Isaiah 7:2

7:2 It was reported to the family ¹  of David, “Syria has allied with ²  Ephraim.” They and their people were emotionally shaken, just as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. ³ 

Isaiah 10:7

10:7 But he does not agree with this,

his mind does not reason this way, ⁴ 

for his goal is to destroy,

and to eliminate many nations. ⁵ 

Isaiah 1:5

1:5 ⁶ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ⁷ 

Your head has a massive wound, ⁸ 

your whole body is weak. ⁹ 

Isaiah 9:9

9:9 All the people were aware ¹⁰  of it,

the people of Ephraim and those living in Samaria. ¹¹ 

Yet with pride and an arrogant attitude, they said, ¹² 

Isaiah 13:7

13:7 For this reason all hands hang limp, ¹³ 

every human heart loses its courage. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 21:4

21:4 My heart palpitates, ¹⁵ 

I shake in fear; ¹⁶ 

the twilight I desired

has brought me terror.

Isaiah 32:4

32:4 The mind that acts rashly will possess discernment ¹⁷ 

and the tongue that stutters will speak with ease and clarity.

Isaiah 6:10

6:10 Make the hearts of these people calloused;

make their ears deaf and their eyes blind!

Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears,

their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.” ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 14:13

14:13 You said to yourself, ¹⁹ 

“I will climb up to the sky.

Above the stars of El ²⁰ 

I will set up my throne.

I will rule on the mountain of assembly

on the remote slopes of Zaphon. ²¹ 

Isaiah 19:1

The Lord Will Judge Egypt

19:1 Here is a message about Egypt:

Look, the Lord rides on a swift-moving cloud

and approaches Egypt.

The idols of Egypt tremble before him;

the Egyptians lose their courage. ²² 

Isaiah 30:29

30:29 You will sing

as you do in the evening when you are celebrating a festival.

You will be happy like one who plays a flute

as he goes to the mountain of the Lord, the Rock who shelters Israel. ²³ 

Isaiah 47:8

47:8 So now, listen to this,

O one who lives so lavishly, ²⁴ 

who lives securely,

who says to herself, ²⁵ 

‘I am unique! No one can compare to me! ²⁶ 

I will never have to live as a widow;

I will never lose my children.’ ²⁷ 

Isaiah 60:5

60:5 Then you will look and smile, ²⁸ 

you will be excited and your heart will swell with pride. ²⁹ 

For the riches of distant lands ³⁰  will belong to you

and the wealth of nations will come to you.

Isaiah 7:4

7:4 Tell him, ‘Make sure you stay calm! ³¹  Don’t be afraid! Don’t be intimidated ³²  by these two stubs of smoking logs, ³³  or by the raging anger of Rezin, Syria, and the son of Remaliah.

Isaiah 10:12

10:12 But when ³⁴  the sovereign master ³⁵  finishes judging ³⁶  Mount Zion and Jerusalem, then I ³⁷  will punish the king of Assyria for what he has proudly planned and for the arrogant attitude he displays. ³⁸ 

Isaiah 49:21

49:21 Then you will think to yourself, ³⁹ 

‘Who bore these children for me?

I was bereaved and barren,

dismissed and divorced. ⁴⁰ 

Who raised these children?

Look, I was left all alone;

where did these children come from?’”

[7:2]  ¹ tn Heb “house.” In this context the “house of David” includes King Ahaz, his family, and the royal court. See also Jer 21:12; Zech 12:7-8, 10, 12, for a similar use of the phrase.

[7:2]  ² tn Heb “rests upon.” Most understand the verb as נוּחַ (nuakh, “rest”), but HALOT 685 s.v. II נחה proposes that this is a hapax legomenon which means “stand by.”

[7:2]  ³ tn Heb “and his heart shook and the heart of his people shook, like the shaking of the trees of the forest before the wind.” The singular pronoun “his” is collective, referring to the Davidic house/family. לֵבָב (levav, “heart”) here refers to the seat of the emotions.

[10:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “but he, not so does he intend, and his heart, not so does it think.”

[10:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “for to destroy [is] in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.”

[1:5]  ⁷ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[9:9]  ¹⁰ tn The translation assumes that vv. 9-10 describe the people’s response to a past judgment (v. 8). The perfect is understood as indicating simple past and the vav (ו) is taken as conjunctive. Another option is to take the vav on the perfect as consecutive and translate, “all the people will know.”

[9:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and the people, all of them, knew; Ephraim and the residents of Samaria.”

[9:9]  ¹² tn Heb “with pride and arrogance of heart, saying.”

[13:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “drop”; KJV “be faint”; ASV “be feeble”; NAB “fall helpless.”

[13:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “melts” (so NAB).

[21:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “wanders,” perhaps here, “is confused.”

[21:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “shuddering terrifies me.”

[32:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the heart of rashness will understand knowledge”; cf. NAB “The flighty will become wise and capable.”

[6:10]  ²² sn Do we take this commission at face value? Does the Lord really want to prevent his people from understanding, repenting, and being healed? Verse 9, which ostensibly records the content of Isaiah’s message, is clearly ironic. As far as we know, Isaiah did not literally proclaim these exact words. The Hebrew imperatival forms are employed rhetorically and anticipate the response Isaiah will receive. When all is said and done, Isaiah might as well preface and conclude every message with these ironic words, which, though imperatival in form, might be paraphrased as follows: “You continually hear, but don’t understand; you continually see, but don’t perceive.” Isaiah might as well command them to be spiritually insensitive, because, as the preceding and following chapters make clear, the people are bent on that anyway. (This ironic command is comparable to saying to a particularly recalcitrant individual, “Go ahead, be stubborn!”) Verse 10b is also clearly sarcastic. On the surface it seems to indicate Isaiah’s hardening ministry will prevent genuine repentance. But, as the surrounding chapters clearly reveal, the people were hardly ready or willing to repent. Therefore, Isaiah’s preaching was not needed to prevent repentance! Verse 10b reflects the people’s attitude and might be paraphrased accordingly: “Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their mind, repent, and be restored, and they certainly wouldn’t want that, would they?” Of course, this sarcastic statement may also reveal that the Lord himself is now bent on judgment, not reconciliation. Just as Pharaoh’s rejection of Yahweh’s ultimatum ignited judgment and foreclosed, at least temporarily, any opportunity for repentance, so the Lord may have come to the point where he has decreed to bring judgment before opening the door for repentance once more. The sarcastic statement in verse 10b would be an emphatic way of making this clear. (Perhaps we could expand our paraphrase: “Otherwise they might…repent, and be restored, and they certainly wouldn’t want that, would they? Besides, it’s too late for that!”) Within this sarcastic framework, verse 10a must also be seen as ironic. As in verse 9 the imperatival forms should be taken as rhetorical and as anticipating the people’s response. One might paraphrase: “Your preaching will desensitize the minds of these people, make their hearing dull, and blind their eyes.” From the outset the Lord might as well command Isaiah to harden the people, because his preaching will end up having that effect. Despite the use of irony, we should still view this as a genuine, albeit indirect, act of divine hardening. After all, God did not have to send Isaiah. By sending him, he drives the sinful people further from him, for Isaiah’s preaching, which focuses on the Lord’s covenantal demands and impending judgment upon covenantal rebellion, forces the people to confront their sin and then continues to desensitize them as they respond negatively to the message. As in the case of Pharaoh, Yahweh’s hardening is not arbitrarily imposed on a righteous or even morally neutral object. Rather his hardening is an element of his righteous judgment on recalcitrant sinners. Ironically, Israel’s rejection of prophetic preaching in turn expedites disciplinary punishment, and brings the battered people to a point where they might be ready for reconciliation. The prophesied judgment (cf. 6:11-13) was fulfilled by 701 b.c. when the Assyrians devastated the land (a situation presupposed by Isa 1:2-20; see especially vv. 4-9). At that time the divine hardening had run its course and Isaiah is able to issue an ultimatum (1:19-20), one which Hezekiah apparently took to heart, resulting in the sparing of Jerusalem (see Isa 36-39 and cf. Jer 26:18-19 with Mic 3:12).This interpretation, which holds in balance both Israel’s moral responsibility and the Lord’s sovereign work among his people, is consistent with other pertinent texts both within and outside the Book of Isaiah. Isa 3:9 declares that the people of Judah “have brought disaster upon themselves,” but Isa 29:9-10 indicates that the Lord was involved to some degree in desensitizing the people. Zech 7:11-12 looks back to the pre-exilic era (cf. v. 7) and observes that the earlier generations stubbornly hardened their hearts, but Ps 81:11-12, recalling this same period, states that the Lord “gave them over to their stubborn hearts.”

[14:13]  ²⁵ tn Heb “you, you said in your heart.”

[14:13]  ²⁶ sn In Canaanite mythology the stars of El were astral deities under the authority of the high god El.

[14:13]  ²⁷ sn Zaphon, the Canaanite version of Olympus, was the “mountain of assembly” where the gods met.

[19:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and the heart of Egypt melts within it.”

[30:29]  ³¹ tn Heb “[you will have] joy of heart, like the one going with a flute to enter the mountain of the Lord to the Rock of Israel.” The image here is not a foundational rock, but a rocky cliff where people could hide for protection (for example, the fortress of Masada).

[47:8]  ³⁴ tn Or perhaps, “voluptuous one” (NAB); NAB “you sensual one”; NLT “You are a pleasure-crazy kingdom.”

[47:8]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the one who says in her heart.”

[47:8]  ³⁶ tn Heb “I [am], and besides me there is no other.” See Zeph 2:15.

[47:8]  ³⁷ tn Heb “I will not live [as] a widow, and I will not know loss of children.”

[60:5]  ³⁷ tn Or “shine,” or “be radiant” (NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[60:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and it will tremble and be wide, your heart.”

[60:5]  ³⁹ tn Heb “the wealth of the sea,” i.e., wealth that is transported from distant lands via the sea.

[7:4]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “guard yourself and be quiet,” but the two verbs should be coordinated.

[7:4]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and let not your heart be weak”; ASV “neither let thy heart be faint.”

[7:4]  ⁴² sn The derogatory metaphor indicates that the power of Rezin and Pekah is ready to die out.

[10:12]  ⁴³ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[10:12]  ⁴⁴ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 16, 23, 24, 33 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[10:12]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “his work on/against.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “on”; NIV “against.”

[10:12]  ⁴⁶ tn The Lord is speaking here, as in vv. 5-6a.

[10:12]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “I will visit [judgment] on the fruit of the greatness of the heart of the king of Assyria, and on the glory of the height of his eyes.” The proud Assyrian king is likened to a large, beautiful fruit tree.

[49:21]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “and you will say in your heart.”

[49:21]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “exiled and thrust away”; NIV “exiled and rejected.”