Isaiah 3:16

Washing Away Impurity

3:16 The Lord says,

“The women ¹  of Zion are proud.

They walk with their heads high ² 

and flirt with their eyes.

They skip along ³ 

and the jewelry on their ankles jingles. ⁴ 

Isaiah 9:12

9:12 Syria from the east,

and the Philistines from the west,

they gobbled up Israelite territory. ⁵ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁶ 

Isaiah 10:2

10:2 to keep the poor from getting fair treatment,

and to deprive ⁷  the oppressed among my people of justice,

so they can steal what widows own,

and loot what belongs to orphans. ⁸ 

Isaiah 10:4

10:4 You will have no place to go, except to kneel with the prisoners,

or to fall among those who have been killed. ⁹ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 31:3

31:3 The Egyptians are mere humans, not God;

their horses are made of flesh, not spirit.

The Lord will strike with ¹¹  his hand;

the one who helps will stumble

and the one being helped will fall.

Together they will perish. ¹² 

Isaiah 34:11

34:11 Owls and wild animals ¹³  will live there, ¹⁴ 

all kinds of wild birds ¹⁵  will settle in it.

The Lord ¹⁶  will stretch out over her

the measuring line of ruin

and the plumb line ¹⁷  of destruction. ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 37:17

37:17 Pay attention, Lord, and hear! Open your eyes, Lord, and observe! Listen to this entire message Sennacherib sent and how he taunts the living God! ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 42:5

42:5 This is what the true God, ²⁰  the Lord, says –

the one who created the sky and stretched it out,

the one who fashioned the earth and everything that lives on it, ²¹ 

the one who gives breath to the people on it,

and life to those who live on it: ²² 

Isaiah 44:13

44:13 A carpenter takes measurements; ²³ 

he marks out an outline of its form; ²⁴ 

he scrapes ²⁵  it with chisels,

and marks it with a compass.

He patterns it after the human form, ²⁶ 

like a well-built human being,

and puts it in a shrine. ²⁷ 

Isaiah 44:20

44:20 He feeds on ashes; ²⁸ 

his deceived mind misleads him.

He cannot rescue himself,

nor does he say, ‘Is this not a false god I hold in my right hand?’ ²⁹ 

Isaiah 44:24

The Lord Empowers Cyrus

44:24 This is what the Lord, your protector, ³⁰  says,

the one who formed you in the womb:

“I am the Lord, who made everything,

who alone stretched out the sky,

who fashioned the earth all by myself, ³¹ 

Isaiah 45:12

45:12 I made the earth,

I created the people who live ³²  on it.

It was me – my hands ³³  stretched out the sky, ³⁴ 

I give orders to all the heavenly lights. ³⁵ 

Isaiah 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ³⁶ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ³⁷  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ³⁸ 

[3:16]  ¹ tn Heb “daughters” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV).

[3:16]  ² tn Heb “with an outstretched neck.” They proudly hold their heads high so that others can see the jewelry around their necks.

[3:16]  ³ tn Heb “walking and skipping, they walk.”

[3:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “and with their feet they jingle.”

[9:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “and they devoured Israel with all the mouth”; NIV “with open mouth”; NLT “With bared fangs.”

[9:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “in all this his anger is not turned, and still his hand is outstretched.” One could translate in the past tense here (and in 9:17b and 21b), but the appearance of the refrain in 10:4b, where it follows a woe oracle prophesying a future judgment, suggests it is a dramatic portrait of the judge which did not change throughout this period of past judgment and will remain unchanged in the future. The English present tense is chosen to best reflect this dramatic mood. (See also 5:25b, where the refrain appears following a dramatic description of coming judgment.)

[10:2]  ⁹ tn Or “rob” (ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV); KJV “take away the right from the poor.”

[10:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “so that widows are their plunder, and they can loot orphans.”

[10:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “except one kneels in the place of the prisoner, and in the place of the slain [who] fall.” On the force of בִּלְתִּי (bilti, “except”) and its logical connection to what precedes, see BDB 116 s.v. בֵלֶת. On the force of תַּחַת (takhat, “in the place of”) here, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:258, n. 6.

[10:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in all this his anger was not turned, and still his hand was outstretched”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “his had is stretched out still.”

[31:3]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “will extend”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV “stretch out.”

[31:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “together all of them will come to an end.”

[34:11]  ²¹ tn קָאַת (qa’at) refers to some type of bird (cf. Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17) that was typically found near ruins (see Zeph 2:14). קִפּוֹד (qippod) may also refer to a type of bird (NAB “hoot owl”; NIV “screech owl”; TEV “ravens”), but some have suggested a rodent may be in view (cf. NCV “small animals”; ASV “porcupine”; NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”).

[34:11]  ²² tn Heb “will possess it” (so NIV).

[34:11]  ²³ tn The Hebrew text has יַנְשׁוֹף וְעֹרֵב (yanshof vÿ’orev). Both the יַנְשׁוֹף (“owl”; see Lev 11:17; Deut 14:16) and עֹרֵב (“raven”; Lev 11:15; Deut 14:14) were types of wild birds.

[34:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:11]  ²⁵ tn Heb “stones,” i.e., the stones used in a plumb bob.

[34:11]  ²⁶ sn The metaphor in v. 11b emphasizes that God has carefully planned Edom’s demise.

[37:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Hear all the words of Sennacherib which he sent to taunt the living God.”

[42:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the God.” The definite article here indicates distinctiveness or uniqueness.

[42:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and its offspring” (so NASB); NIV “all that comes out of it.”

[42:5]  ³¹ tn Heb “and spirit [i.e., “breath”] to the ones walking in it” (NAB, NASB, and NRSV all similar).

[44:13]  ³³ tn Heb “stretches out a line” (ASV similar); NIV “measures with a line.”

[44:13]  ³⁴ 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]  ³⁵ tn Heb “works” (so NASB) or “fashions” (so NRSV); NIV “he roughs it out.”

[44:13]  ³⁶ tn Heb “he makes it like the pattern of a man”; NAB “like a man in appearance.”

[44:13]  ³⁷ tn Heb “like the glory of man to sit [in] a house”; NIV “that it may dwell in a shrine.”

[44:20]  ³⁷ tn Or perhaps, “he eats on an ash heap.”

[44:20]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Is it not a lie in my right hand?”

[44:24]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:24]  ⁴² tn The consonantal text (Kethib) has “Who [was] with me?” The marginal reading (Qere) is “from with me,” i.e., “by myself.” See BDB 87 s.v. II אֵת 4.c.

[45:12]  ⁴⁵ tn The words “who live” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[45:12]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “I, even my hands”; NASB “I stretched out…with My hands”; NRSV “it was my hands that stretched out.” The same construction occurs at the beginning of v. 13.

[45:12]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[45:12]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “and to all their host I commanded.” See the notes at 40:26.

[55:3]  ⁴⁹ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  ⁵⁰ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”