1:7 Your land is devastated,
your cities burned with fire.
Right before your eyes your crops
are being destroyed by foreign invaders. 1
They leave behind devastation and destruction. 2
51:19 These double disasters confronted you.
But who feels sorry for you?
Destruction and devastation,
famine and sword.
But who consoles you? 3
4:4 At that time 4 the sovereign master 5 will wash the excrement 6 from Zion’s women,
he will rinse the bloodstains from Jerusalem’s midst, 7
as he comes to judge
and to bring devastation. 8
42:25 So he poured out his fierce anger on them,
along with the devastation 9 of war.
Its flames encircled them, but they did not realize it; 10
it burned against them, but they did notice. 11
60:18 Sounds of violence 12 will no longer be heard in your land,
or the sounds of 13 destruction and devastation within your borders.
You will name your walls, ‘Deliverance,’
and your gates, ‘Praise.’
1 tn Heb “As for your land, before you foreigners are devouring it.”
2 tn Heb “and [there is] devastation like an overthrow by foreigners.” The comparative preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like, as”) has here the rhetorical nuance, “in every way like.” The point is that the land has all the earmarks of a destructive foreign invasion because that is what has indeed happened. One could paraphrase, “it is desolate as it can only be when foreigners destroy.” On this use of the preposition in general, see GKC 376 §118.x. Many also prefer to emend “foreigners” here to “Sodom,” though there is no external attestation for such a reading in the
3 tc The Hebrew text has אֲנַחֲמֵךְ (’anakhamekh), a first person form, but the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa reads correctly יִנַחֲמֵךְ (yinakhamekh), a third person form.
4 tn Heb “when” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); CEV “after”; NRSV “once.”
5 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai).
6 tn The word refers elsewhere to vomit (Isa 28:8) and fecal material (Isa 36:12). Many English versions render this somewhat euphemistically as “filth” (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV). Ironically in God’s sight the beautiful jewelry described earlier is nothing but vomit and feces, for it symbolizes the moral decay of the city’s residents (cf. NLT “moral filth”).
7 sn See 1:21 for a related concept.
8 tn Heb “by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning.” The precise meaning of the second half of the verse is uncertain. רוּחַ (ruakh) can be understood as “wind” in which case the passage pictures the Lord using a destructive wind as an instrument of judgment. However, this would create a mixed metaphor, for the first half of the verse uses the imagery of washing and rinsing to depict judgment. Perhaps the image would be that of a windstorm accompanied by heavy rain. רוּחַ can also mean “spirit,” in which case the verse may be referring to the Lord’s Spirit or, more likely, to a disposition that the Lord brings to the task of judgment. It is also uncertain if בָּעַר (ba’ar) here means “burning” or “sweeping away, devastating.”
9 tn Heb “strength” (so KJV, NASB); NAB “fury”; NASB “fierceness”; NIV “violence.”
10 tn Heb “and it blazed against him all around, but he did not know.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb “blazed” is the divine חֵמָה (khemah, “anger”) mentioned in the previous line.
11 tn Heb “and it burned against him, but he did not set [it] upon [the] heart.”
12 tn The words “sounds of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
13 tn The words “sounds of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.