Discovery BoxIsaiah 1:25 
ContextI will purify your metal with flux. 2
I will remove all your slag. 3
Isaiah 4:3
Context4:3 Those remaining in Zion, 4 those left in Jerusalem, 5
will be called “holy,” 6
all in Jerusalem who are destined to live. 7
Isaiah 14:10
Context14:10 All of them respond to you, saying:
‘You too have become weak like us!
You have become just like us!
Isaiah 14:26
Context14:26 This is the plan I have devised for the whole earth;
my hand is ready to strike all the nations.” 8
Isaiah 26:12
Context26:12 O Lord, you make us secure, 9
for even all we have accomplished, you have done for us. 10
Isaiah 29:20
Context29:20 For tyrants will disappear,
those who taunt will vanish,
and all those who love to do wrong will be eliminated 11 –
Isaiah 37:18
Context37:18 It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the nations 12 and their lands.
Isaiah 37:25
Context37:25 I dug wells
and drank water. 13
With the soles of my feet I dried up
all the rivers of Egypt.’
Isaiah 41:29
Context41:29 Look, all of them are nothing, 14
their accomplishments are nonexistent;
their metal images lack any real substance. 15
Isaiah 45:17
Context45:17 Israel will be delivered once and for all by the Lord; 16
you will never again be ashamed or humiliated. 17
Isaiah 52:10
Context52:10 The Lord reveals 18 his royal power 19
in the sight of all the nations;
the entire 20 earth sees
our God deliver. 21
Isaiah 57:14
Context“Build it! Build it! Clear a way!
Remove all the obstacles out of the way of my people!”
1 tn Heb “turn my hand against you.” The second person pronouns in vv. 25-26 are feminine singular. Personified Jerusalem is addressed. The idiom “turn the hand against” has the nuance of “strike with the hand, attack,” in Ps 81:15 HT (81:14 ET); Ezek 38:12; Am 1:8; Zech 13:7. In Jer 6:9 it is used of gleaning grapes.
2 tn Heb “I will purify your dross as [with] flux.” “Flux” refers here to minerals added to the metals in a furnace to prevent oxides from forming. For this interpretation of II בֹּר (bor), see HALOT 153 s.v. II בֹּר and 750 s.v. סִיג.
3 sn The metaphor comes from metallurgy; slag is the substance left over after the metallic ore has been refined.
4 tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.
5 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
6 tn Or “set apart,” cf. CEV “special.”
7 tn Heb “all who are written down for life in Jerusalem.” A city register is envisioned; everyone whose name appears on the roll will be spared. This group comprises the remnant of the city referred to earlier in the verse.
8 tn Heb “and this is the hand that is outstretched over all the nations.”
9 tn Heb “O Lord, you establish peace for us.”
10 tc Some suggest emending גַּם כָּל (gam kol, “even all”) to כִּגְמֻל (kigmul, “according to the deed[s] of”) One might then translate “for according to what our deeds deserve, you have acted on our behalf.” Nevertheless, accepting the MT as it stands, the prophet affirms that Yahweh deserved all the credit for anything Israel had accomplished.
11 tn Heb “and all the watchers of wrong will be cut off.”
12 tn The Hebrew text here has “all the lands,” but the parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:17 has “the nations.”
13 tc The Hebrew text has simply, “I dug and drank water.” But the parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:24 has “foreign waters.” זָרִים (zarim, “foreign”) may have accidentally dropped out of the Isaianic text by homoioteleuton (cf. NCV, NIV, NLT). Note that the preceding word, מַיִם (mayim, “water) also ends in mem (ם). The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has “foreign waters” for this line. However, in several other passages the 1QIsaa scroll harmonizes with 2 Kgs 19 against the MT (Isa 36:5; 37:9, 20). Since the addition of “foreign” to this text in Isaiah by a later scribe would be more likely than its deletion, the MT reading should be accepted.
14 tc The Hebrew text has אָוֶן (’aven, “deception,” i.e., “false”), but the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has אין (“nothing”), which forms a better parallel with אֶפֶס (’efes, “nothing”) in the next line. See also 40:17 and 41:12.
15 tn Heb “their statues are wind and nothing”; NASB “wind and emptiness”; NIV “wind and confusion.”
16 tn Heb “Israel will be delivered by the Lord [with] a permanent deliverance.”
17 tn Heb “you will not be ashamed and you will not be humiliated for ages of future time.”
18 tn Heb “lays bare”; NLT “will demonstrate.”
19 tn Heb “his holy arm.” This is a metonymy for his power.
20 tn Heb “the remote regions,” which here stand for the extremities and everything in between.
21 tn Heb “the deliverance of our God.” “God” is a subjective genitive here.
22 tn Since God is speaking throughout this context, perhaps we should emend the text to “and I say.” However, divine speech is introduced in v. 15.
