23:1 Here is a message about Tyre:
Wail, you large ships, 3
for the port is too devastated to enter! 4
From the land of Cyprus 5 this news is announced to them.
25:8 he will swallow up death permanently. 6
The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face,
and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth.
Indeed, the Lord has announced it! 7
43:9 All nations gather together,
the peoples assemble.
Who among them announced this?
Who predicted earlier events for us? 8
Let them produce their witnesses to testify they were right;
let them listen and affirm, ‘It is true.’
48:5 I announced them to you beforehand;
before they happened, I predicted them for you,
so you could never say,
‘My image did these things,
my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’
48:14 All of you, gather together and listen!
Who among them 9 announced these things?
The Lord’s ally 10 will carry out his desire against Babylon;
he will exert his power against the Babylonians. 11
1 tn Heb “spoke by the hand of.”
2 tn The word used here (עָרוֹם, ’arom) sometimes means “naked,” but here it appears to mean simply “lightly dressed,” i.e., stripped to one’s undergarments. See HALOT 883 s.v. עָרוֹם. The term also occurs in vv. 3, 4.
3 tn Heb “ships of Tarshish.” This probably refers to large ships either made in or capable of traveling to the distant western port of Tarshish.
4 tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “for it is destroyed, from a house, from entering.” The translation assumes that the mem (מ) on בַּיִת (bayit) was originally an enclitic mem suffixed to the preceding verb. This assumption allows one to take בַּיִת as the subject of the preceding verb. It is used in a metaphorical sense for the port city of Tyre. The preposition min (מִן) prefixed to בּוֹא (bo’) indicates negative consequence: “so that no one can enter.” See BDB 583 s.v. מִן 7.b.
5 tn Heb “the Kittim,” a designation for the people of Cyprus. See HALOT 504-05 s.v. כִּתִּיִּים.
6 sn The image of the Lord “swallowing” death would be especially powerful, for death was viewed in Canaanite mythology and culture as a hungry enemy that swallows its victims. See the note at 5:14.
7 tn Heb “has spoken” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
8 tn Heb “and the former things was causing us to hear?”
9 sn This probably refers to the idol gods (see v. 5).
10 tn Or “friend,” or “covenant partner.”
sn The
11 tn Heb “and his arm [against] the Babylonians.”