10:34 The thickets of the forest will be chopped down with an ax,
and mighty Lebanon will fall. 1
41:5 The coastlands 3 see and are afraid;
the whole earth 4 trembles;
they approach and come.
46:8 Remember this, so you can be brave! 5
Think about it, you rebels! 6
1 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.”
2 tn The Hebrew text here has “all the lands,” but the parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:17 has “the nations.”
3 tn Or “islands” (NIV, CEV); NCV “faraway places”; NLT “lands beyond the sea.”
4 tn Heb “the ends of the earth,” but this is a merism, where the earth’s extremities stand for its entirety, i.e., the extremities and everything in between them.
5 tn The meaning of the verb אָשַׁשׁ (’ashash, which appears here in the Hitpolel stem) is uncertain. BDB 84 s.v. אשׁשׁ relates it to a root meaning “found, establish” in Arabic; HALOT 100 s.v. II אשׁשׁ gives the meaning “pluck up courage.” The imperative with vav (ו) may indicate purpose following the preceding imperative.
6 tn Heb “return [it], rebels, to heart”; NRSV “recall it to mind, you transgressors.”