10:19 There will be so few trees left in his forest,
a child will be able to count them. 1
10:34 The thickets of the forest will be chopped down with an ax,
and mighty Lebanon will fall. 2
22:8 They 3 removed the defenses 4 of Judah.
At that time 5 you looked
for the weapons in the House of the Forest. 6
29:17 In just a very short time 7
Lebanon will turn into an orchard,
and the orchard will be considered a forest. 8
56:9 All you wild animals in the fields, come and devour,
all you wild animals in the forest!
1 tn Heb “and the rest of the trees of his forest will be counted, and a child will record them.”
2 tn The Hebrew text has, “and Lebanon, by/as [?] a mighty one, will fall.” The translation above takes the preposition בְּ (bet) prefixed to “mighty one” as indicating identity, “Lebanon, as a mighty one, will fall.” In this case “mighty one” describes Lebanon. (In Ezek 17:23 and Zech 11:2 the adjective is used of Lebanon’s cedars.) Another option is to take the preposition as indicating agency and interpret “mighty one” as a divine title (see Isa 33:21). One could then translate, “and Lebanon will fall by [the agency of] the Mighty One.”
3 tn Heb “he,” i.e., the enemy invader. NASB, by its capitalization of the pronoun, takes this to refer to the Lord.
4 tn Heb “covering.”
5 tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV), likewise at the beginning of v. 12.
6 sn Perhaps this refers to a royal armory, or to Solomon’s “House of the Forest of Lebanon,” where weapons may have been kept (see 1 Kgs 10:16-17).
7 tn The Hebrew text phrases this as a rhetorical question, “Is it not yet a little, a short [time]?”
8 sn The meaning of this verse is debated, but it seems to depict a reversal in fortunes. The mighty forest of Lebanon (symbolic of the proud and powerful, see 2:13; 10:34) will be changed into a common orchard, while the common orchard (symbolic of the oppressed and lowly) will grow into a great forest. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:538.