Isaiah 5:10

5:10 Indeed, a large vineyard ¹  will produce just a few gallons, ² 

and enough seed to yield several bushels ³  will produce less than a bushel.” ⁴ 

Isaiah 41:25

41:25 I have stirred up one out of the north ⁵  and he advances,

one from the eastern horizon who prays in my name. ⁶ 

He steps on ⁷  rulers as if they were clay,

like a potter treading the clay.

Isaiah 45:9

The Lord Gives a Warning

45:9 One who argues with his creator is in grave danger, ⁸ 

one who is like a mere ⁹  shard among the other shards on the ground!

The clay should not say to the potter, ¹⁰ 

“What in the world ¹¹  are you doing?

Your work lacks skill!” ¹² 

[5:10]  ¹ tn Heb “a ten-yoke vineyard.” The Hebrew term צֶמֶד (tsemed, “yoke”) is here a unit of square measure. Apparently a ten-yoke vineyard covered the same amount of land it would take ten teams of oxen to plow in a certain period of time. The exact size is unknown.

[5:10]  ² tn Heb “one bath.” A bath was a liquid measure. Estimates of its modern equivalent range from approximately six to twelve gallons.

[5:10]  ³ tn Heb “a homer.” A homer was a dry measure, the exact size of which is debated. Cf. NCV “ten bushels”; CEV “five bushels.”

[5:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “an ephah.” An ephah was a dry measure; there were ten ephahs in a homer. So this verse envisions major crop failure, where only one-tenth of the anticipated harvest is realized.

[41:25]  ⁵ sn That is, Cyrus the Persian. See the note at v. 2.

[41:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “[one] from the rising of the sun [who] calls in my name.”

[41:25]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text has וְיָבֹא (vÿyavo’, “and he comes”), but this is likely a corruption of an original וַיָּבָס (vayyavas), from בּוּס (bus, “step on”).

[45:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who argues with the one who formed him.”

[45:9]  ¹⁰ tn The words “one who is like a mere” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and clarification.

[45:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Should the clay say to the one who forms it?” The rhetorical question anticipates a reply, “Of course not!”

[45:9]  ¹² tn The words “in the world” are supplied in the translation to approximate in English idiom the force of the sarcastic question.

[45:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “your work, there are no hands for it,” i.e., “your work looks like something made by a person who has no hands.”