Isaiah 2:20

2:20 At that time ¹  men will throw

their silver and gold idols,

which they made for themselves to worship, ² 

into the caves where rodents and bats live, ³ 

Isaiah 6:11

6:11 I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said,

“Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated,

and houses are uninhabited,

and the land is ruined and devastated,

Isaiah 31:3

31:3 The Egyptians are mere humans, not God;

their horses are made of flesh, not spirit.

The Lord will strike with ⁴  his hand;

the one who helps will stumble

and the one being helped will fall.

Together they will perish. ⁵ 

Isaiah 31:8

31:8 Assyria will fall by a sword, but not one human-made; ⁶ 

a sword not made by humankind will destroy them. ⁷ 

They will run away from this sword ⁸ 

and their young men will be forced to do hard labor.

Isaiah 37:19

37:19 They have burned the gods of the nations, ⁹  for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 38:11

38:11 “I thought,

‘I will no longer see the Lord ¹¹  in the land of the living,

I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world. ¹² 

Isaiah 44:11

44:11 Look, all his associates ¹³  will be put to shame;

the craftsmen are mere humans. ¹⁴ 

Let them all assemble and take their stand!

They will panic and be put to shame.

Isaiah 44:13

44:13 A carpenter takes measurements; ¹⁵ 

he marks out an outline of its form; ¹⁶ 

he scrapes ¹⁷  it with chisels,

and marks it with a compass.

He patterns it after the human form, ¹⁸ 

like a well-built human being,

and puts it in a shrine. ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 44:15

44:15 A man uses it to make a fire; ²⁰ 

he takes some of it and warms himself.

Yes, he kindles a fire and bakes bread.

Then he makes a god and worships it;

he makes an idol and bows down to it. ²¹ 

Isaiah 45:12

45:12 I made the earth,

I created the people who live ²²  on it.

It was me – my hands ²³  stretched out the sky, ²⁴ 

I give orders to all the heavenly lights. ²⁵ 

Isaiah 51:12

51:12 “I, I am the one who consoles you. ²⁶ 

Why are you afraid of mortal men,

of mere human beings who are as short-lived as grass? ²⁷ 

Isaiah 56:2

56:2 The people who do this will be blessed, ²⁸ 

the people who commit themselves to obedience, ²⁹ 

who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,

who refrain from doing anything that is wrong. ³⁰ 

[2:20]  ¹ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[2:20]  ² tn Or “bow down to.”

[2:20]  ³ tn Heb “to the shrews and to the bats.” On the meaning of חֲפַרְפָּרָה (khafarparah, “shrew”), see HALOT 341 s.v. חֲפַרְפָּרָה. The BHS text as it stands (לַחְפֹּר פֵּרוֹת, perot lakhpor), makes no sense. Based on Theodotion’s transliteration and a similar reading in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, most scholars suggest that the MT mistakenly divided a noun (a hapax legomenon) that should be translated “moles,” “shrews,” or “rodents.”

[31:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “will extend”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV “stretch out.”

[31:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “together all of them will come to an end.”

[31:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “Assyria will fall by a sword, not of a man.”

[31:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “and a sword not of humankind will devour him.”

[31:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “he will flee for himself from before a sword.”

[37:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and they put their gods in the fire.”

[37:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “so they destroyed them” (NASB similar).

[38:11]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew text has יָהּ יָהּ (yah yah, the abbreviated form of יְהוָה [yÿhvah] repeated), but this is probably a corruption of יְהוָה.

[38:11]  ¹⁴ tc The Hebrew text has חָדֶל (khadel), which appears to be derived from a verbal root meaning “to cease, refrain.” But the form has probably suffered an error of transmission; the original form (attested in a few medieval Hebrew mss) was likely חֶלֶד (kheled, “world”).

[44:11]  ¹⁶ tn The pronoun “his” probably refers to the one who forms/casts an idol (v. 10), in which case it refers to the craftsman’s associates in the idol-manufacturing guild.

[44:11]  ¹⁷ sn The point seems to be this: If the idols are the mere products of human hands, then those who trust in them will be disappointed, for man-made gods are incapable of helping their “creators.”

[44:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “stretches out a line” (ASV similar); NIV “measures with a line.”

[44:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he makes an outline with the [?].” The noun שֶׂרֶד (shered) occurs only here; it apparently refers to some type of tool or marker. Cf. KJV “with a line”; ASV “with a pencil”; NAB, NRSV “with a stylus”; NASB “with red chalk”; NIV “with a marker.”

[44:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “works” (so NASB) or “fashions” (so NRSV); NIV “he roughs it out.”

[44:13]  ²² tn Heb “he makes it like the pattern of a man”; NAB “like a man in appearance.”

[44:13]  ²³ tn Heb “like the glory of man to sit [in] a house”; NIV “that it may dwell in a shrine.”

[44:15]  ²² tn Heb “and it becomes burning [i.e., firewood] for a man”; NAB “to serve man for fuel.”

[44:15]  ²³ tn Or perhaps, “them.”

[45:12]  ²⁵ tn The words “who live” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[45:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “I, even my hands”; NASB “I stretched out…with My hands”; NRSV “it was my hands that stretched out.” The same construction occurs at the beginning of v. 13.

[45:12]  ²⁷ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[45:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and to all their host I commanded.” See the notes at 40:26.

[51:12]  ²⁸ tc The plural suffix should probably be emended to the second masculine singular (which is used in v. 13). The final mem (ם) is probably dittographic; note the mem at the beginning of the next word.

[51:12]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, and of the son of man who [as] grass is given up?” The feminine singular forms should probably be emended to the masculine singular (see v. 13). They have probably been influenced by the construction אַתְּ־הִיא (’at-hi’) in vv. 9-10.

[56:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “blessed is the man who does this.”

[56:2]  ³² tn Heb “the son of mankind who takes hold of it.”

[56:2]  ³³ tn Heb and who keeps his hand from doing any evil.”