Discovery BoxIsaiah 5:1 
Context5:1 I 1 will sing to my love –
a song to my lover about his vineyard. 2
My love had a vineyard
on a fertile hill. 3
Isaiah 10:32
Context10:32 This very day, standing in Nob,
they shake their fist at Daughter Zion’s mountain 4 –
at the hill of Jerusalem.
Isaiah 13:2
Context13:2 5 On a bare hill raise a signal flag,
shout to them,
wave your hand,
so they might enter the gates of the princes!
Isaiah 16:1
Context16:1 Send rams as tribute to the ruler of the land, 6
from Sela in the desert 7
to the hill of Daughter Zion.
Isaiah 30:25
Context30:25 On every high mountain
and every high hill
there will be streams flowing with water,
at the time of 8 great slaughter when the fortified towers collapse.
Isaiah 32:14
Context32:14 For the fortress is neglected;
the once-crowded 9 city is abandoned.
Hill 10 and watchtower
are permanently uninhabited. 11
Wild donkeys love to go there,
and flocks graze there. 12
Isaiah 40:4
Context40:4 Every valley must be elevated,
and every mountain and hill leveled.
The rough terrain will become a level plain,
the rugged landscape a wide valley.
1 tn It is uncertain who is speaking here. Possibly the prophet, taking the role of best man, composes a love song for his friend on the occasion of his wedding. If so, יָדִיד (yadid) should be translated “my friend.” The present translation assumes that Israel is singing to the Lord. The word דוֹד (dod, “lover”) used in the second line is frequently used by the woman in the Song of Solomon to describe her lover.
2 sn Israel, viewing herself as the Lord’s lover, refers to herself as his vineyard. The metaphor has sexual connotations, for it pictures her capacity to satisfy his appetite and to produce children. See Song 8:12.
3 tn Heb “on a horn, a son of oil.” Apparently קֶרֶן (qeren, “horn”) here refers to the horn-shaped peak of a hill (BDB 902 s.v.) or to a mountain spur, i.e., a ridge that extends laterally from a mountain (HALOT 1145 s.v. קֶרֶן; H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:180). The expression “son of oil” pictures this hill as one capable of producing olive trees. Isaiah’s choice of קֶרֶן, a rare word for hill, may have been driven by paronomastic concerns, i.e., because קֶרֶן sounds like כֶּרֶם (kerem, “vineyard”).
4 tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has “a mountain of a house (בֵּית, bet), Zion,” but the marginal reading (Qere) correctly reads “the mountain of the daughter (בַּת, bat) of Zion.” On the phrase “Daughter Zion,” see the note on the same phrase in 1:8.
5 sn The Lord is speaking here (see v. 3).
6 tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “Send [a plural imperatival form is used] a ram [to] the ruler of the land.” The term כַּר (kar, “ram”) should be emended to the plural כָּרִים (karim). The singular form in the text is probably the result of haplography; note that the next word begins with a mem (מ).
7 tn The Hebrew text has “toward [across?] the desert.”
8 tn Or “in the day of” (KJV).
9 tn Or “noisy” (NAB, NIV, NCV).
10 tn Hebrew עֹפֶל (’ofel), probably refers here to a specific area within the city of Jerusalem. See HALOT 861 s.v. II עֹפֶל.
11 tn The Hebrew text has בְעַד מְעָרוֹת (vÿ’ad mÿ’arot). The force of בְעַד, which usually means “behind, through, round about,” or “for the benefit of,” is uncertain here. HALOT 616 s.v. *מְעָרָה takes מְעָרוֹת (mÿ’arot) as a homonym of “cave” and define it here as “cleared field.” Despite these lexical problems, the general point of the statement seems clear – the city will be uninhabited.
12 tn Heb “the joy of wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks.”
