Discovery BoxIsaiah 1:23 
Context1:23 Your officials are rebels, 1
they associate with 2 thieves.
All of them love bribery,
They do not take up the cause of the orphan, 5
or defend the rights of the widow. 6
Isaiah 28:19
Context28:19 Whenever it sweeps by, it will overtake you;
indeed, 7 every morning it will sweep by,
it will come through during the day and the night.” 8
When this announcement is understood,
it will cause nothing but terror.
Isaiah 44:3
Context44:3 For I will pour water on the parched ground 9
and cause streams to flow 10 on the dry land.
I will pour my spirit on your offspring
and my blessing on your children.
Isaiah 58:14
Context58:14 Then you will find joy in your relationship to the Lord, 11
and I will give you great prosperity, 12
and cause crops to grow on the land I gave to your ancestor Jacob.” 13
Know for certain that the Lord has spoken. 14
Isaiah 61:11
Context61:11 For just as the ground produces its crops
and a garden yields its produce,
so the sovereign Lord will cause deliverance 15 to grow,
and give his people reason to praise him in the sight of all the nations. 16
1 tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”
2 tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”
3 tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”
4 sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).
6 sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.
7 tn Or “for” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).
8 tn The words “it will come through” are supplied in the translation. The verb “will sweep by” does double duty in the parallel structure.
9 tn Heb “the thirsty.” Parallelism suggests that dry ground is in view (see “dry land” in the next line.)
10 tn Heb “and streams”; KJV “floods.” The verb “cause…to flow” is supplied in the second line for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
11 tn For a parallel use of the phrase “find joy in” (Hitpael of עָנַג [’anag] followed by the preposition עַל [’al]), see Ps 37:4.
12 tn Heb “and I will cause you to ride upon the heights of the land.” The statement seems to be an allusion to Deut 32:13, where it is associated, as here, with God’s abundant provision of food.
13 tn Heb “and I will cause you to eat the inheritance of Jacob your father.” The Hebrew term נַחֲלָה (nakhalah) likely stands by metonymy for the crops that grow on Jacob’s “inheritance” (i.e., the land he inherited as a result of God’s promise).
14 tn Heb “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” The introductory כִּי (ki) may be asseverative (as reflected in the translation) or causal/explanatory, explaining why the preceding promise will become reality (because it is guaranteed by the divine word).
15 tn Or perhaps, “righteousness,” but the context seems to emphasize deliverance and restoration (see v. 10 and 62:1).
16 tn Heb “and praise before all the nations.”
