Isaiah 41:3

41:3 He pursues them and passes by unharmed; ¹ 

he advances with great speed. ² 

Isaiah 5:11

5:11 Those who get up early to drink beer are as good as dead, ³ 

those who keep drinking long after dark

until they are intoxicated with wine. ⁴ 

Isaiah 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ⁵ 

they associate with ⁶  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ⁷  payoffs. ⁸ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁹ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 17:13

17:13 Though these people make an uproar as loud as the roaring of powerful waves, ¹¹ 

when he shouts at ¹²  them, they will flee to a distant land,

driven before the wind like dead weeds on the hills,

or like dead thistles ¹³  before a strong gale.

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 51:1

There is Hope for the Future

51:1 “Listen to me, you who pursue godliness, ¹⁴ 

who seek the Lord!

Look at the rock from which you were chiseled,

at the quarry ¹⁵  from which you were dug! ¹⁶ 

[41:3]  ¹ tn Heb “[in] peace”; KJV, ASV “safely”; NASB “in safety”; NIV “unscathed.”

[41:3]  ² tn Heb “a way with his feet he does not come [or “enter”].” One could translate, “by a way he was not [previously] entering with his feet.” This would mean that he is advancing into new territory and expanding his conquests. The present translation assumes this is a hyperbolic description to his speedy advance. He moves so quickly he does not enter the way with his feet, i.e., his feet don’t even touch the ground. See C. R. North, Second Isaiah, 94.

[5:11]  ³ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who arise early in the morning, [who] chase beer.”

[5:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “[who] delay until dark, [until] wine enflames them.”

[1:23]  ⁵ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁸ sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).

[1:23]  ⁹ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ¹⁰ sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.

[17:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “the peoples are in an uproar like the uproar of mighty waters.”

[17:13]  ⁸ tn Or “rebukes.” The verb and related noun are used in theophanies of God’s battle cry which terrifies his enemies. See, for example, Pss 18:15; 76:7; 106:9; Isa 50:2; Nah 1:4, and A. Caquot, TDOT 3:49-53.

[17:13]  ⁹ tn Or perhaps “tumbleweed” (NAB, NIV, CEV); KJV “like a rolling thing.”

[51:1]  ⁹ tn Or “righteousness” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “justice”; NLT “hope for deliverance.”

[51:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the excavation of the hole.”

[51:1]  ¹¹ sn The “rock” and “quarry” refer here to Abraham and Sarah, the progenitors of the nation.