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 28:15

28:15 For you say,

“We have made a treaty with death,

with Sheol ⁵  we have made an agreement. ⁶ 

When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by ⁷ 

it will not reach us.

For we have made a lie our refuge,

we have hidden ourselves in a deceitful word.” ⁸ 

Isaiah 40:2

40:2 “Speak kindly to ⁹  Jerusalem, ¹⁰  and tell her

that her time of warfare is over, ¹¹ 

that her punishment is completed. ¹² 

For the Lord has made her pay double ¹³  for all her sins.”

Isaiah 54:4

54:4 Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame!

Don’t be intimidated, ¹⁴  for you will not be humiliated!

You will forget about the shame you experienced in your youth;

you will no longer remember the disgrace of your abandonment. ¹⁵ 

[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.

[28:15]  ⁵ sn Sheol is the underworld, land of the dead, according to the OT world view.

[28:15]  ⁶ tn Elsewhere the noun חֹזֶה (khozeh) refers to a prophet who sees visions. In v. 18 the related term חָזוּת (khazut, “vision”) is used. The parallelism in both verses (note “treaty”) seems to demand a meaning “agreement” for both nouns. Perhaps חֹזֶה and חזוּת are used in a metonymic sense in vv. 15 and 18. Another option is to propose a homonymic root. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:514, and HALOT 301 s.v. II חֹזֶה.

[28:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “the overwhelming scourge, when it passes by” (NRSV similar).

[28:15]  ⁸ sn “Lie” and “deceitful word” would not be the terms used by the people. They would likely use the words “promise” and “reliable word,” but the prophet substitutes “lie” and “deceitful word” to emphasize that this treaty with death will really prove to be disappointing.

[40:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” Jerusalem is personified as a woman.

[40:2]  ¹⁰ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[40:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “that she is filled [with] her warfare.” Some understand צָבָא (tsavah, “warfare”) as meaning “hard service” or “compulsory labor” in this context.

[40:2]  ¹² tn Heb “that her punishment is accepted [as satisfactory].”

[40:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “for she has received from the hand of the Lord double.” The principle of the double portion in punishment is also seen in Jer 16:18; 17:18 and Rev 18:6. For examples of the double portion in Israelite law, see Exod 22:4, 7, 9 (double restitution by a thief) and Deut 21:17 (double inheritance portion for the firstborn).

[54:4]  ¹³ tn Or “embarrassed”; NASB “humiliated…disgraced.”

[54:4]  ¹⁴ tn Another option is to translate, “the disgrace of our widowhood” (so NRSV). However, the following context (vv. 6-7) refers to Zion’s husband, the Lord, abandoning her, not dying. This suggests that an אַלְמָנָה (’almanah) was a woman who had lost her husband, whether by death or abandonment.