Discovery BoxIsaiah 26:19 
Context26:19 1 Your dead will come back to life;
your corpses will rise up.
Wake up and shout joyfully, you who live in the ground! 2
For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, 3
and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits. 4
Isaiah 27:11
Context27:11 When its branches get brittle, 5 they break;
women come and use them for kindling. 6
For these people lack understanding, 7
therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them;
the one who formed them has no mercy on them.
Isaiah 40:20
Context40:20 To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; 8
he then seeks a skilled craftsman
to make 9 an idol that will not fall over.
Isaiah 40:22
Context40:22 He is the one who sits on the earth’s horizon; 10
its inhabitants are like grasshoppers before him. 11
He is the one who stretches out the sky like a thin curtain, 12
and spreads it out 13 like a pitched tent. 14
Isaiah 48:14
Context48:14 All of you, gather together and listen!
Who among them 15 announced these things?
The Lord’s ally 16 will carry out his desire against Babylon;
he will exert his power against the Babylonians. 17
Isaiah 53:2
Context53:2 He sprouted up like a twig before God, 18
like a root out of parched soil; 19
he had no stately form or majesty that might catch our attention, 20
no special appearance that we should want to follow him. 21
Isaiah 53:6
Context53:6 All of us had wandered off like sheep;
each of us had strayed off on his own path,
but the Lord caused the sin of all of us to attack him. 22
Isaiah 58:8
Context58:8 Then your light will shine like the sunrise; 23
your restoration will quickly arrive; 24
your godly behavior 25 will go before you,
and the Lord’s splendor will be your rear guard. 26
Isaiah 59:19
Context59:19 In the west, people respect 27 the Lord’s reputation; 28
in the east they recognize his splendor. 29
For he comes like a rushing 30 stream
driven on by wind sent from the Lord. 31
1 sn At this point the Lord (or prophet) gives the people an encouraging oracle.
2 tn Heb “dust” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
3 tn Heb “for the dew of lights [is] your dew.” The pronominal suffix on “dew” is masculine singular, like the suffixes on “your dead” and “your corpses” in the first half of the verse. The statement, then, is addressed to collective Israel, the speaker in verse 18. The plural form אוֹרֹת (’orot) is probably a plural of respect or magnitude, meaning “bright light” (i.e., morning’s light). Dew is a symbol of fertility and life. Here Israel’s “dew,” as it were, will soak the dust of the ground and cause the corpses of the dead to spring up to new life, like plants sprouting up from well-watered soil.
4 sn It is not certain whether the resurrection envisioned here is intended to be literal or figurative. A comparison with 25:8 and Dan 12:2 suggests a literal interpretation, but Ezek 37:1-14 uses resurrection as a metaphor for deliverance from exile and the restoration of the nation (see Isa 27:12-13).
5 tn Heb “are dry” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).
6 tn Heb “women come [and] light it.” The city is likened to a dead tree with dried up branches that is only good for firewood.
7 tn Heb “for not a people of understanding [is] he.”
8 tn The first two words of the verse (הַמְסֻכָּן תְּרוּמָה, hamsukan tÿrumah) are problematic. Some take מְסֻכָּן as an otherwise unattested Pual participle from סָכַן (sakhan, “be poor”) and translate “the one who is impoverished.” תְּרוּמָה (tÿrumah, “contribution”) can then be taken as an adverbial accusative, “with respect to a contribution,” and the entire line translated, “the one who is too impoverished for such a contribution [i.e., the metal idol of v. 19?] selects wood that will not rot.” However, מְסֻכָּן is probably the name of a tree used in idol manufacturing (cognate with Akkadian musukkanu, cf. H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 133). מְסֻכָּן may be a scribal interpretive addition attempting to specify עֵץ (’ets) or עֵץ may be a scribal attempt to categorize מְסֻכָּן. How an idol constitutes a תְּרוּמָה (“contribution”) is not entirely clear.
9 tn Or “set up” (ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NASB “to prepare.”
10 tn Heb “the circle of the earth” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
11 tn The words “before him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
12 tn The otherwise unattested noun דֹּק (doq), translated here “thin curtain,” is apparently derived from the verbal root דקק (“crush”) from which is derived the adjective דַּק (daq, “thin”; see HALOT 229 s.v. דקק). The nuance “curtain” is implied from the parallelism (see “tent” in the next line).
13 tn The meaning of the otherwise unattested verb מָתַח (matakh, “spread out”) is determined from the parallelism (note the corresponding verb “stretch out” in the previous line) and supported by later Hebrew and Aramaic cognates. See HALOT 654 s.v. *מתה.
14 tn Heb “like a tent [in which] to live”; NAB, NASB “like a tent to dwell (live NIV, NRSV) in.”
15 sn This probably refers to the idol gods (see v. 5).
16 tn Or “friend,” or “covenant partner.”
sn The
17 tn Heb “and his arm [against] the Babylonians.”
18 tn Heb “before him.” Some suggest an emendation to “before us.” If the third singular suffix of the Hebrew text is retained, it probably refers to the Lord (see v. 1b). For a defense of this reading, see R. Whybray, Isaiah 40-66 (NCBC), 173-74.
19 sn The metaphor in this verse suggests insignificance.
20 tn Heb “that we might see him.” The vav conjunctive prefixed to the imperfect introduces a result clause here. See GKC 504-5 §166.a.
21 tn Heb “that we should desire him.” The vav conjunctive prefixed to the imperfect introduces a result clause here. See GKC 504-5 §166.a.
22 tn Elsewhere the Hiphil of פָגַע (paga’) means “to intercede verbally” (Jer 15:11; 36:25) or “to intervene militarily” (Isa 59:16), but neither nuance fits here. Apparently here the Hiphil is the causative of the normal Qal meaning, “encounter, meet, touch.” The Qal sometimes refers to a hostile encounter or attack; when used in this way the object is normally introduced by the preposition -בְּ (bet, see Josh 2:16; Judg 8:21; 15:12, etc.). Here the causative Hiphil has a double object – the Lord makes “sin” attack “him” (note that the object attacked is introduced by the preposition -בְּ. In their sin the group was like sheep who had wandered from God’s path. They were vulnerable to attack; the guilt of their sin was ready to attack and destroy them. But then the servant stepped in and took the full force of the attack.
23 tn Heb “will burst out like the dawn.”
sn Light here symbolizes God’s favor and restored blessing, as the immediately following context makes clear.
24 tn Heb “prosper”; KJV “spring forth speedily.”
25 tn Or “righteousness.” Their godly behavior will be on display for all to see.
26 sn The nation will experience God’s protective presence.
27 tc Heb “fear.” A few medieval Hebrew
28 tn Heb “and they fear from the west the name of the Lord.”
29 tn Heb “and from the rising of the sun his splendor.”
30 tn Heb “narrow”; NAB, NIV, NRSV “pent-up.”
31 tn Heb “the wind of the Lord drives it on.” The term רוּחַ (ruakh) could be translated “breath” here (see 30:28).
