Discovery BoxIsaiah 3:16 
Context3:16 The Lord says,
“The women 1 of Zion are proud.
They walk with their heads high 2
and flirt with their eyes.
They skip along 3
and the jewelry on their ankles jingles. 4
Isaiah 4:1
Context4:1 Seven women will grab hold of
one man at that time. 5
They will say, “We will provide 6 our own food,
we will provide 7 our own clothes;
but let us belong to you 8 –
take away our shame!” 9
Isaiah 4:4
Context4:4 At that time 10 the sovereign master 11 will wash the excrement 12 from Zion’s women,
he will rinse the bloodstains from Jerusalem’s midst, 13
as he comes to judge
and to bring devastation. 14
Isaiah 23:4
Context23:4 Be ashamed, O Sidon,
for the sea 15 says this, O fortress of the sea:
“I have not gone into labor
or given birth;
I have not raised young men
or brought up young women.” 16
Isaiah 27:11
Context27:11 When its branches get brittle, 17 they break;
women come and use them for kindling. 18
For these people lack understanding, 19
therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them;
the one who formed them has no mercy on them.
1 tn Heb “daughters” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV).
2 tn Heb “with an outstretched neck.” They proudly hold their heads high so that others can see the jewelry around their necks.
3 tn Heb “walking and skipping, they walk.”
4 tn Heb “and with their feet they jingle.”
5 tn Or “in that day” (ASV).
sn The seven to one ratio emphasizes the great disparity that will exist in the population due to the death of so many men in battle.
6 tn Heb “eat” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “buy.”
7 tn Heb “wear” (so NASB, NRSV); NCV “make.”
8 tn Heb “only let your name be called over us.” The Hebrew idiom “call the name over” indicates ownership. See 2 Sam 12:28, and BDB 896 s.v. I ָקרָא Niph. 2.d.(4). The language reflects the cultural reality of ancient Israel, where women were legally the property of their husbands.
9 sn This refers to the humiliation of being unmarried and childless. The women’s words reflect the cultural standards of ancient Israel, where a woman’s primary duties were to be a wife and mother.
10 tn Heb “when” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); CEV “after”; NRSV “once.”
11 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai).
12 tn The word refers elsewhere to vomit (Isa 28:8) and fecal material (Isa 36:12). Many English versions render this somewhat euphemistically as “filth” (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV). Ironically in God’s sight the beautiful jewelry described earlier is nothing but vomit and feces, for it symbolizes the moral decay of the city’s residents (cf. NLT “moral filth”).
13 sn See 1:21 for a related concept.
14 tn Heb “by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning.” The precise meaning of the second half of the verse is uncertain. רוּחַ (ruakh) can be understood as “wind” in which case the passage pictures the Lord using a destructive wind as an instrument of judgment. However, this would create a mixed metaphor, for the first half of the verse uses the imagery of washing and rinsing to depict judgment. Perhaps the image would be that of a windstorm accompanied by heavy rain. רוּחַ can also mean “spirit,” in which case the verse may be referring to the Lord’s Spirit or, more likely, to a disposition that the Lord brings to the task of judgment. It is also uncertain if בָּעַר (ba’ar) here means “burning” or “sweeping away, devastating.”
15 tn J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:430-31) sees here a reference to Yam, the Canaanite god of the sea. He interprets the phrase מָעוֹז הַיָּם (ma’oz hayyam, “fortress of the sea”) as a title of Yam, translating “Mighty One of the Sea.” A more traditional view is that the phrase refers to Sidon.
16 tn Or “virgins” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB).
sn The sea is personified here as a lamenting childless woman. The foreboding language anticipates the following announcement of Tyre’s demise, viewed here as a child of the sea, as it were.
17 tn Heb “are dry” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).
18 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.
19 tn Heb “for not a people of understanding [is] he.”
