In the beginning my people went to live temporarily in Egypt;

Assyria oppressed them for no good reason.

[13:2]  ¹ sn The Lord is speaking here (see v. 3).

[13:18]  ² tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.

[13:18]  ³ tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”

[13:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.

[13:22]  ³ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “wild dogs will yip among his widows, and jackals in the palaces of pleasure.” The verb “yip” is supplied in the second line; it does double duty in the parallel structure. “His widows” makes little sense in this context; many emend the form (אַלְמנוֹתָיו, ’almnotayv) to the graphically similar אַרְמְנוֹתֶיהָ (’armÿnoteha, “her fortresses”), a reading that is assumed in the present translation. The use of “widows” may represent an intentional wordplay on “fortresses,” indicating that the fortresses are like dejected widows (J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 1:308, n. 1).

[13:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “near to come is her time.”

[13:22]  ⁵ sn When was the prophecy of Babylon’s fall fulfilled? Some argue that the prophecy was fulfilled in 689 b.c. when the Assyrians under Sennacherib sacked and desecrated the city (this event is alluded to in 23:13). This may have been an initial phase in the fulfillment of the prophecy, but the reference to the involvement of the Medes (v. 17) and the suggestion that Babylon’s demise will bring about the restoration of Israel (14:1-2) indicate that the fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians in 538 b.c. is the primary focus of the prophecy. (After all, the Lord did reveal to Isaiah that the Chaldeans [not the Assyrians] would someday conquer Jerusalem and take the people into exile [see 39:5-7].) However, the vivid picture of destruction in vv. 15-22 raises a problem. The Medes and Persians did not destroy the city; in fact Cyrus’ takeover of Babylon, though preceded by a military campaign, was relatively peaceful and even welcomed by some Babylonian religious officials. How then does one explain the prophecy’s description of the city’s violent fall? As noted above, the events of 689 b.c. and 538 b.c. may have been merged in the prophecy. However, it is more likely that the language is stylized and exaggerated for rhetorical effect. See Isa 34:11-15; Jer 50:39-40 (describing Babylon’s fall in 538 b.c.); 51:36-37 (describing Babylon’s fall in 538 b.c.); Zeph 2:13-15; the extra-biblical Sefire treaty curses; and Ashurbanipal’s description of the destruction of Elam in his royal annals. In other words, the events of 538 b.c. essentially, though not necessarily literally, fulfill the prophecy.

[14:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “concerning you.”

[14:8]  ⁵ tn The word “singing” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. Note that the personified trees speak in the second half of the verse.

[14:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “lay down” (in death); cf. NAB “laid to rest.”

[14:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “the [wood]cutter does not come up against us.”

[14:12]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text has הֵילֵל בֶּן־שָׁחַר (helel ben-shakhar, “Helel son of Shachar”), which is probably a name for the morning star (Venus) or the crescent moon. See HALOT 245 s.v. הֵילֵל.

[14:12]  ⁶ tn Some understand the verb to from חָלַשׁ (khalash, “to weaken”), but HALOT 324 s.v. II חלשׁ proposes a homonym here, meaning “to defeat.”

[14:12]  ⁷ sn In this line the taunting kings hint at the literal identity of the king, after likening him to the god Helel and a tree. The verb גָדַע (gada’, “cut down”) is used of chopping down trees in 9:10 and 10:33.

[14:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will make her into a possession of wild animals.” It is uncertain what type of animal קִפֹּד (qippod) refers to. Some suggest a rodent (cf. NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”), others an owl (cf, NAB, NIV, TEV).

[14:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction.”

[21:1]  ⁷ sn The phrase is quite cryptic, at least to the modern reader. Verse 9 seems to indicate that this message pertains to Babylon. Southern Mesopotamia was known as the Sealand in ancient times, because of its proximity to the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the reference to Babylon as a “desert” foreshadows the destruction that would overtake the city, making it like a desolate desert.

[21:1]  ⁸ tn Or “in the Negev” (NASB).