2:9 Men bow down to them in homage,
they lie flat on the ground in worship. 1
Don’t spare them! 2
17:7 At that time 6 men will trust in their creator; 7
they will depend on 8 the Holy One of Israel. 9
22:6 The Elamites picked up the quiver,
and came with chariots and horsemen; 10
the men of Kir 11 prepared 12 the shield. 13
1 tn Heb “men bow down, men are low.” Since the verbs שָׁחָח (shakhakh) and שָׁפַל (shafal) are used later in this discourse to describe how God will humiliate proud men (see vv. 11, 17), some understand v. 9a as a prediction of judgment, “men will be brought down, men will be humiliated.” However, these prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive appear to carry on the description that precedes and are better taken with the accusation. They draw attention to the fact that human beings actually bow down and worship before the lifeless products of their own hands.
2 tn Heb “don’t lift them up.” The idiom “lift up” (נָשָׂא with לְ, nasa’ with preposition lamed) can mean “spare, forgive” (see Gen 18:24, 26). Here the idiom plays on the preceding verbs. The idolaters are bowed low as they worship their false gods; the prophet asks God not to “lift them up.”
3 tn Heb “with arrows and a bow.” The more common English idiom is “bow[s] and arrow[s].”
4 tn Heb “go” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “go hunting.”
5 tn Heb “will be” (so NASB, NRSV).
6 tn Heb “in that day” (so ASV, NASB, NIV); KJV “At that day.”
7 tn Heb “man will gaze toward his maker.”
8 tn Heb “his eyes will look toward.”
9 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.
10 tn Heb “[with] the chariots of men, horsemen.”
11 sn A distant region in the direction of Mesopotamia; see Amos 1:5; 9:7.
12 tn Heb “Kir uncovers” (so NAB, NIV).
13 sn The Elamites and men of Kir may here symbolize a fierce army from a distant land. If this oracle anticipates a Babylonian conquest of the city (see 39:5-7), then the Elamites and men of Kir are perhaps viewed here as mercenaries in the Babylonian army. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:410.