5:15 Men will be humiliated,
they will be brought low;
the proud will be brought low. 1
10:28 2 They 3 attacked 4 Aiath,
moved through Migron,
depositing their supplies at Micmash.
14:7 The whole earth rests and is quiet;
they break into song.
23:5 When the news reaches Egypt,
they will be shaken by what has happened to Tyre. 5
24:9 They no longer sing and drink wine; 6
the beer tastes bitter to those who drink it.
26:3 You keep completely safe the people who maintain their faith,
for they trust in you. 7
27:5 unless they became my subjects 8
and made peace with me;
let them make peace with me. 9
28:10 Indeed, they will hear meaningless gibberish,
senseless babbling,
a syllable here, a syllable there. 10
33:4 Your plunder 11 disappears as if locusts were eating it; 12
they swarm over it like locusts! 13
40:17 All the nations are insignificant before him;
they are regarded as absolutely nothing. 14
41:5 The coastlands 15 see and are afraid;
the whole earth 16 trembles;
they approach and come.
41:6 They help one another; 17
one says to the other, ‘Be strong!’
43:21 the people whom I formed for myself,
so they might praise me.” 18
44:4 They will sprout up like a tree in the grass, 19
like poplars beside channels of water.
45:16 They will all be ashamed and embarrassed;
those who fashion idols will all be humiliated. 20
57:2 Those who live uprightly enter a place of peace;
they rest on their beds. 21
58:2 They seek me day after day;
they want to know my requirements, 22
like a nation that does what is right
and does not reject the law of their God.
They ask me for just decrees;
they want to be near God.
66:4 So I will choose severe punishment 23 for them;
I will bring on them what they dread,
because I called, and no one responded,
I spoke and they did not listen.
They did evil before me; 24
they chose to do what displeases me.”
1 tn Heb “men are brought down, men are brought low, the eyes of pride are brought low.”
2 sn Verses 28-31 display a staccato style; the statements are short and disconnected (no conjunctions appear in the Hebrew text). The translation to follow strives for a choppy style that reflects the mood of the speech.
3 tn Heb “he,” that is, the Assyrians (as the preceding context suggests). Cf. NCV “The army of Assyria.”
sn Verses 28-32 describe an invasion of Judah from the north. There is no scholarly consensus on when this particular invasion took place, if at all. J. H. Hayes and S. A. Irvine (Isaiah, 209-10) suggest the text describes the Israelite-Syrian invasion of Judah (ca. 735
4 tn Heb “came against,” or “came to.”
5 tn Heb “they will be in pain at the report of Tyre.”
6 tn Heb “with a song they do not drink wine.”
7 tn Heb “[one of] firm purpose you will keep [in] peace, peace, for in you he possesses trust.” The Hebrew term יֵצֶר (yetser) refers to what one devises in the mind; סָמוּךְ (samukh) probably functions here like an attributive adjective and carries the nuance “firm.” So the phrase literally means, “a firm purpose,” but as the object of the verb “keep, guard,” it must stand by metonymy for the one(s) who possess a firm purpose. In this context the “righteous nation” (v. 2) is probably in view and the “firm purpose” refers to their unwavering faith in God’s vindication (see 25:9). In this context שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”), which is repeated for emphasis, likely refers to national security, not emotional or psychological composure (see vv. 1-2). The passive participle בָּטוּחַ (batuakh) expresses a state that results from the subject’s action.
8 tn Heb “or let him take hold of my refuge.” The subject of the third masculine singular verb form is uncertain. Apparently the symbolic “thorns and briers” are in view, though in v. 4b a feminine singular pronoun was used to refer to them.
9 tc The Hebrew text has, “he makes peace with me, peace he makes with me.” Some contend that two alternative readings are preserved here and one should be deleted. The first has the object שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) preceding the verb עָשָׂה (’asah, “make”); the second reverses the order. Another option is to retain both statements, although repetitive, to emphasize the need to make peace with Yahweh.
10 tn The meaning of this verse has been debated. The text has literally “indeed [or “for”] a little there, a little there” ( כִּי צַו לָצָו צַו לָצָו קַו לָקָו קַו, ki tsav latsav, tsav latsav, qav laqav, qav laqav). The present translation assumes that the repetitive syllables are gibberish that resembles baby talk (cf v. 9b) and mimics what the people will hear when foreign invaders conquer the land (v. 11). In this case זְעֵיר (zÿ’er, “a little”) refers to the short syllabic structure of the babbling (cf. CEV). Some take צַו (tsav) as a derivative of צָוָה (tsavah, “command”) and translate the first part of the statement as “command after command, command after command.” Proponents of this position (followed by many English versions) also take קַו (qav) as a noun meaning “measuring line” (see v. 17), understood here in the abstract sense of “standard” or “rule.”
11 tn The pronoun is plural; the statement is addressed to the nations who have stockpiled plunder from their conquests of others.
12 tn Heb “and your plunder is gathered, the gathering of the locust.”
13 tn Heb “like a swarm of locusts swarming on it.”
14 tn Heb “[as derived] from nothing and unformed.”
15 tn Or “islands” (NIV, CEV); NCV “faraway places”; NLT “lands beyond the sea.”
16 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.
17 tn Heb “each his neighbor helps”; NCV “The workers help each other.”
18 tn Heb “[so] they might declare my praise.”
19 tn The Hebrew term בֵין (ven) is usually taken as a preposition, in which case one might translate, “among the grass.” But בֵין is probably the name of a tree (cf. C. R. North, Second Isaiah, 133). If one alters the preposition bet (בְּ) to kaf (כְּ), one can then read, “like a binu-tree.” (The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa supports this reading.) This forms a nice parallel to “like poplars” in the next line. חָצִיר (khatsir) is functioning as an adverbial accusative of location.
20 tn “together they will walk in humiliation, the makers of images.”
21 tn Heb “he enters peace, they rest on their beds, the one who walks straight ahead of himself.” The tomb is here viewed in a fairly positive way as a place where the dead are at peace and sleep undisturbed.
22 tn Heb “ways” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV); NLT “my laws.”
23 tn The precise meaning of the noun is uncertain. It occurs only here and in 3:4 (but see the note there). It appears to be derived from the verbal root עָלַל (’alal), which can carry the nuance “deal severely.”
24 tn Heb “that which is evil in my eyes.”