Isaiah 25:6

25:6 The Lord who commands armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain. ¹ 

At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine –

tender meat and choicest wine. 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 57:9

57:9 You take olive oil as tribute ⁶  to your king, ⁷ 

along with many perfumes. ⁸ 

You send your messengers to a distant place;

you go all the way to Sheol. ⁹ 

Isaiah 1:6

1:6 From the soles of your feet to your head,

there is no spot that is unharmed. ¹⁰ 

There are only bruises, cuts,

and open wounds.

They have not been cleansed ¹¹  or bandaged,

nor have they been treated ¹²  with olive oil. ¹³ 

Isaiah 10:27

10:27 At that time ¹⁴ 

the Lord will remove their burden from your shoulders, ¹⁵ 

and their yoke from your neck;

the yoke will be taken off because your neck will be too large. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 28:1

The Lord Will Judge Samaria

28:1 The splendid crown of Ephraim’s drunkards is doomed, ¹⁷ 

the withering flower, its beautiful splendor, ¹⁸ 

situated ¹⁹  at the head of a rich valley,

the crown of those overcome with wine. ²⁰ 

Isaiah 41:19

41:19 I will make cedars, acacias, myrtles, and olive trees grow in the wilderness;

I will make evergreens, firs, and cypresses grow together in the desert.

Isaiah 28:4

28:4 The withering flower, its beautiful splendor,

situated at the head of a rich valley,

will be like an early fig before harvest –

as soon as someone notices it,

he grabs it and swallows it. ²¹ 

Isaiah 61:3

61:3 to strengthen those who mourn in Zion,

by giving them a turban, instead of ashes,

oil symbolizing joy, ²²  instead of mourning,

a garment symbolizing praise, ²³  instead of discouragement. ²⁴ 

They will be called oaks of righteousness, ²⁵ 

trees planted by the Lord to reveal his splendor. ²⁶ 

Isaiah 39:2

39:2 Hezekiah welcomed ²⁷  them and showed them his storehouse with its silver, gold, spices, and high-quality olive oil, as well as his whole armory and everything in his treasuries. Hezekiah showed them everything in his palace and in his whole kingdom. ²⁸ 

[25:6]  ¹ sn That is, Mount Zion (see 24:23); cf. TEV; NLT “In Jerusalem.”

[25:6]  ² tn Heb “And the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] will make for all the nations on this mountain a banquet of meats, a banquet of wine dregs, meats filled with marrow, dregs that are filtered.”

[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”).

[57:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “you journey with oil.”

[57:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “the king.” Since the context refers to idolatry and child sacrifice (see v. 5), some emend מֶלֶך (melekh, “king”) to “Molech.” Perhaps Israel’s devotion to her idols is likened here to a subject taking tribute to a ruler.

[57:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “and you multiply your perfumes.”

[57:9]  ⁸ sn Israel’s devotion to her idols is inordinate, irrational, and self-destructive.

[1:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “there is not in it health”; NAB “there is no sound spot.”

[1:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “pressed out.”

[1:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “softened” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “soothed.”

[1:6]  ¹⁰ sn This verse describes wounds like those one would receive in battle. These wounds are comprehensive and without remedy.

[10:27]  ⁹ tn Or “in that day” (KJV). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[10:27]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he [i.e., the Lord] will remove his [i.e, Assyria’s] burden from upon your shoulder.”

[10:27]  ¹¹ tc The meaning of this line is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads literally, “and the yoke will be destroyed (or perhaps, “pulled down”) because of fatness.” Perhaps this is a bizarre picture of an ox growing so fat that it breaks the yoke around its neck or can no longer fit into its yoke. Fatness would symbolize the Lord’s restored blessings; the removal of the yoke would symbolize the cessation of Assyrian oppression. Because of the difficulty of the metaphor, many prefer to emend the text at this point. Some emend וְחֻבַּל (vÿkhubbal, “and it will be destroyed,” a perfect with prefixed vav), to יִחְבֹּל (yikhbol, “[it] will be destroyed,” an imperfect), and take the verb with what precedes, “and their yoke will be destroyed from your neck.” Proponents of this view (cf. NAB, NRSV) then emend עֹל (’ol, “yoke”) to עָלָה (’alah, “he came up”) and understand this verb as introducing the following description of the Assyrian invasion (vv. 28-32). מִפְּנֵי־שָׁמֶן (mippÿney-shamen, “because of fatness”) is then emended to read “from before Rimmon” (NAB, NRSV), “from before Samaria,” or “from before Jeshimon.” Although this line may present difficulties, it appears best to regard the line as a graphic depiction of God’s abundant blessings on his servant nation.

[28:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Woe [to] the crown [or “wreath”] of the splendor [or “pride”] of the drunkards of Ephraim.” The “crown” is Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom (Ephraim). Priests and prophets are included among these drunkards in v. 7.

[28:1]  ¹² tn Heb “the beauty of his splendor.” In the translation the masculine pronoun (“his”) has been replaced by “its” because the referent (the “crown”) is the city of Samaria.

[28:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “which [is].”

[28:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “ones overcome with wine.” The words “the crown of” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The syntactical relationship of the final phrase to what precedes is uncertain. הֲלוּמֵי יָיִן (halume yayin, “ones overcome with wine”) seems to correspond to שִׁכֹּרֵי אֶפְרַיִם (shikkore ’efrayim, “drunkards of Ephraim”) in line 1. The translation assumes that the phrase “the splendid crown” is to be understood in the final line as well.

[28:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “which the one seeing sees, while still it is in his hand he swallows it.”

[61:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “oil of joy” (KJV, ASV); NASB, NIV, NRSV “the oil of gladness.”

[61:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “garment of praise.”

[61:3]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “a faint spirit” (so NRSV); KJV, ASV “the spirit of heaviness”; NASB “a spirit of fainting.”

[61:3]  ¹⁸ tn Rather than referring to the character of the people, צֶדֶק (tsedeq) may carry the nuance “vindication” here, suggesting that God’s restored people are a testimony to his justice. See v. 2, which alludes to the fact that God will take vengeance against the enemies of his people. Cf. NAB “oaks of justice.”

[61:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “a planting of the Lord to reveal splendor.”

[39:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “was happy with”; NAB, NASB “was pleased”; NIV “received the envoys gladly.”

[39:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “there was nothing which Hezekiah did not show them in his house and in all his kingdom.”