Isaiah 5:14

5:14 So Death ¹  will open up its throat,

and open wide its mouth; ² 

Zion’s dignitaries and masses will descend into it,

including those who revel and celebrate within her. ³ 

Isaiah 6:7

6:7 He touched my mouth with it and said, “Look, this coal has touched your lips. Your evil is removed; your sin is forgiven.” ⁴ 

Isaiah 9:12

9:12 Syria from the east,

and the Philistines from the west,

they gobbled up Israelite territory. ⁵ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁶ 

Isaiah 11:4

11:4 He will treat the poor fairly, ⁷ 

and make right decisions ⁸  for the downtrodden of the earth. ⁹ 

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, ¹⁰ 

and order the wicked to be executed. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 45:23

45:23 I solemnly make this oath ¹²  –

what I say is true and reliable: ¹³ 

‘Surely every knee will bow to me,

every tongue will solemnly affirm; ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 51:16

Zion’s Time to Celebrate

51:16 I commission you ¹⁵  as my spokesman; ¹⁶ 

I cover you with the palm of my hand, ¹⁷ 

to establish ¹⁸  the sky and to found the earth,

to say to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 52:15

52:15 his form was so marred he no longer looked human ²⁰  –

so now ²¹  he will startle ²²  many nations.

Kings will be shocked by his exaltation, ²³ 

for they will witness something unannounced to them,

and they will understand something they had not heard about.

Isaiah 53:9

53:9 They intended to bury him with criminals, ²⁴ 

but he ended up in a rich man’s tomb, ²⁵ 

because ²⁶  he had committed no violent deeds,

nor had he spoken deceitfully.

Isaiah 57:4

57:4 At whom are you laughing?

At whom are you opening your mouth

and sticking out your tongue?

You are the children of rebels,

the offspring of liars, ²⁷ 

Isaiah 58:14

58:14 Then you will find joy in your relationship to the Lord, ²⁸ 

and I will give you great prosperity, ²⁹ 

and cause crops to grow on the land I gave to your ancestor Jacob.” ³⁰ 

Know for certain that the Lord has spoken. ³¹ 

Isaiah 62:2

62:2 Nations will see your vindication,

and all kings your splendor.

You will be called by a new name

that the Lord himself will give you. ³² 

[5:14]  ¹ tn Heb “Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV); the underworld, the land of the dead, according to the OT world view. Cf. NAB “the nether world”; TEV, CEV “the world of the dead”; NLT “the grave.”

[5:14]  ² tn Heb “so Sheol will make wide its throat, and open its mouth without limit.”

[5:14]  ³ tn Heb “and her splendor and her masses will go down, and her tumult and the one who exults in her.” The antecedent of the four feminine singular pronominal suffixes used in v. 14b is unclear. The likely referent is personified Zion/Jerusalem (see 3:25-26; 4:4-5).

[6:7]  ⁴ tn Or “ritually cleansed,” or “atoned for” (NIV).

[9:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “and they devoured Israel with all the mouth”; NIV “with open mouth”; NLT “With bared fangs.”

[9:12]  ⁸ 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.)

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “with justice” (so NAB) or “with righteousness” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[11:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “make decisions with rectitude”; cf. ASV, NRSV “and decide with equity.”

[11:4]  ¹² tn Or “land” (NAB, NCV, CEV). It is uncertain if the passage is picturing universal dominion or focusing on the king’s rule over his covenant people. The reference to God’s “holy mountain” in v. 9 and the description of renewed Israelite conquests in v. 14 suggest the latter, though v. 10 seems to refer to a universal kingdom (see 2:2-4).

[11:4]  ¹³ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and he will strike the earth with the scepter of his mouth.” Some have suggested that in this context אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) as an object of judgment seems too broad in scope. The parallelism is tighter if one emends the word to ץ(י)עָרִ (’arits, “potentate, tyrant”). The phrase “scepter of his mouth” refers to the royal (note “scepter”) decrees that he proclaims with his mouth. Because these decrees will have authority and power (see v. 2) behind them, they can be described as “striking” the tyrants down. Nevertheless, the MT reading may not need emending. Isaiah refers to the entire “earth” as the object of God’s judgment in several places without specifying the wicked as the object of the judgment (Isa 24:17-21; 26:9, 21; 28:22; cf. 13:11).

[11:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and by the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked.” The “breath of his lips” refers to his speech, specifically in this context his official decrees that the wicked oppressors be eliminated from his realm. See the preceding note.

[45:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “I swear by myself”; KJV, NASB “have sworn.”

[45:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a word goes out from my mouth [in] truth and will not return.”

[45:23]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “swear” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “confess allegiance.”

[51:16]  ¹⁶ tn The addressee (second masculine singular, as in vv. 13, 15) in this verse is unclear. The exiles are addressed in the immediately preceding verses (note the critical tone of vv. 12-13 and the reference to the exiles in v. 14). However, it seems unlikely that they are addressed in v. 16, for the addressee appears to be commissioned to tell Zion, who here represents the restored exiles, “you are my people.” The addressee is distinct from the exiles. The language of v. 16a is reminiscent of 49:2 and 50:4, where the Lord’s special servant says he is God’s spokesman and effective instrument. Perhaps the Lord, having spoken to the exiles in vv. 1-15, now responds to this servant, who spoke just prior to this in 50:4-11.

[51:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I place my words in your mouth.”

[51:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “with the shadow of my hand.”

[51:16]  ¹⁹ tc The Hebrew text has לִנְטֹעַ (lintoa’, “to plant”). Several scholars prefer to emend this form to לִנְטֹת (lintot) from נָטָה (natah, “to stretch out”); see v. 13, as well as 40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; cf. NAB, NCV, NRSV. However, since the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, LXX (and Aquila and Symmachus), and Vulgate support the MT reading, there is no need to emend the form. The interpretation is clear enough: Yahweh fixed the sky in its place.

[51:16]  ²⁰ tn The infinitives in v. 16b are most naturally understood as indicating the purpose of the divine actions described in v. 16a. The relationship of the third infinitive to the commission is clear enough – the Lord has made the addressee (his special servant?) his spokesman so that the latter might speak encouraging words to those in Zion. But how do the first two infinitives relate? The text seems to indicate that the Lord has commissioned the addressee so that the latter might create the universe! Perhaps creation imagery is employed metaphorically here to refer to the transformation that Jerusalem will experience (see 65:17-18).

[52:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and his form from the sons of men.” The preposition מִן (min) here carries the sense “away from,” i.e., “so as not to be.”

[52:15]  ²⁰ tn This statement completes the sentence begun in v. 14a. The introductory כֵּן (ken) answers to the introductory כַּאֲשֶׁר (ka’asher) of v. 14a. Verses 14b-15a are parenthetical, explaining why many were horrified.

[52:15]  ²¹ tn Traditionally the verb יַזֶּה (yazzeh, a Hiphil stem) has been understood as a causative of נָזָה (nazah, “spurt, spatter”) and translated “sprinkle.” In this case the passage pictures the servant as a priest who “sprinkles” (or spiritually cleanses) the nations. Though the verb נָזָה does occur in the Hiphil with the meaning “sprinkle,” the usual interpretation is problematic. In all other instances where the object or person sprinkled is indicated, the verb is combined with a preposition. This is not the case in Isaiah 52:15, unless one takes the following עָלָיו (’alayv, “on him”) with the preceding line. But then one would have to emend the verb to a plural, make the nations the subject of the verb “sprinkle,” and take the servant as the object. Consequently some interpreters doubt the cultic idea of “sprinkling” is present here. Some emend the text; others propose a homonymic root meaning “spring, leap,” which in the Hiphil could mean “cause to leap, startle” and would fit the parallelism of the verse nicely.

[52:15]  ²² tn Heb “Because of him kings will shut their mouths,” i.e., be speechless.

[53:9]  ²² tn Heb “one assigned his grave with criminals.” The subject of the singular is impersonal; English typically uses “they” in such constructions.

[53:9]  ²³ tn This line reads literally, “and with the rich in his death.” בְּמֹתָיו (bÿmotayv) combines a preposition, a plural form of the noun מוֹת (mot), and a third masculine singular suffix. The plural of the noun is problematic and the יו may be the result of virtual dittography. The form should probably be emended to בָּמָתוֹ (bamato, singular noun). The relationship between this line and the preceding one is uncertain. The parallelism appears to be synonymous (note “his grave” and “in his death”), but “criminals” and “the rich” hardly make a compatible pair in this context, for they would not be buried in the same kind of tomb. Some emend עָשִׁיר (’ashir, “rich”) to עָשֵׂי רָע (’ase ra’, “doers of evil”) but the absence of the ayin (ע) is not readily explained in this graphic environment. Others suggest an emendation to שְׂעִירִים (sÿ’irim, “he-goats, demons”), but the meaning in this case is not entirely transparent and the proposal assumes that the form suffered from both transposition and the inexplicable loss of a final mem. Still others relate עָשִׁיר (’ashir) to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “mob.” See HALOT 896 s.v. עָשִׁיר. Perhaps the parallelism is antithetical, rather than synonymous. In this case, the point is made that the servant’s burial in a rich man’s tomb, in contrast to a criminal’s burial, was appropriate, for he had done nothing wrong.

[53:9]  ²⁴ tn If the second line is antithetical, then עַל (’al) is probably causal here, explaining why the servant was buried in a rich man’s tomb, rather than that of criminal. If the first two lines are synonymous, then עַל is probably concessive: “even though….”

[57:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Are you not children of rebellion, offspring of a lie?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “Of course you are!”

[58:14]  ²⁸ tn For a parallel use of the phrase “find joy in” (Hitpael of עָנַג [’anag] followed by the preposition עַל [’al]), see Ps 37:4.

[58:14]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and I will cause you to ride upon the heights of the land.” The statement seems to be an allusion to Deut 32:13, where it is associated, as here, with God’s abundant provision of food.

[58:14]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and I will cause you to eat the inheritance of Jacob your father.” The Hebrew term נַחֲלָה (nakhalah) likely stands by metonymy for the crops that grow on Jacob’s “inheritance” (i.e., the land he inherited as a result of God’s promise).

[58:14]  ³¹ tn Heb “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” The introductory כִּי (ki) may be asseverative (as reflected in the translation) or causal/explanatory, explaining why the preceding promise will become reality (because it is guaranteed by the divine word).

[62:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “which the mouth of the Lord will designate.”