Isaiah 27:11

27:11 When its branches get brittle, ¹  they break;

women come and use them for kindling. ² 

For these people lack understanding, ³ 

therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them;

the one who formed them has no mercy on them.

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. ⁴ 

As a result, they will fall on their backsides when they try to walk, ⁵ 

and be injured, ensnared, and captured. ⁶ 

Isaiah 61:1

The Lord Will Rejuvenate His People

61:1 The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me,

because the Lord has chosen ⁷  me. ⁸ 

He has commissioned ⁹  me to encourage ¹⁰  the poor,

to help ¹¹  the brokenhearted,

to decree the release of captives,

and the freeing of prisoners,

[27:11]  ¹ tn Heb “are dry” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[27:11]  ² tn Heb “women come [and] light it.” The city is likened to a dead tree with dried up branches that is only good for firewood.

[27:11]  ³ tn Heb “for not a people of understanding [is] he.”

[28:13]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ sn When divine warnings and appeals become gibberish to the spiritually insensitive, they have no guidance and are doomed to destruction.

[61:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “anointed,” i.e., designated to carry out an assigned task.

[61:1]  ⁸ sn The speaker is not identified, but he is distinct from the Lord and from Zion’s suffering people. He possesses the divine spirit, is God’s spokesman, and is sent to release prisoners from bondage. The evidence suggests he is the Lord’s special servant, described earlier in the servant songs (see 42:1-4, 7; 49:2, 9; 50:4; see also 51:16).

[61:1]  ⁹ tn Or “sent” (NAB); NCV “has appointed me.”

[61:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “proclaim good news to.”

[61:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to bind up [the wounds of].”