Isaiah 13:8-13

13:8 They panic –

cramps and pain seize hold of them

like those of a woman who is straining to give birth.

They look at one another in astonishment;

their faces are flushed red. ¹ 

13:9 Look, the Lord’s day of judgment ²  is coming;

it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, ³ 

destroying ⁴  the earth ⁵ 

and annihilating its sinners.

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

no longer give out their light; ⁶ 

the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,

and the moon does not shine. ⁷ 

13:11 ⁸ I will punish the world for its evil, ⁹ 

and wicked people for their sin.

I will put an end to the pride of the insolent,

I will bring down the arrogance of tyrants. ¹⁰ 

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

and people more scarce ¹¹  than gold from Ophir.

13:13 So I will shake the heavens, ¹² 

and the earth will shake loose from its foundation, ¹³ 

because of the fury of the Lord who commands armies,

in the day he vents his raging anger. ¹⁴ 

[13:8]  ¹ tn Heb “their faces are faces of flames.” Their faces are flushed with fear and embarrassment.

[13:9]  ² tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[13:9]  ³ tn Heb “[with] cruelty, and fury, and rage of anger.” Three synonyms for “anger” are piled up at the end of the line to emphasize the extraordinary degree of divine anger that will be exhibited in this judgment.

[13:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “making desolate.”

[13:9]  ⁵ tn Or “land” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT).

[13:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “do not flash forth their light.”

[13:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “does not shed forth its light.”

[13:11]  ⁸ sn The Lord is definitely speaking (again?) at this point. See the note at v. 4.

[13:11]  ⁹ tn Or “I will bring disaster on the world.” Hebrew רָעָה (ra’ah) could refer to the judgment (i.e., disaster, calamity) or to the evil that prompts it. The structure of the parallel line favors the latter interpretation.

[13:11]  ¹⁰ tn Or perhaps, “the violent”; cf. NASB, NIV “the ruthless.”

[13:12]  ¹¹ 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.

[13:13]  ¹² tn Or “the sky.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[13:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “from its place” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV).

[13:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and in the day of the raging of his anger.”