Isaiah 9:17-19

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 9:17 tn The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has לא יחמול (“he did not spare”) which is an obvious attempt to tighten the parallelism (note “he took no pity” in the next line). Instead of taking שָׂמַח (samakh) in one of its well attested senses (“rejoice over, be pleased with”), some propose, with support from Arabic, a rare homonymic root meaning “be merciful.”
2. Isaiah 9:17 tn The translation understands the prefixed verbs יִשְׂמַח (yismakh) and יְרַחֵם (y^erakhem) as preterites without vav (ו) consecutive. (See v. 11 and the note on “he stirred up.”)
3. Isaiah 9:17 tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “profaned”; NIV “ungodly.”
4. Isaiah 9:17 tn מֵרַע (meraʿ) is a Hiphil participle from רָעַע (raʿaʿ, “be evil”). The intransitive Hiphil has an exhibitive force here, indicating that they exhibited outwardly the evidence of an inward condition by committing evil deeds.
5. Isaiah 9:17 tn Or “foolishness” (NASB), here in a moral-ethical sense.
6. Isaiah 9:17 tn Heb “in all this his anger is not turned, and still his hand is outstretched.”sn See the note at 9:12.
7. Isaiah 9:18 tn Or “Indeed” (cf. NIV “Surely”). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.
8. Isaiah 9:18 sn Evil was uncontrollable and destructive, and so can be compared to a forest fire.
9. Isaiah 9:18 tn Heb “and they swirled [with] the rising of the smoke” (cf. NRSV).
10. Isaiah 9:19 tn The precise meaning of the verb עְתַּם (ʿ^etam), which occurs only here, is uncertain, though the context strongly suggests that it means “burn, scorch.”
11. Isaiah 9:19 sn The uncontrollable fire of the people’s wickedness (v. 18) is intensified by the fire of the Lord’s judgment (v. 19). God allows (or causes) their wickedness to become self-destructive as civil strife and civil war break out in the land.
12. Isaiah 9:19 tn Heb “men were not showing compassion to their brothers.” The idiom “men to their brothers” is idiomatic for reciprocity. The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav (ו) consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.