Isaiah 49:12

49:12 Look, they come from far away!

Look, some come from the north and west,

and others from the land of Sinim! ¹ 

Isaiah 60:8

60:8 Who are these who float along ²  like a cloud,

who fly like doves to their shelters? ³ 

Isaiah 49:15

49:15 Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ⁴ 

Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ⁵ 

Even if mothers ⁶  were to forget,

I could never forget you! ⁷ 

Isaiah 64:12

64:12 In light of all this, ⁸  how can you still hold back, Lord?

How can you be silent and continue to humiliate us?

Isaiah 49:21

49:21 Then you will think to yourself, ⁹ 

‘Who bore these children for me?

I was bereaved and barren,

dismissed and divorced. ¹⁰ 

Who raised these children?

Look, I was left all alone;

where did these children come from?’”

Isaiah 66:2

66:2 My hand made them; ¹¹ 

that is how they came to be,” ¹²  says the Lord.

I show special favor ¹³  to the humble and contrite,

who respect what I have to say. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 24:6

24:6 So a treaty curse ¹⁵  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ¹⁶ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ¹⁷ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 44:21

44:21 Remember these things, O Jacob,

O Israel, for you are my servant.

I formed you to be my servant;

O Israel, I will not forget you! ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 45:7

45:7 I am ²⁰  the one who forms light

and creates darkness; ²¹ 

the one who brings about peace

and creates calamity. ²² 

I am the Lord, who accomplishes all these things.

Isaiah 47:7

47:7 You said,

‘I will rule forever as permanent queen!’ ²³ 

You did not think about these things; ²⁴ 

you did not consider how it would turn out. ²⁵ 

Isaiah 47:9

47:9 Both of these will come upon you

suddenly, in one day!

You will lose your children and be widowed. ²⁶ 

You will be overwhelmed by these tragedies, ²⁷ 

despite ²⁸  your many incantations

and your numerous amulets. ²⁹ 

Isaiah 48:14

48:14 All of you, gather together and listen!

Who among them ³⁰  announced these things?

The Lord’s ally ³¹  will carry out his desire against Babylon;

he will exert his power against the Babylonians. ³² 

Isaiah 57:6

57:6 Among the smooth stones of the stream are the idols you love;

they, they are the object of your devotion. ³³ 

You pour out liquid offerings to them,

you make an offering.

Because of these things I will seek vengeance. ³⁴ 

Isaiah 65:5

65:5 They say, ‘Keep to yourself!

Don’t get near me, for I am holier than you!’

These people are like smoke in my nostrils,

like a fire that keeps burning all day long.

Isaiah 28:7

28:7 Even these men ³⁵  stagger because of wine,

they stumble around because of beer –

priests and prophets stagger because of beer,

they are confused ³⁶  because of wine,

they stumble around because of beer;

they stagger while seeing prophetic visions, ³⁷ 

they totter while making legal decisions. ³⁸ 

Isaiah 40:26

40:26 Look up at the sky! ³⁹ 

Who created all these heavenly lights? ⁴⁰ 

He is the one who leads out their ranks; ⁴¹ 

he calls them all by name.

Because of his absolute power and awesome strength,

not one of them is missing.

Isaiah 42:16

42:16 I will lead the blind along an unfamiliar way; ⁴² 

I will guide them down paths they have never traveled. ⁴³ 

I will turn the darkness in front of them into light,

and level out the rough ground. ⁴⁴ 

This is what I will do for them.

I will not abandon them.

[49:12]  ¹ tc The MT reads “Sinim” here; the Dead Sea Scrolls read “Syene,” a location in Egypt associated with modern Aswan. A number of recent translations adopt this reading: “Syene” (NAB, NRSV); “Aswan” (NIV); “Egypt” (NLT).

[60:8]  ² tn Heb “fly” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NAB, NIV “fly along.”

[60:8]  ³ tn Heb “to their windows,” i.e., to the openings in their coops. See HALOT 83 s.v. אֲרֻבָּה.

[49:15]  ³ tn Heb “her suckling”; NASB “her nursing child.”

[49:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb?”

[49:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “these” (so ASV, NASB).

[49:15]  ⁶ sn The argument of v. 15 seems to develop as follows: The Lord has an innate attachment to Zion, just like a mother does for her infant child. But even if mothers were to suddenly abandon their children, the Lord would never forsake Zion. In other words, the Lord’s attachment to Zion is like a mother’s attachment to her infant child, but even stronger.

[64:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “because of these”; KJV, ASV “for these things.”

[49:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “and you will say in your heart.”

[49:21]  ⁶ tn Or “exiled and thrust away”; NIV “exiled and rejected.”

[66:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “all these.” The phrase refers to the heavens and earth, mentioned in the previous verse.

[66:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “and all these were.” Some prefer to emend וַיִּהְיוּ (vayyihyu, “and they were”) to וְלִי הָיוּ (vÿli hayu, “and to me they were”), i.e., “and they belong to me.”

[66:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “and to this one I look” (KJV and NASB both similar).

[66:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “to the humble and the lowly in spirit and the one who trembles at my words.”

[24:6]  ⁷ sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ⁸ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ⁹ tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[44:21]  ⁸ tc The verb in the Hebrew text is a Niphal imperfect with a pronominal suffix. Although the Niphal ordinarily has the passive sense, it can have a reflexive nuance as well (see above translation). Some have suggested an emendation to a Qal form: “Do not forget me” (all the ancient versions, NEB, REB; see GKC 369 §117.x). “Do not forget me” would make a good parallel with “remember these things” in the first line. Since the MT is the harder reading and fits with Israel’s complaint that God had forgotten her (Isa 40:27), the MT reading should be retained (NASB, NKJV, NRSV, ESV). The passive has been rendered as an active in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style (so also NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT).

[45:7]  ⁹ tn The words “I am” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text the participle at the beginning of v. 7 stands in apposition to “the Lord” in v. 6.

[45:7]  ¹⁰ tn On the surface v. 7a appears to describe God’s sovereign control over the cycle of day and night, but the following statement suggests that “light” and “darkness” symbolize “deliverance” and “judgment.”

[45:7]  ¹¹ sn This verses affirms that God is ultimately sovereign over his world, including mankind and nations. In accordance with his sovereign will, he can cause wars to cease and peace to predominate (as he was about to do for his exiled people through Cyrus), or he can bring disaster and judgment on nations (as he was about to do to Babylon through Cyrus).

[47:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Forever I [will be] permanent queen”; NIV “the eternal queen”; CEV “queen forever.”

[47:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “you did not set these things upon your heart [or “mind”].”

[47:7]  ¹² tn Heb “you did not remember its outcome”; NAB “you disregarded their outcome.”

[47:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “loss of children and widowhood.” In the Hebrew text the phrase is in apposition to “both of these” in line 1.

[47:9]  ¹² tn Heb “according to their fullness, they will come upon you.”

[47:9]  ¹³ tn For other examples of the preposition bet (בְּ) having the sense of “although, despite,” see BDB 90 s.v. III.7.

[47:9]  ¹⁴ sn Reference is made to incantations and amulets, both of which were important in Mesopotamian religion. They were used to ward off danger and demons.

[48:14]  ¹² sn This probably refers to the idol gods (see v. 5).

[48:14]  ¹³ tn Or “friend,” or “covenant partner.”

[48:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and his arm [against] the Babylonians.”

[57:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “among the smooth stones of the stream [is] your portion, they, they [are] your lot.” The next line indicates idols are in view.

[57:6]  ¹⁴ tn The text reads literally, “Because of these am I relenting?” If the prefixed interrogative particle is retained at the beginning of the sentence, then the question would be rhetorical, with the Niphal of נָחָם (nakham) probably being used in the sense of “relent, change one’s mind.” One could translate: “Because of these things, how can I relent?” However, the initial letter he may be dittographic (note the final he [ה] on the preceding word). In this case one may understand the verb in the sense of “console oneself, seek vengeance,” as in 1:24.

[28:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “these.” The demonstrative pronoun anticipates “priests and prophets” two lines later.

[28:7]  ¹⁵ tn According to HALOT 135 s.v. III בלע, the verb form is derived from בָּלַע (bala’, “confuse”), not the more common בָּלַע (“swallow”). See earlier notes at 3:12 and 9:16.

[28:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in the seeing.”

[28:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[in] giving a decision.”

[40:26]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Lift on high your eyes and see.”

[40:26]  ¹⁶ tn The words “heavenly lights” are supplied in the translation for clarification. See the following lines.

[40:26]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the one who brings out by number their host.” The stars are here likened to a huge army that the Lord leads out. Perhaps the next line pictures God calling roll. If so, the final line may be indicating that none of them dares “go AWOL.” (“AWOL” is a military acronym for “absent without leave.”)

[42:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a way they do not know” (so NASB); NRSV “a road they do not know.”

[42:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in paths they do not know I will make them walk.”

[42:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and the rough ground into a level place.”