Discovery BoxIsaiah 9:3 
Context9:3 You 1 have enlarged the nation;
you give them great joy. 2
They rejoice in your presence
as harvesters rejoice;
as warriors celebrate 3 when they divide up the plunder.
Isaiah 48:19
Context48:19 Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand, 4
and your children 5 like its granules.
Their name would not have been cut off
and eliminated from my presence. 6
Isaiah 64:2
Context64:2 (64:1) As when fire ignites dry wood,
or fire makes water boil,
let your adversaries know who you are, 7
and may the nations shake at your presence!
1 sn The Lord is addressed directly in vv. 3-4.
2 tc The Hebrew consonantal text reads “You multiply the nation, you do not make great the joy.” The particle לֹא (lo’, “not”) is obviously incorrect; the marginal reading has לוֹ (lo, “to him”). In this case, one should translate, “You multiply the nation, you increase his (i.e., their) joy.” However, the parallelism is tighter if one emends הַגּוֹי לוֹ (hagoy lo, “the nation, to him”) to הַגִּילָה (haggilah, “the joy,” a noun attested in Isa 65:18), which corresponds to הַשִּׂמְחָה (hasimkhah, “the joy”) later in the verse (H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:386). As attractive as this reading is, it has not textual evidence supporting it. The MT reading (accepting the marginal reading “to him” for the negative particle “not”) affirms that Yahweh caused the nation to grow in population and increased their joy.
3 tn Heb “as they are happy.” The word “warriors” is supplied in the translation to clarify the word picture. This last simile comes close to reality, for vv. 4-5 indicate that the people have won a great military victory over their oppressors.
4 tn Heb “like sand”; NCV “as many as the grains of sand.”
5 tn Heb “and the issue from your inner parts.”
6 tn Heb “and his name would not be cut off and would not be destroyed from before me.”
7 tn Heb “to make known your name to your adversaries.” Perhaps the infinitive construct with preposition -לְ (lamed) should be construed with “come down” in v. 1a, or subordinated to the following line: “To make known your name to your adversaries, let the nations shake from before you.”
