Isaiah 3:7

3:7 At that time ¹  the brother will shout, ² 

‘I am no doctor, ³ 

I have no food or coat in my house;

don’t make me a leader of the people!’”

Isaiah 5:8

Disaster is Coming

5:8 Those who accumulate houses are as good as dead, ⁴ 

those who also accumulate landed property ⁵ 

until there is no land left, ⁶ 

and you are the only landowners remaining within the land. ⁷ 

Isaiah 14:1

14:1 The Lord will certainly have compassion on Jacob; ⁸  he will again choose Israel as his special people ⁹  and restore ¹⁰  them to their land. Resident foreigners will join them and unite with the family ¹¹  of Jacob.

Isaiah 15:9

15:9 Indeed, the waters of Dimon ¹²  are full of blood!

Indeed, I will heap even more trouble on Dimon. ¹³ 

A lion will attack ¹⁴  the Moabite fugitives

and the people left in the land.

Isaiah 19:11

19:11 The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; ¹⁵ 

Pharaoh’s wise advisers give stupid advice.

How dare you say to Pharaoh,

“I am one of the sages,

one well-versed in the writings of the ancient kings?” ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 25:11

25:11 Moab ¹⁷  will spread out its hands in the middle of it, ¹⁸ 

just as a swimmer spreads his hands to swim;

the Lord ¹⁹  will bring down Moab’s ²⁰  pride as it spreads its hands. ²¹ 

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. ²² 

As a result, they will fall on their backsides when they try to walk, ²³ 

and be injured, ensnared, and captured. ²⁴ 

Isaiah 30:16

30:16 You say, ‘No, we will flee on horses,’

so you will indeed flee.

You say, ‘We will ride on fast horses,’

so your pursuers will be fast.

Isaiah 37:26

37:26 ²⁵ Certainly you must have heard! ²⁶ 

Long ago I worked it out,

in ancient times I planned ²⁷  it,

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ²⁸ 

Isaiah 41:16

41:16 You will winnow them and the wind will blow them away;

the wind will scatter them.

You will rejoice in the Lord;

you will boast in the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 42:14

42:14 “I have been inactive ²⁹  for a long time;

I kept quiet and held back.

Like a woman in labor I groan;

I pant and gasp. ³⁰ 

Isaiah 44:6

The Absurdity of Idolatry

44:6 This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says,

their protector, ³¹  the Lord who commands armies:

“I am the first and I am the last,

there is no God but me.

Isaiah 44:8

44:8 Don’t panic! Don’t be afraid! ³² 

Did I not tell you beforehand and decree it?

You are my witnesses! Is there any God but me?

There is no other sheltering rock; ³³  I know of none.

Isaiah 44:11

44:11 Look, all his associates ³⁴  will be put to shame;

the craftsmen are mere humans. ³⁵ 

Let them all assemble and take their stand!

They will panic and be put to shame.

Isaiah 45:13

45:13 It is me – I stir him up and commission him; ³⁶ 

I will make all his ways level.

He will rebuild my city;

he will send my exiled people home,

but not for a price or a bribe,”

says the Lord who commands armies.

Isaiah 53:7

53:7 He was treated harshly and afflicted, ³⁷ 

but he did not even open his mouth.

Like a lamb led to the slaughtering block,

like a sheep silent before her shearers,

he did not even open his mouth. ³⁸ 

Isaiah 63:9

63:9 Through all that they suffered, he suffered too. ³⁹ 

The messenger sent from his very presence ⁴⁰  delivered them.

In his love and mercy he protected ⁴¹  them;

he lifted them up and carried them throughout ancient times. ⁴² 

[3:7]  ¹ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[3:7]  ² tn Heb “he will lift up [his voice].”

[3:7]  ³ tn Heb “wrapper [of wounds]”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “healer.”

[5:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who make a house touch a house.” The exclamation הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) was used in funeral laments (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5) and carries the connotation of death.

[5:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “[who] bring a field near a field.”

[5:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “until the end of the place”; NASB “until there is no more room.”

[5:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.”

[14:1]  ⁷ tn The sentence begins with כִּי (ki), which is understood as asseverative (“certainly”) in the translation. Another option is to translate, “For the Lord will have compassion.” In this case one of the reasons for Babylon’s coming demise (13:22b) is the Lord’s desire to restore his people.

[14:1]  ⁸ tn The words “as his special people” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[14:1]  ⁹ tn Or “settle” (NASB, NIV, NCV, NLT).

[14:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “house.”

[15:9]  ¹⁰ tc The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads “Dibon” instead of “Dimon” in this verse.

[15:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Indeed I will place on Dimon added things.” Apparently the Lord is speaking.

[15:9]  ¹² tn The words “will attack” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[19:11]  ¹³ tn Or “certainly the officials of Zoan are fools.” אַךְ (’akh) can carry the sense, “only, nothing but,” or “certainly, surely.”

[19:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “A son of wise men am I, a son of ancient kings.” The term בֶּן (ben, “son of”) could refer to literal descent, but many understand the word, at least in the first line, in its idiomatic sense of “member [of a guild].” See HALOT 138 s.v. בֶּן and J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:371. If this is the case, then one can take the word in a figurative sense in the second line as well, the “son of ancient kings” being one devoted to their memory as preserved in their literature.

[25:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Moab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:11]  ¹⁷ tn The antecedent of the third masculine singular pronominal suffix is probably the masculine noun מַתְבֵּן (matben, “heap of straw”) in v. 10 rather than the feminine noun מַדְמֵנָה (madmenah, “manure pile”), also in v. 10.

[25:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Moab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[25:11]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew text has, “he will bring down his pride along with the [?] of his hands.” The meaning of אָרְבּוֹת (’arbot), which occurs only here in the OT, is unknown. Some (see BDB 70 s.v. אָרְבָּה) translate “artifice, cleverness,” relating the form to the verbal root אָרָב (’arav, “to lie in wait, ambush”), but this requires some convoluted semantic reasoning. HALOT 83 s.v. *אָרְבָּה suggests the meaning “[nimble] movements.” The translation above, which attempts to relate the form to the preceding context, is purely speculative.

[28:13]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ sn When divine warnings and appeals become gibberish to the spiritually insensitive, they have no guidance and are doomed to destruction.

[37:26]  ²² tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

[37:26]  ²³ tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.

[37:26]  ²⁴ tn Heb “formed” (so KJV, ASV).

[37:26]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.

[42:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “silent” (so NASB, NIV, TEV, NLT); CEV “have held my temper.”

[42:14]  ²⁶ sn The imagery depicts the Lord as a warrior who is eager to fight and can no longer hold himself back from the attack.

[44:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “his kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:8]  ³¹ tn BDB 923 s.v. רָהָה derives this verb from an otherwise unattested root, while HALOT 403 s.v. יָרָה defines it as “be stupefied” on the basis of an Arabic cognate. The form is likely a corruption of תיראו, the reading attested in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a.

[44:8]  ³² tn Heb “rock” or “rocky cliff,” a title that depicts God as a protective refuge in his role as sovereign king; thus the translation “sheltering rock.”

[44:11]  ³⁴ tn The pronoun “his” probably refers to the one who forms/casts an idol (v. 10), in which case it refers to the craftsman’s associates in the idol-manufacturing guild.

[44:11]  ³⁵ sn The point seems to be this: If the idols are the mere products of human hands, then those who trust in them will be disappointed, for man-made gods are incapable of helping their “creators.”

[45:13]  ³⁷ tn Heb “I stir him up in righteousness”; NASB “I have aroused him.” See the note at 41:2. Cyrus (cf. 44:28) is in view here.

[53:7]  ⁴⁰ tn The translation assumes the Niphal is passive; another option is take the clause (note the subject + verb pattern) as concessive and the Niphal as reflexive, “though he humbled himself.”

[53:7]  ⁴¹ sn This verse emphasizes the servant’s silent submission. The comparison to a sheep does not necessarily suggest a sacrificial metaphor. Sheep were slaughtered for food as well as for sacrificial rituals, and טֶבַח (tevakh) need not refer to sacrificial slaughter (see Gen 43:16; Prov 7:22; 9:2; Jer 50:27; note also the use of the related verb in Exod 21:37; Deut 28:31; 1 Sam 25:11).

[63:9]  ⁴³ tn Heb “in all their distress, there was distress to him” (reading לוֹ [lo] with the margin/Qere).

[63:9]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “the messenger [or “angel”] of his face”; NIV “the angel of his presence.”

[63:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Or “redeemed” (KJV, NAB, NIV), or “delivered.”

[63:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “all the days of antiquity”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “days of old.”