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 40:9

40:9 Go up on a high mountain, O herald Zion!

Shout out loudly, O herald Jerusalem! ³ 

Shout, don’t be afraid!

Say to the towns of Judah,

“Here is your God!”

Isaiah 47:1

Babylon Will Fall

47:1 “Fall down! Sit in the dirt,

O virgin ⁴  daughter Babylon!

Sit on the ground, not on a throne,

O daughter of the Babylonians!

Indeed, ⁵  you will no longer be called delicate and pampered.

Isaiah 48:8

48:8 You did not hear,

you do not know,

you were not told beforehand. ⁶ 

For I know that you are very deceitful; ⁷ 

you were labeled ⁸  a rebel from birth.

Isaiah 49:23

49:23 Kings will be your children’s ⁹  guardians;

their princesses will nurse your children. ¹⁰ 

With their faces to the ground they will bow down to you

and they will lick the dirt on ¹¹  your feet.

Then you will recognize that I am the Lord;

those who wait patiently for me are not put to shame.

[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.

[40:9]  ³ tn The second feminine singular imperatives are addressed to personified Zion/Jerusalem, who is here told to ascend a high hill and proclaim the good news of the Lord’s return to the other towns of Judah. Isa 41:27 and 52:7 speak of a herald sent to Zion, but the masculine singular form מְבַשֵּׂר (mÿvaser) is used in these verses, in contrast to the feminine singular form מְבַשֶּׂרֶת (mÿvaseret) employed in 40:9, where Zion is addressed as a herald.

[47:1]  ⁵ tn בְּתוּלַה (bÿtulah) often refers to a virgin, but the phrase “virgin daughter” is apparently stylized (see also 23:12; 37:22). In the extended metaphor of this chapter, where Babylon is personified as a queen (vv. 5, 7), she is depicted as being both a wife and mother (vv. 8-9).

[47:1]  ⁶ tn Or “For” (NASB, NRSV).

[48:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “beforehand your ear did not open.”

[48:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “deceiving, you deceive.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[48:8]  ⁹ tn Or “called” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[49:23]  ⁹ tn Heb “your,” but Zion here stands by metonymy for her children (see v. 22b).

[49:23]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you.” See the preceding note.

[49:23]  ¹¹ tn Or “at your feet” (NAB, NIV); NLT “from your feet.”