5:5 Now I will inform you
what I am about to do to my vineyard:
I will remove its hedge and turn it into pasture, 1
I will break its wall and allow animals to graze there. 2
14:25 I will break Assyria 3 in my land,
I will trample them 4 underfoot on my hills.
Their yoke will be removed from my people,
the burden will be lifted from their shoulders. 5
27:11 When its branches get brittle, 6 they break;
women come and use them for kindling. 7
For these people lack understanding, 8
therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them;
the one who formed them has no mercy on them.
58:6 No, this is the kind of fast I want. 9
I want you 10 to remove the sinful chains,
to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke,
to set free the oppressed, 11
and to break every burdensome yoke.
1 tn Heb “and it will become [a place for] grazing.” בָּעַר (ba’ar, “grazing”) is a homonym of the more often used verb “to burn.”
2 tn Heb “and it will become a trampled place” (NASB “trampled ground”).
3 tn Heb “to break Assyria.”
4 tn Heb “him.” This is a collective singular referring to the nation, or a reference to the king of Assyria who by metonymy stands for the entire nation.
5 tn Heb “and his [i.e., Assyria’s] yoke will be removed from them [the people?], and his [Assyria’s] burden from his [the nation’s?] shoulder will be removed.” There are no antecedents in this oracle for the suffixes in the phrases “from them” and “from his shoulder.” Since the Lord’s land and hills are referred to in the preceding line and the statement seems to echo 10:27, it is likely that God’s people are the referents of the suffixes; the translation uses “my people” to indicate this.
6 tn Heb “are dry” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).
7 tn Heb “women come [and] light it.” The city is likened to a dead tree with dried up branches that is only good for firewood.
8 tn Heb “for not a people of understanding [is] he.”
9 tn Heb “Is this not a fast I choose?” “No” is supplied in the translation for clarification.
10 tn The words “I want you” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
11 tn Heb “crushed.”