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
5:30 At that time 3 they will growl over their prey, 4
it will sound like sea waves crashing against rocks. 5
One will look out over the land and see the darkness of disaster,
clouds will turn the light into darkness. 6
41:18 I will make streams flow down the slopes
and produce springs in the middle of the valleys.
I will turn the desert into a pool of water
and the arid land into springs.
42:15 I will make the trees on the mountains and hills wither up; 7
I will dry up all their vegetation.
I will turn streams into islands, 8
and dry up pools of water. 9
58:7 I want you 10 to share your food with the hungry
and to provide shelter for homeless, oppressed people. 11
When you see someone naked, clothe him!
Don’t turn your back on your own flesh and blood! 12
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 Or “in that day” (KJV).
4 tn Heb “over it”; the referent (the prey) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “like the growling of the sea.”
6 tn Heb “and one will gaze toward the land, and look, darkness of distress, and light will grow dark by its [the land’s?] clouds.”
sn The motif of light turning to darkness is ironic when compared to v. 20. There the sinners turn light (= moral/ethical good) to darkness (= moral/ethical evil). Now ironically the Lord will turn light (= the sinners’ sphere of existence and life) into darkness (= the judgment and death).
7 tn Heb “I will dry up the mountains and hills.” The “mountains and hills” stand by synecdoche for the trees that grow on them. Some prefer to derive the verb from a homonymic root and translate, “I will lay waste.”
8 tc The Hebrew text reads, “I will turn streams into coastlands [or “islands”].” Scholars who believe that this reading makes little sense have proposed an emendation of אִיִּים (’iyyim, “islands”) to צִיּוֹת (tsiyyot, “dry places”; cf. NCV, NLT, TEV). However, since all the versions support the MT reading, there is insufficient grounds for an emendation here. Although the imagery of changing rivers into islands is somewhat strange, J. N. Oswalt describes this imagery against the backdrop of rivers of the Near East. The receding of these rivers at times occasioned the appearance of previously submerged islands (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:126).
9 sn The imagery of this verse, which depicts the Lord bringing a curse of infertility to the earth, metaphorically describes how the Lord will destroy his enemies.
10 tn Heb “Is it not?” The rhetorical question here expects a positive answer, “It is!”
11 tn Heb “and afflicted [ones], homeless [ones] you should bring [into] a house.” On the meaning of מְרוּדִים (mÿrudim, “homeless”) see HALOT 633 s.v. *מָרוּד.
12 tn Heb “and from your flesh do not hide yourself.”