Isaiah 28:24

28:24 Does a farmer just keep on plowing at planting time? ¹ 

Does he keep breaking up and harrowing his ground?

Isaiah 36:21

36:21 They were silent and did not respond, for the king had ordered, “Don’t respond to him.”

Isaiah 41:1

The Lord Challenges the Nations

41:1 “Listen to me in silence, you coastlands! ² 

Let the nations find renewed strength!

Let them approach and then speak;

let us come together for debate! ³ 

Isaiah 42:14

42:14 “I have been inactive ⁴  for a long time;

I kept quiet and held back.

Like a woman in labor I groan;

I pant and gasp. ⁵ 

Isaiah 44:13

44:13 A carpenter takes measurements; ⁶ 

he marks out an outline of its form; ⁷ 

he scrapes ⁸  it with chisels,

and marks it with a compass.

He patterns it after the human form, ⁹ 

like a well-built human being,

and puts it in a shrine. ¹⁰ 

[28:24]  ¹ tn Heb “All the day does the plowman plow in order to plant?” The phrase “all the day” here has the sense of “continually, always.” See BDB 400 s.v. יוֹם.

[41:1]  ² tn Or “islands” (KJV, NIV, CEV); TEV “distant lands”; NLT “lands beyond the sea.”

[41:1]  ³ tn The Hebrew term מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) could be translated “judgment,” but here it seems to refer to the dispute or debate between the Lord and the nations.

[42:14]  ³ tn Heb “silent” (so NASB, NIV, TEV, NLT); CEV “have held my temper.”

[42:14]  ⁴ sn The imagery depicts the Lord as a warrior who is eager to fight and can no longer hold himself back from the attack.

[44:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “stretches out a line” (ASV similar); NIV “measures with a line.”

[44:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “he makes an outline with the [?].” The noun שֶׂרֶד (shered) occurs only here; it apparently refers to some type of tool or marker. Cf. KJV “with a line”; ASV “with a pencil”; NAB, NRSV “with a stylus”; NASB “with red chalk”; NIV “with a marker.”

[44:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “works” (so NASB) or “fashions” (so NRSV); NIV “he roughs it out.”

[44:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “he makes it like the pattern of a man”; NAB “like a man in appearance.”

[44:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “like the glory of man to sit [in] a house”; NIV “that it may dwell in a shrine.”