Isaiah 6:13

6:13 Even if only a tenth of the people remain in the land, it will again be destroyed, ¹  like one of the large sacred trees ²  or an Asherah pole, when a sacred pillar on a high place is thrown down. ³  That sacred pillar symbolizes the special chosen family.” ⁴ 

Isaiah 27:11

27:11 When its branches get brittle, ⁵  they break;

women come and use them for kindling. ⁶ 

For these people lack understanding, ⁷ 

therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them;

the one who formed them has no mercy on them.

John 15:2-6

15:2 He takes away ⁸  every branch that does not bear ⁹  fruit in me. He ¹⁰  prunes ¹¹  every branch that bears ¹²  fruit so that it will bear more fruit. 15:3 You are clean already ¹³  because of the word that I have spoken to you. 15:4 Remain ¹⁴  in me, and I will remain in you. ¹⁵  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, ¹⁶  unless it remains ¹⁷  in ¹⁸  the vine, so neither can you unless you remain ¹⁹  in me.

15:5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains ²⁰  in me – and I in him – bears ²¹  much fruit, ²²  because apart from me you can accomplish ²³  nothing. 15:6 If anyone does not remain ²⁴  in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, ²⁵  and are burned up. ²⁶ 

Romans 11:17

11:17 Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among them and participated in ²⁷  the richness of the olive root,

[6:13]  ¹ tn Or “be burned” (NRSV); NIV “laid waste.”

[6:13]  ² tn Heb “like a massive tree or like a big tree” (perhaps, “like a terebinth or like an oak”).

[6:13]  ³ tn The Hebrew text has “which in the felling, a sacred pillar in them.” Some take מַצֶּבֶת (matsevet) as “stump,” and translate, “which, when chopped down, have a stump remaining in them.” But elsewhere מַצֶּבֶת refers to a memorial pillar (2 Sam 18:18) and the word resembles מַצֶּבָה (matsevah, “sacred pillar”). בָּם (bam, “in them”) may be a corruption of בָּמָה (bamah, “high place”; the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has במה). אֳשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) becomes a problem in this case, but one might emend the form to וּכְּאֲשֵׁרָה (ukÿ’asherah, “or like an Asherah pole”) and translate, “like one of the large sacred trees or an Asherah pole.” Though the text is difficult, the references to sacred trees and a sacred pillar suggest that the destruction of a high place is in view, an apt metaphor for the judgment of idolatrous Judah.

[6:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “a holy offspring [is] its sacred pillar.” If מַצֶּבֶת (matsevet) is taken as “stump,” one can see in this statement a brief glimpse of hope. The tree (the nation) is chopped down, but the stump (a righteous remnant) remains from which God can restore the nation. However, if מַצֶּבֶת is taken as “sacred pillar” (מַצֶּבָה, matsevah; see the previous note), it is much more difficult to take the final statement in a positive sense. In this case “holy offspring” alludes to God’s ideal for his covenant people, the offspring of the patriarchs. Ironically that “holy” nation is more like a “sacred pillar” and it will be thrown down like a sacred pillar from a high place and its land destroyed like the sacred trees located at such shrines. Understood in this way, the ironic statement is entirely negative in tone, just like the rest of the preceding announcement of judgment. It also reminds the people of their failure; they did not oppose pagan religion, instead they embraced it. Now they will be destroyed in the same way they should have destroyed paganism.

[27:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “are dry” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[27:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “women come [and] light it.” The city is likened to a dead tree with dried up branches that is only good for firewood.

[27:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “for not a people of understanding [is] he.”

[15:2]  ⁸ tn Or “He cuts off.”

[15:2]  ⁹ tn Or “does not yield.”

[15:2]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “And he”; the conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has been omitted in the translation in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

[15:2]  ¹¹ tn Or “trims”; Grk “cleanses” (a wordplay with “clean” in v. 3). Καθαίρει (kaqairei) is not the word one would have expected here, but it provides the transition from the vine imagery to the disciples – there is a wordplay (not reproducible in English) between αἴρει (airei) and καθαίρει in this verse. While the purpose of the Father in cleansing his people is clear, the precise means by which he does so is not immediately obvious. This will become clearer, however, in the following verse.

[15:2]  ¹² tn Or “that yields.”

[15:3]  ¹³ sn The phrase you are clean already occurs elsewhere in the Gospel of John only at the washing of the disciples’ feet in 13:10, where Jesus had used it of the disciples being cleansed from sin. This further confirms the proposed understanding of John 15:2 and 15:6 since Judas was specifically excluded from this statement (but not all of you).

[15:4]  ¹⁴ tn Or “Reside.”

[15:4]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “and I in you.” The verb has been repeated for clarity and to conform to contemporary English style, which typically allows fewer ellipses (omitted or understood words) than Greek.

[15:4]  ¹⁶ sn The branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains connected to the vine, from which its life and sustenance flows. As far as the disciples were concerned, they would produce no fruit from themselves if they did not remain in their relationship to Jesus, because the eternal life which a disciple must possess in order to bear fruit originates with Jesus; he is the source of all life and productivity for the disciple.

[15:4]  ¹⁷ tn Or “resides.”

[15:4]  ¹⁸ tn While it would be more natural to say “on the vine” (so NAB), the English preposition “in” has been retained here to emphasize the parallelism with the following clause “unless you remain in me.” To speak of remaining “in” a person is not natural English either, but is nevertheless a biblical concept (cf. “in Christ” in Eph 1:3, 4, 6, 7, 11).

[15:4]  ¹⁹ tn Or “you reside.”

[15:5]  ²⁰ tn Or “resides.”

[15:5]  ²¹ tn Or “yields.”

[15:5]  ²² tn Grk “in him, this one bears much fruit.” The pronoun “this one” has been omitted from the translation because it is redundant according to contemporary English style.

[15:5]  ²³ tn Or “do.”

[15:6]  ²⁴ tn Or “reside.”

[15:6]  ²⁵ sn Such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire. The author does not tell who it is who does the gathering and throwing into the fire. Although some claim that realized eschatology is so prevalent in the Fourth Gospel that no references to final eschatology appear at all, the fate of these branches seems to point to the opposite. The imagery is almost certainly that of eschatological judgment, and recalls some of the OT vine imagery which involves divine rejection and judgment of disobedient Israel (Ezek 15:4-6, 19:12).

[15:6]  ²⁶ tn Grk “they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

[11:17]  ²⁷ tn Grk “became a participant of.”