Isaiah 6:5

6:5 I said, “Too bad for me! I am destroyed, ¹  for my lips are contaminated by sin, ²  and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. ³  My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies.” ⁴ 

Isaiah 20:6

20:6 At that time ⁵  those who live on this coast ⁶  will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

Isaiah 29:11

29:11 To you this entire prophetic revelation ⁷  is like words in a sealed scroll. When they hand it to one who can read ⁸  and say, “Read this,” he responds, “I can’t, because it is sealed.”

Isaiah 65:8

65:8 This is what the Lord says:

“When ⁹  juice is discovered in a cluster of grapes,

someone says, ‘Don’t destroy it, for it contains juice.’ ¹⁰ 

So I will do for the sake of my servants –

I will not destroy everyone. ¹¹ 

[6:5]  ¹ tn Isaiah uses the suffixed (perfect) form of the verb for rhetorical purposes. In this way his destruction is described as occurring or as already completed. Rather than understanding the verb as derived from דָּמַה (damah, “be destroyed”), some take it from a proposed homonymic root דמה, which would mean “be silent.” In this case, one might translate, “I must be silent.”

[6:5]  ² tn Heb “a man unclean of lips am I.” Isaiah is not qualified to praise the king. His lips (the instruments of praise) are “unclean” because he has been contaminated by sin.

[6:5]  ³ tn Heb “and among a nation unclean of lips I live.”

[6:5]  ⁴ tn Perhaps in this context, the title has a less militaristic connotation and pictures the Lord as the ruler of the heavenly assembly. See the note at 1:9.

[20:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).

[20:6]  ⁶ sn This probably refers to the coastal region of Philistia (cf. TEV).

[29:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “vision” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[29:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “one who knows a/the scroll.”

[65:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “just as.” In the Hebrew text the statement is one long sentence, “Just as…, so I will do….”

[65:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for a blessing is in it.”

[65:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “by not destroying everyone.”