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 29:16

29:16 Your thinking is perverse! ⁴ 

Should the potter be regarded as clay? ⁵ 

Should the thing made say ⁶  about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?

Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

Isaiah 50:11

50:11 Look, all of you who start a fire

and who equip yourselves with ⁷  flaming arrows, ⁸ 

walk ⁹  in the light ¹⁰  of the fire you started

and among the flaming arrows you ignited! ¹¹ 

This is what you will receive from me: ¹² 

you will lie down in a place of pain. ¹³ 

Isaiah 58:3

58:3 They lament, ¹⁴  ‘Why don’t you notice when we fast?

Why don’t you pay attention when we humble ourselves?’

Look, at the same time you fast, you satisfy your selfish desires, ¹⁵ 

you oppress your workers. ¹⁶ 

[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.”

[29:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “your overturning.” The predicate is suppressed in this exclamation. The idea is, “O your perversity! How great it is!” See GKC 470 §147.c. The people “overturn” all logic by thinking their authority supersedes God’s.

[29:16]  ⁵ tn The expected answer to this rhetorical question is “of course not.” On the interrogative use of אִם (’im), see BDB 50 s.v.

[29:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “that the thing made should say.”

[50:11]  ⁷ tc Several more recent commentators have proposed an emendation of מְאַזְּרֵי (mÿ’azzÿre, “who put on”) to מְאִירִי (mÿ’iri, “who light”). However, both Qumran scrolls of Isaiah and the Vulgate support the MT reading (cf. NIV, ESV).

[50:11]  ⁸ tn On the meaning of זִיקוֹת (ziqot, “flaming arrows”), see HALOT 268 s.v. זִיקוֹת.

[50:11]  ⁹ tn The imperative is probably rhetorical and has a predictive force.

[50:11]  ¹⁰ tn Or perhaps, “flame” (so ASV).

[50:11]  ¹¹ sn Perhaps the servant here speaks to his enemies and warns them that they will self-destruct.

[50:11]  ¹² tn Heb “from my hand” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[50:11]  ¹³ sn The imagery may be that of a person who becomes ill and is forced to lie down in pain on a sickbed. Some see this as an allusion to a fiery place of damnation because of the imagery employed earlier in the verse.

[58:3]  ¹⁰ tn The words “they lament” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[58:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “you find pleasure”; NASB “you find your desire.”

[58:3]  ¹² tn Or perhaps, “debtors.” See HALOT 865 s.v. * עָצֵב.