⁴ tn Or “terebinth.”

² tn Or “terebinths.”

³ tn Or “terebinths.”

² tn Or “terebinths.”

¹ tn Or “terebinth.”

² tn By the time of Mishnaic Hebrew the terms כָּאֵלָה וְכָאַלּוֹן (kaʾelah vekaʾallon) meant “like a terebinth or like an oak.” They may have originally been generic terms for large trees, “like a massive tree or like a big tree.” See HALOT 52, s.v. I אֵלָה and 54, s.v. I אֵלוֹן. These two trees were often part of cultic worship and this significance is prioritized in the translation.

⁶ tc The MT reads בְּשַׁלֶּכֶת (b^eshalleket, “in felling”) as part of “like a terebinth or like an oak, which in felling a pillar in them holy seed her pillar.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has משׁלכת which appears to be a Hophal feminine participle from שָׁלַך (shalakh) meaning “[being] thrown down.” Though the text is difficult, the references to sacred trees and a sacred pillar suggest that the destruction of a high place is in view, an apt metaphor for the judgment of idolatrous Judah.

³ tc The translation accepts the emendation in BHS, reading אֲשֵׁרָה (ʾasherah) rather than אֲשֶׁר (ʾasher, “which”). The term אֲשֵׁרָה may refer to the goddess Asherah or a sacred pole which presumably represented the goddess at worship sites. The translation also treats the Asherah as the third in a series of items, as if וְכַאֲשֵׁרָה (vekaʾasherah, “and like an Asherah”). But it may just as well be modifying the previous noun so that the whole phrase reads “like a terebinth and like the oak of an Asherah.” See J. D. W. Watts, Isaiah 1-33 (WBC), 101, 103.