Discovery BoxIsaiah 5:13-14 
Context5:13 Therefore my 1 people will be deported 2
because of their lack of understanding.
Their 3 leaders will have nothing to eat, 4
their 5 masses will have nothing to drink. 6
5:14 So Death 7 will open up its throat,
and open wide its mouth; 8
Zion’s dignitaries and masses will descend into it,
including those who revel and celebrate within her. 9
1 sn It is not certain if the prophet or the Lord is speaking at this point.
2 tn The suffixed (perfect) form of the verb is used; in this way the coming event is described for rhetorical effect as occurring or as already completed.
3 tn The third masculine singular suffix refers back to “my people.”
4 tn Heb “Their glory will be men of hunger.” כָּבוֹד (kavod, “glory”) is in opposition to הָמוֹן (hamon, “masses”) and refers here to the rich and prominent members of the nation. Some prefer to repoint מְתֵי (mÿtey, “men of”) as מִתֵי (mitey, “dead ones of”).
5 tn The third masculine singular suffix refers back to “my people.”
6 tn Heb “and their masses will be parched [by] thirst.”
7 tn Heb “Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV); the underworld, the land of the dead, according to the OT world view. Cf. NAB “the nether world”; TEV, CEV “the world of the dead”; NLT “the grave.”
8 tn Heb “so Sheol will make wide its throat, and open its mouth without limit.”
sn Death is portrayed in both the OT (Prov 1:12; Hab 2:5) and Canaanite myth as voraciously swallowing up its prey. In the myths Death is portrayed as having “a lip to the earth, a lip to the heavens … and a tongue to the stars.” (G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 69, text 5 ii 2-3.) Death describes his own appetite as follows: “But my appetite is the appetite of lions in the waste…If it is in very truth my desire to consume ‘clay’ [a reference to his human victims], then in truth by the handfuls I must eat it, whether my seven portions [indicating fullness and completeness] are already in the bowl or whether Nahar [the god of the river responsible for ferrying victims from the land of the living to the land of the dead] has to mix the cup.” (Driver, 68-69, text 5 i 14-22).
9 tn Heb “and her splendor and her masses will go down, and her tumult and the one who exults in her.” The antecedent of the four feminine singular pronominal suffixes used in v. 14b is unclear. The likely referent is personified Zion/Jerusalem (see 3:25-26; 4:4-5).
