Isaiah 42:23

42:23 Who among you will pay attention to this?

Who will listen attentively in the future? ¹ 

Isaiah 42:17

42:17 Those who trust in idols

will turn back and be utterly humiliated, ² 

those who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.’”

Isaiah 44:25

44:25 who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers ³ 

and humiliates ⁴  the omen readers,

who overturns the counsel of the wise men ⁵ 

and makes their advice ⁶  seem foolish,

Isaiah 50:5

50:5 The sovereign Lord has spoken to me clearly; ⁷ 

I have not rebelled,

I have not turned back.

Isaiah 9:12

9:12 Syria from the east,

and the Philistines from the west,

they gobbled up Israelite territory. ⁸ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁹ 

Isaiah 41:23

41:23 Predict how future events will turn out, ¹⁰ 

so we might know you are gods.

Yes, do something good or bad,

so we might be frightened and in awe. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 59:14

59:14 Justice is driven back;

godliness ¹²  stands far off.

Indeed, ¹³  honesty stumbles in the city square

and morality is not even able to enter.

Isaiah 1:4

1:4 ¹⁴ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ¹⁵ 

the people weighed down by evil deeds.

They are offspring who do wrong,

children ¹⁶  who do wicked things.

They have abandoned the Lord,

and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁷ 

They are alienated from him. ¹⁸ 

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. ¹⁹ 

As a result, they will fall on their backsides when they try to walk, ²⁰ 

and be injured, ensnared, and captured. ²¹ 

[42:23]  ¹ tn The interrogative particle is understood in the second line by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[42:17]  ² tn Heb “be ashamed with shame”; ASV, NASB “be utterly put to shame.”

[44:25]  ³ tc The Hebrew text has בַּדִּים (baddim), perhaps meaning “empty talkers” (BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד). In the four other occurrences of this word (Job 11:3; Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30; 50:36) the context does not make the meaning of the term very clear. Its primary point appears to be that the words spoken are meaningless or false. In light of its parallelism with “omen readers,” some have proposed an emendation to בָּרִים (barim, “seers”). The Mesopotamian baru-priests were divination specialists who played an important role in court life. See R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 93-98. Rather than supporting an emendation, J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:189, n. 79) suggests that Isaiah used בַּדִּים purposively as a derisive wordplay on the Akkadian word baru (in light of the close similarity of the d and r consonants).

[44:25]  ⁴ tn Or “makes fools of” (NIV, NRSV); NAB and NASB both similar.

[44:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “who turns back the wise” (so NRSV); NIV “overthrows the learning of the wise”; TEV “The words of the wise I refute.”

[44:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “their knowledge” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[50:5]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps, “makes me obedient.” The text reads literally, “has opened for me an ear.”

[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.)

[41:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “Declare the coming things, with respect to the end.”

[41:23]  ⁷ tc The translation assumes the Qere (וְנִרְאֶה [vÿnir’eh], from יָרֵא [yare’], “be afraid”).

[59:14]  ⁷ tn Or “righteousness” (ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NAB “justice.”

[59:14]  ⁸ tn Or “for” (KJV, NRSV).

[1:4]  ⁸ sn Having summoned the witnesses and announced the Lord’s accusation against Israel, Isaiah mourns the nation’s impending doom. The third person references to the Lord in the second half of the verse suggest that the quotation from the Lord (cf. vv. 2-3) has concluded.

[1:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “Woe [to the] sinful nation.” The Hebrew term 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. In highly dramatic fashion the prophet acts out Israel’s funeral in advance, emphasizing that their demise is inevitable if they do not repent soon.

[1:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “sons” (NASB). The prophet contrasts four terms of privilege – nation, people, offspring, children – with four terms that depict Israel’s sinful condition in Isaiah’s day – sinful, evil, wrong, wicked (see J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 43).

[1:4]  ¹¹ sn Holy One of Israel is one of Isaiah’s favorite divine titles for God. It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.

[1:4]  ¹² tn Heb “they are estranged backward.” The LXX omits this statement, which presents syntactical problems and seems to be outside the synonymous parallelistic structure of the verse.

[28:13]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ sn When divine warnings and appeals become gibberish to the spiritually insensitive, they have no guidance and are doomed to destruction.