Isaiah 2:1

The Future Glory of Jerusalem

2:1 Here is the message about Judah and Jerusalem ¹  that was revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz. ² 

Isaiah 5:1

A Love Song Gone Sour

5:1 I ³  will sing to my love –

a song to my lover about his vineyard. ⁴ 

My love had a vineyard

on a fertile hill. ⁵ 

Isaiah 7:5-6

7:5 Syria has plotted with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah to bring about your demise. ⁶  7:6 They say, “Let’s attack Judah, terrorize it, and conquer it. ⁷  Then we’ll set up the son of Tabeel as its king.” ⁸ 

Isaiah 8:2

8:2 Then I will summon ⁹  as my reliable witnesses Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah.”

Isaiah 13:18

13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ¹⁰ 

they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ¹¹ 

they will not ¹²  look with pity on children.

Isaiah 14:12

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

O shining one, son of the dawn! ¹³ 

You have been cut down to the ground,

O conqueror ¹⁴  of the nations! ¹⁵ 

Isaiah 21:10

21:10 O my downtrodden people, crushed like stalks on the threshing floor, ¹⁶ 

what I have heard

from the Lord who commands armies,

the God of Israel,

I have reported to you.

Isaiah 21:17

21:17 Just a handful of archers, the warriors of Kedar, will be left.” ¹⁷  Indeed, ¹⁸  the Lord God of Israel has spoken.

Isaiah 38:19

38:19 The living person, the living person, he gives you thanks,

as I do today.

A father tells his sons about your faithfulness.

Isaiah 39:7

39:7 ‘Some of your very own descendants whom you father ¹⁹  will be taken away and will be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

Isaiah 43:6

43:6 I will say to the north, ‘Hand them over!’

and to the south, ‘Don’t hold any back!’

Bring my sons from distant lands,

and my daughters from the remote regions of the earth,

Isaiah 49:15

49:15 Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ²⁰ 

Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ²¹ 

Even if mothers ²²  were to forget,

I could never forget you! ²³ 

Isaiah 49:20

49:20 Yet the children born during your time of bereavement

will say within your hearing,

‘This place is too cramped for us, ²⁴ 

make room for us so we can live here.’ ²⁵ 

Isaiah 52:14

52:14 (just as many were horrified by the sight of you) ²⁶ 

he was so disfigured ²⁷  he no longer looked like a man; ²⁸ 

Isaiah 60:10

60:10 Foreigners will rebuild your walls;

their kings will serve you.

Even though I struck you down in my anger,

I will restore my favor and have compassion on you. ²⁹ 

Isaiah 63:8

63:8 He said, “Certainly they will be my people,

children who are not disloyal.” ³⁰ 

He became their deliverer.

[2:1]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:1]  ² tn Heb “the word which Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.”

[5:1]  ³ tn It is uncertain who is speaking here. Possibly the prophet, taking the role of best man, composes a love song for his friend on the occasion of his wedding. If so, יָדִיד (yadid) should be translated “my friend.” The present translation assumes that Israel is singing to the Lord. The word דוֹד (dod, “lover”) used in the second line is frequently used by the woman in the Song of Solomon to describe her lover.

[5:1]  ⁴ sn Israel, viewing herself as the Lord’s lover, refers to herself as his vineyard. The metaphor has sexual connotations, for it pictures her capacity to satisfy his appetite and to produce children. See Song 8:12.

[5:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “on a horn, a son of oil.” Apparently קֶרֶן (qeren, “horn”) here refers to the horn-shaped peak of a hill (BDB 902 s.v.) or to a mountain spur, i.e., a ridge that extends laterally from a mountain (HALOT 1145 s.v. קֶרֶן; H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:180). The expression “son of oil” pictures this hill as one capable of producing olive trees. Isaiah’s choice of קֶרֶן, a rare word for hill, may have been driven by paronomastic concerns, i.e., because קֶרֶן sounds like כֶּרֶם (kerem, “vineyard”).

[7:5]  ⁵ tn This sentence opens with the conjunction יַעַן כִּי (ya’an ki, “because”). Consequently some take vv. 5-6 with what precedes, as another reason why Ahaz might be tempted to fear (see v. 4). However, it is more likely that vv. 5-6 give the basis for the Lord’s announcement in vv. 7-9. The conjunction יַעַן כִּי here introduces the basis for judgment (as in 3:16; 8:6; 29:13), which is then followed by the formal announcement of judgment.

[7:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “and let us break it open for ourselves”; NASB “make for ourselves a breach in its walls”; NLT “fight our way into.”

[7:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “and we will make the son of Tabeel king in its midst.”

[8:2]  ⁹ tn The form in the text is a cohortative with prefixed vav (ו), suggesting that the Lord is announcing what he will do. Some prefer to change the verb to an imperative, “and summon as witnesses,” a reading that finds support from the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a. Another option is to point the prefixed conjunction as a vav consecutive and translate, “So I summoned as witnesses.” In this case Isaiah is recalling his response to the Lord’s commission. In any case, the reference to witnesses suggests that the name and the child who bears it will function as signs.

[13:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.

[13:18]  ¹² tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”

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

[14:12]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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.

[21:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “My trampled one, and the son of the threshing floor.”

[21:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and the remnant of the number of the bow, the mighty men of the sons of Kedar, will be few.”

[21:17]  ¹⁸ tn Or “for” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[39:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Some of your sons, who go out from you, whom you father.”

[49:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “her suckling”; NASB “her nursing child.”

[49:15]  ²² tn Heb “so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb?”

[49:15]  ²³ tn Heb “these” (so ASV, NASB).

[49:15]  ²⁴ 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.

[49:20]  ²³ tn Heb “me.” The singular is collective.

[49:20]  ²⁴ tn Heb “draw near to me so I can dwell.”

[52:14]  ²⁵ tn Some witnesses read “him,” which is more consistent with the context, where the servant is spoken about, not addressed. However, it is possible that the Lord briefly addresses the servant here. The present translation assumes the latter view and places the phrase in parentheses.

[52:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “such was the disfigurement.” The noun מִשְׁחַת (mishkhat) occurs only here. It may be derived from the verbal root שָׁחַת (shakhat, “be ruined”; see BDB 1007-8 s.v. שָׁחַת). The construct form appears here before a prepositional phrase (cf. GKC 421 §130.a).

[52:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “from a man his appearance.” The preposition מִן (min) here carries the sense “away from,” i.e., “so as not to be.” See BDB 583 s.v.

[60:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “in my favor I will have compassion on you.”

[63:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “children [who] do not act deceitfully.” Here the verb refers to covenantal loyalty.