Discovery BoxIsaiah 17:10 
Context17:10 For you ignore 1 the God who rescues you;
you pay no attention to your strong protector. 2
So this is what happens:
You cultivate beautiful plants
and plant exotic vines. 3
Isaiah 51:23
Context51:23 I will put it into the hand of your tormentors 4
who said to you, ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you.’
You made your back like the ground,
and like the street for those who walked over you.”
Isaiah 54:4
Context54:4 Don’t be afraid, for you will not be put to shame!
Don’t be intimidated, 5 for you will not be humiliated!
You will forget about the shame you experienced in your youth;
you will no longer remember the disgrace of your abandonment. 6
1 tn Heb “you have forgotten” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).
2 tn Heb “and the rocky cliff of your strength you do not remember.”
3 tn Heb “a vine, a strange one.” The substantival adjective זָר (zar) functions here as an appositional genitive. It could refer to a cultic plant of some type, associated with a pagan rite. But it is more likely that it refers to an exotic, or imported, type of vine, one that is foreign (i.e., “strange”) to Israel.
4 tn That is, to make them drink it.
5 tn Or “embarrassed”; NASB “humiliated…disgraced.”
6 tn Another option is to translate, “the disgrace of our widowhood” (so NRSV). However, the following context (vv. 6-7) refers to Zion’s husband, the Lord, abandoning her, not dying. This suggests that an אַלְמָנָה (’almanah) was a woman who had lost her husband, whether by death or abandonment.
