9:19 Because of the anger of the Lord who commands armies, the land was scorched, 1
and the people became fuel for the fire. 2
People had no compassion on one another. 3
11:12 He will lift a signal flag for the nations;
he will gather Israel’s dispersed people 4
and assemble Judah’s scattered people
from the four corners of the earth.
47:6 I was angry at my people;
I defiled my special possession
and handed them over to you.
You showed them no mercy; 5
you even placed a very heavy burden on old people. 6
53:3 He was despised and rejected by people, 7
one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;
people hid their faces from him; 8
he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. 9
56:2 The people who do this will be blessed, 10
the people who commit themselves to obedience, 11
who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it,
who refrain from doing anything that is wrong. 12
1 tn The precise meaning of the verb עְתַּם (’ÿtam), which occurs only here, is uncertain, though the context strongly suggests that it means “burn, scorch.”
2 sn The uncontrollable fire of the people’s wickedness (v. 18) is intensified by the fire of the Lord’s judgment (v. 19). God allows (or causes) their wickedness to become self-destructive as civil strife and civil war break out in the land.
3 tn Heb “men were not showing compassion to their brothers.” The idiom “men to their brothers” is idiomatic for reciprocity. The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav (ו) consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.
4 tn Or “the banished of Israel,” i.e., the exiles.
5 tn Or “compassion.”
6 tn Heb “on the old you made very heavy your yoke.”
7 tn Heb “lacking of men.” If the genitive is taken as specifying (“lacking with respect to men”), then the idea is that he lacked company because he was rejected by people. Another option is to take the genitive as indicating genus or larger class (i.e., “one lacking among men”). In this case one could translate, “he was a transient” (cf. the use of חָדֵל [khadel] in Ps 39:5 HT [39:4 ET]).
8 tn Heb “like a hiding of the face from him,” i.e., “like one before whom the face is hidden” (see BDB 712 s.v. מַסְתֵּר).
9 sn The servant is likened to a seriously ill person who is shunned by others because of his horrible disease.
10 tn Heb “blessed is the man who does this.”
11 tn Heb “the son of mankind who takes hold of it.”
12 tn Heb and who keeps his hand from doing any evil.”