Discovery BoxIsaiah 17:10-14
Context17:10 For you ignore 1 the God who rescues you;
you pay no attention to your strong protector. 2
So this is what happens:
You cultivate beautiful plants
and plant exotic vines. 3
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.
17:12 The many nations massing together are as good as dead, 6
those who make a commotion as loud as the roaring of the sea’s waves. 7
The people making such an uproar are as good as dead, 8
those who make an uproar as loud as the roaring of powerful waves. 9
17:13 Though these people make an uproar as loud as the roaring of powerful waves, 10
when he shouts at 11 them, they will flee to a distant land,
driven before the wind like dead weeds on the hills,
or like dead thistles 12 before a strong gale.
17:14 In the evening there is sudden terror; 13
by morning they vanish. 14
This is the fate of those who try to plunder us,
the destiny of those who try to loot us! 15
[17:10] 1 tn Heb “you have forgotten” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).
[17:10] 2 tn Heb “and the rocky cliff of your strength you do not remember.”
[17:10] 3 tn Heb “a vine, a strange one.” The substantival adjective זָר (zar) functions here as an appositional genitive. It could refer to a cultic plant of some type, associated with a pagan rite. But it is more likely that it refers to an exotic, or imported, type of vine, one that is foreign (i.e., “strange”) to Israel.
[17:11] 4 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] 5 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.”
[17:12] 6 tn Heb “Woe [to] the massing of the many nations.” The word הוֹי (hoy) could be translated as a simple interjection here (“ah!”), but since the following verses announce the demise of these nations, it is preferable to take הוֹי as a funeral cry. See the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
[17:12] 7 tn Heb “like the loud noise of the seas, they make a loud noise.”
[17:12] 8 tn Heb “the uproar of the peoples.” The term הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) does double duty in the parallel structure of the verse; the words “are as good as dead” are supplied in the translation to reflect this.
[17:12] 9 tn Heb “like the uproar of mighty waters they are in an uproar.”
[17:13] 10 tn Heb “the peoples are in an uproar like the uproar of mighty waters.”
[17:13] 11 tn Or “rebukes.” The verb and related noun are used in theophanies of God’s battle cry which terrifies his enemies. See, for example, Pss 18:15; 76:7; 106:9; Isa 50:2; Nah 1:4, and A. Caquot, TDOT 3:49-53.
[17:13] 12 tn Or perhaps “tumbleweed” (NAB, NIV, CEV); KJV “like a rolling thing.”
[17:14] 13 tn Heb “at the time of evening, look, sudden terror.”
[17:14] 14 tn Heb “before morning he is not.”
[17:14] 15 tn Heb “this is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who loot us.”
