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28 Their arrows are sharpened,
and all their bows are prepared.[a]
The hooves of their horses are hard as flint,[b]
and their chariot wheels are like a windstorm.[c]
29 Their roar is like a lion’s;
they roar like young lions.
They growl and seize their prey;
they drag it away and no one can come to the rescue.
30 At that time[d] they will growl over their prey,[e]
it will sound like sea waves crashing against rocks.[f]
One will look out over the land and see the darkness of disaster,
clouds will turn the light into darkness.[g]

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 5:28 tn Heb “bent” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “are strung.”
  2. Isaiah 5:28 tn Heb “regarded like flint.”
  3. Isaiah 5:28 sn They are like a windstorm in their swift movement and in the way they kick up dust.
  4. Isaiah 5:30 tn Or “in that day” (KJV).
  5. Isaiah 5:30 tn Heb “over it”; the referent (the prey) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
  6. Isaiah 5:30 tn Heb “like the growling of the sea.”
  7. Isaiah 5:30 tn Heb “and one will gaze toward the land, and look, darkness of distress, and light will grow dark by its [the land’s?] clouds.”sn The motif of light turning to darkness is ironic when compared to v. 20. There the sinners turn light (= moral/ethical good) to darkness (= moral/ethical evil). Now ironically the Lord will turn light (= the sinners’ sphere of existence and life) into darkness (= the judgment and death).