Isaiah 65:21

65:21 They will build houses and live in them;

they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

Isaiah 5:2

5:2 He built a hedge around it, ¹  removed its stones,

and planted a vine.

He built a tower in the middle of it,

and constructed a winepress.

He waited for it to produce edible grapes,

but it produced sour ones instead. ² 

Isaiah 17:10

17:10 For you ignore ³  the God who rescues you;

you pay no attention to your strong protector. ⁴ 

So this is what happens:

You cultivate beautiful plants

and plant exotic vines. ⁵ 

Isaiah 37:30

37:30 ⁶ “This will be your reminder that I have spoken the truth: ⁷  This year you will eat what grows wild, ⁸  and next year ⁹  what grows on its own. But the year after that ¹⁰  you will plant seed and harvest crops; you will plant vines and consume their produce. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 40:24

40:24 Indeed, they are barely planted;

yes, they are barely sown;

yes, they barely take root in the earth,

and then he blows on them, causing them to dry up,

and the wind carries them away like straw.

Isaiah 44:14

44:14 He cuts down cedars

and acquires a cypress ¹²  or an oak.

He gets ¹³  trees from the forest;

he plants a cedar ¹⁴  and the rain makes it grow.

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 65:22

65:22 No longer will they build a house only to have another live in it, ²⁰ 

or plant a vineyard only to have another eat its fruit, ²¹ 

for my people will live as long as trees, ²² 

and my chosen ones will enjoy to the fullest what they have produced. ²³ 

[5:2]  ¹ tn Or, “dug it up” (so NIV); KJV “fenced it.’ See HALOT 810 s.v. עזק.

[5:2]  ² tn Heb “wild grapes,” i.e., sour ones (also in v. 4).

[17:10]  ¹ tn Heb “you have forgotten” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[17:10]  ² tn Heb “and the rocky cliff of your strength you do not remember.”

[17:10]  ³ tn Heb “a vine, a strange one.” The substantival adjective זָר (zar) functions here as an appositional genitive. It could refer to a cultic plant of some type, associated with a pagan rite. But it is more likely that it refers to an exotic, or imported, type of vine, one that is foreign (i.e., “strange”) to Israel.

[37:30]  ¹ tn At this point the word concerning the king of Assyria (vv. 22-29) ends and the Lord again addresses Hezekiah and the people directly (see v. 21).

[37:30]  ² tn Heb “and this is your sign.” In this case the אוֹת (’ot, “sign”) is a future reminder of God’s intervention designated before the actual intervention takes place. For similar “signs” see Exod 3:12 and Isa 7:14-25.

[37:30]  ³ sn This refers to crops that grew up on their own (that is, without cultivation) from the seed planted in past years.

[37:30]  ⁴ tn Heb “and in the second year” (so ASV).

[37:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the third year” (so KJV, NAB).

[37:30]  ⁶ tn The four plural imperatival verb forms in v. 30b are used rhetorically. The Lord commands the people to plant, harvest, etc. to emphasize the certainty of restored peace and prosperity.

[44:14]  ¹ tn It is not certain what type of tree this otherwise unattested noun refers to. Cf. ASV “a holm-tree” (NRSV similar).

[44:14]  ² tn Heb “strengthens for himself,” i.e., “secures for himself” (see BDB 55 s.v. אָמֵץ Pi.2).

[44:14]  ³ tn Some prefer to emend אֹרֶן (’oren) to אֶרֶז (’erez, “cedar”), but the otherwise unattested noun appears to have an Akkadian cognate, meaning “cedar.” See H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (SBLDS), 44-45. HALOT 90 s.v. I אֹרֶן offers the meaning “laurel.”

[51:16]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “I place my words in your mouth.”

[51:16]  ³ tn Heb “with the shadow of my hand.”

[51:16]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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).

[65:22]  ¹ tn Heb “they will not build, and another live [in it].”

[65:22]  ² tn Heb “they will not plant, and another eat.”

[65:22]  ³ tn Heb “for like the days of the tree [will be] the days of my people.”

[65:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “the work of their hands” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “their hard-won gains.”