Isaiah 20:2

20:2 At that time the Lord announced through ¹  Isaiah son of Amoz: “Go, remove the sackcloth from your waist and take your sandals off your feet.” He did as instructed and walked around in undergarments ²  and barefoot.

Isaiah 28:13

28:13 So the Lord’s word to them will sound like

meaningless gibberish,

senseless babbling,

a syllable here, a syllable there. ³ 

As a result, they will fall on their backsides when they try to walk, ⁴ 

and be injured, ensnared, and captured. ⁵ 

Isaiah 42:10

42:10 Sing to the Lord a brand new song!

Praise him ⁶  from the horizon of the earth,

you who go down to the sea, and everything that lives in it, ⁷ 

you coastlands ⁸  and those who live there!

[20:2]  ¹ tn Heb “spoke by the hand of.”

[20:2]  ² tn The word used here (עָרוֹם, ’arom) sometimes means “naked,” but here it appears to mean simply “lightly dressed,” i.e., stripped to one’s undergarments. See HALOT 883 s.v. עָרוֹם. The term also occurs in vv. 3, 4.

[28:13]  ³ tn Heb “And the word of the Lord will be to them, ‘tsahv latsahv,’ etc.” See the note at v. 10. In this case the “Lord’s word” is not the foreigner’s strange sounding words (as in v. 10), but the Lord’s repeated appeals to them (like the one quoted in v. 12). As time goes on, the Lord’s appeals through the prophets will have no impact on the people; they will regard prophetic preaching as gibberish.

[28:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “as a result they will go and stumble backward.” Perhaps an infant falling as it attempts to learn to walk is the background image here (cf. v. 9b). The Hebrew term לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) could be taken as indicating purpose (“in order that”), rather than simple result. In this case the people’s insensitivity to the message is caused by the Lord as a means of expediting their downfall.

[28:13]  ⁵ sn When divine warnings and appeals become gibberish to the spiritually insensitive, they have no guidance and are doomed to destruction.

[42:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “his praise.” The phrase stands parallel to “new song” in the previous line.

[42:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “and its fullness”; NASB, NIV “and all that is in it.”

[42:10]  ⁷ tn Or “islands” (NASB, NIV); NLT “distant coastlands.”