Translation talk:Isaiah

Source Info
Chapter 55. From BHS. No text critical decisions made. Alastair Haines 12:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Chapter 29:14."Translating Old Testament passages quoted in Greek text as I come to them, using Masoretic Text. I also check Septuagint to see which version was being quoted, if either. Both quotes in chapter 1 varied slightly from both MT and LXX. -Alastair Haines 14:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)" Quoted from 1'st Corinthians Talk Page--Jdavid2008 19:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Sources, Chapter 1
The first six verses were here before me, sources unknown.

The rest of chapter 1 I translated from the Masoretic Text, using renderings from the King James Bible and Gesenius' Lexicon wherever it seemed appropriate. I have not consulted the Septuagint, Vulgate, rabbinical sources, or commentaries yet. Alephb (talk) 11:24, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Chapters 29 and 41
These, excluding 29:14 and 41:13 I will translate from the Clementine Vulgate, consulting the Wycliffe translation. JustinCB (talk) 20:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Isaiah 29:1-4
Hello, JustinCB. Here is a partial response to your request for comments on Isaiah 29 and 41. Here's some of where I'd make changes or add footnotes to the translation of Isaiah 29:

In verse 1, you have "city that David fought." The Hebrew verb is hanah, used of a military when it encamps. One option is to read it as a poetic way to refer to David living there. Another option is that David ''encamped [against]" it,' which seems to be roughly where "fought" might have come from.

Where you have "Year is added to year," the Hebrew has an imperative, "And year to year." Where you have "solemnities are ended," the Hebrew reads, "let the holidays/feasts/festivals go round."

Verse 2, "surround" might get the gist, if people take "surround" in a hostile sense. A more straightforward, literal translation of the verb might be "distress/oppress/besiege."

Instead of "it will be sad and mourn," the Hebrew reads "there will be sadness and mourning", where the words "sadness" and "mourning" are taaniyyah and aniyyah. Perhaps some hint of the repetitive feeling in the Hebrew could be preserved by using a pair of repetitive words in English, such as weeping and wailing or something like that.

Verse 3, where you have, I will encircle a circle around you like a ball, the Hebrew has, I will encamp against you round about. The verb here, encamp, is the same one that is used in verse one for what David did (to? at?) Ariel, so this strengthens the case that encamp in verse 1 has a hostile sense.

Verse 4, where you have, and the dirt will hear your speech, the Hebrew literally has, and from dust your speech will be bowed down. I am not sure exactly how that poetic little Hebrew expression should read in Hebrew.

Where you have, and your voice will be like a python from the ground, the Hebrew has and your voice will be like an ob from the ground. An ob is like a spirit or something that speaks from within the earth. When Saul visits the "mistress of an ob" at Ein Dor, he says, "Divine to me by the ob." And then the witch screams and says she sees a god coming up from the ground. Leviticus 20:27 calls for the death of a person "in whom there is an ob." On the other hand, sometimes ob is used for the spirit-medium themselves. I'm not sure what the best English equivalent would be.

For the final clause, "and your words will come from the dirt," the Hebrew has "and your speech will tsiftsaf from the dust." The word tsiftsaf is kind of tricky. Like ob, it is associated with the occult. On the other hand, a bird might tsiftsaf at someone who tries to take her eggs, and a desperate man in mourning might tsiftsaf like a bird. So. . . again I'm not sure. In terms of connotation, the closest word I can think of is mutter, because I could imagine someone muttering (speaking low) in an exhausted and desperate state, and I could imagine witches muttering incantations. But I wish I had a better word — the overlap is not perfect (birds don't mutter).

And that's all notes on just the first four verses. I don't want to overwhelm you with too much of a wall of text unless you're up for it. But if you want me to go through verse by verse like this, I'd be happy to. Alephb (talk) 23:15, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I would like to go through it like this. I've made some changes to it.  I've translated ob as "demon's familiar", which is like Wycliffe's "deuel clepere"(devil caller), your voice will "incant", and "encamp [against]" replaces "fought", and "solemnities go round" for "solemnities are ended"(Wycliffe has "overturned", which could mean a cycle as well).  JustinCB (talk) 15:08, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Those all sound reasonable. Can you see now why I started with translating prose? Poetry is so much harder because it plays with fine points of language -- points we might miss, because we're trying to understand the Hebrew language working with such a small corpus. And then even if you get what the poet is doing, it can be hard to reproduce that effect in English. Argh! And poets deliberately use less-common words all the freakin time, which is fine in English, but really hard to deal with in a language that only has about a thousand total pages of preserved text. Alephb (talk) 01:49, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

"tsiftsaf" seems like the English words "whisper" and "whistle", that it might at some distant time have been an onamonafeeuh, ontomatophoea, sound word(you know what I mean, a word that imitates a sound and is call'd in English by a name that's spelling is obscure for no good reson[probably related to Latin]).

This theory doesn't neccessarily explain its meaning in biblical times, but perhaps it's useful nonetheless.

Say "tsiftsaf" like you're trying to whistle and you'll sound like a bird(if you use your imagination[which aincient people were very good at{perhaps it's because they didn't have modern entertainment technology}]).

If you whisper it, you sound like you're trying to shew(or tell as the case may be) someone about how to whistle.


 * Poetry is difficult to translate, as you said, but I think there might be more texts in ancient Hebrew then that survive in Old English, which is more then that survive for most early mideval european languages(and obscure and unique words probably exist in every language with a corpus of text that gets smaller with the age of the text[which is the usual pattern because literacy was the least prevelent at first, and old texts have had more chances to be damaged, destroyed, or lost, not to mention that more copies would've had to have been made as originals wore out]).


 * One unfortunate thing about Hebrew is that the scriptures are pretty much the only record of its early state(and with that, how do we know that God didn't invent Hebrew to write His scriptures in[not that that has any practical meaning because clearly He had people understanding them]?).


 * Sorry for being so long-winded.  JustinCB (talk) 14:08, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * You're not nearly as long-winded as I am. I wouldn't really know how much Old English there is; I'd defer to you on that question. If you put all the surviving Old English together, do you think it would come to more than 1000 pages?


 * The way we know that Hebrew wasn't invented from scratch is that there are a large number of related languages that seem to have common roots with Hebrew. For example, some Hebrew words can be clearly traced to Akkadian, which existed for about two millennia before the first examples of Hebrew. In terms of vocabulary and grammar, Hebrew fits into a larger family of Semitic languages that can be found from Ethiopia to Arabia to Mesopotamia. If you zoom in closer, Hebrew is even more closely related to the various Canaanite languages. Hebrew shows every sign of having developed via the normal linguistic ways from local Canaanite dialects. So when it comes to Hebrew itself, it's true that the Bible is the primary record. But when it comes to the broader back-history of Hebrew, there are plenty of related languages. Alephb (talk) 22:48, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

There are more then a thousand pages, but the most studied few works come to around the length of the Bible(and the rest most likely survive in many copies[unlike in Hebrew, there wasn't a huge effort to preserve certain works, so in mideval languages, popular and religious books ended up surviving in multiple copies, even if they have little merit, and better books that were more obscure end up surviving in only one copy]).

An Old English "the books"(which would be a collection like a greek "ta bibla", or an anthology) would contain transcriptions of the 4 famous manuscripts(poetry), and an edition of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle(recorded events as they happened, a compilation of historical record, older chronicles, and contemporary records). JustinCB (talk) 18:32, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Isaiah 29:5-10
5 And as powder, the multitude of you will be scattered

The Hebrew here reads, literally, and like fine dust the multitude of your strangers will be. For what it's worth, I think the "fine dust" metaphor is doing two things here in its description of "your strangers", i.e. the foreigners who attack and/or occupy Jerusalem. First, the strangers are like fine dust in that they are overwhelmingly numerous. Second, they are like fine dust in that Yhwh blows them away.

and your multitude will pass as ashes, they that had mastery over you;

In Hebrew, something like, and like chaff blown away, the multitude of oppressors, it will be in a mere blink. In the Hebrew, it will be in a mere blink is a part of verse 6. I'm also not sure why there's a sentence spanning a paragraph between 5 and 6.

6 An army from the Lord will come with thunder, and an earthquake, and a great sound of a whirlwind, and a tempest, and a flame of fire devouring.

In Hebrew, From the presence of Yahweh of Armies you will be visited with thunder, and with quaking, and with great sound of tempest, and storm, and flame of fire devouring  I say here, quaking because the word in Hebrew can describe both an earthquake as well as trembling more generally. Perhaps the English "tremors" is a good match.

7 the gentiles. The Hebrew simply reads, the nations.

and all that moved against it, and besieged it, and prevailed against it. Hebrew, and all who fought against her, and her defences, and those who distressed her.

his soul is empty. (first use, for Hebrew reiqa nafsho.) Maybe this translation works. The Hebrew word translated here as "soul" is used in some situations where the English soul doesn't fit as easily, like in describing appetites. Basically, his nefesh is empty is a poetic way of saying the newly-awakened man is very hungry.

his soul is empty. (second use, for Hebrew, nafsho shoqeqa). This second use is a different phrase in Hebrew. The verb shaqaq is more of "yearning" than "empty" and has connotations of thirst as opposed to hunger.

9 Wait and wonder is excellent and even holds onto some of the feeling of the repetitive sounds in the Hebrew, hitmahmehu utmahu.

Where you have blind and sightless, the Hebrew has another highly repetitive phrase, using two different forms of the same verbal root: hishtaʕash'ʕu vashoʕu. That sounds more repetitive in Hebrew than it might look, because it's two fairly simple grammatical transformations of the same root. I think blind and blinded would be a good equivalent.

become drunk [inwardly]], and not from wine; be moved, and not from drunkenness. The Hebrew words here and wine and beer. I'd suggest, they are drunk, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with beer. Or something along those lines.

10 staggering. The Hebrew word is deep sleep, a kind of deep sleep that either always or usually (I can't remember) is caused by God putting someone under.

closed the eyes of your seers: prophets and principle seers, that see visions he will cover.

Hebrew, ''he has closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers; he has covered the seers." Alephb (talk) 02:57, 4 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I want to talk something through before changing things. Have you heard of the drunkard and he who sold him the drink? JustinCB (talk) 15:32, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Talk through whatever you like. I'm in no hurry to change other translators' work. I'm happy to comment when asked, and to hold off when asked. I am not sure where your going with this drunkard question. Alephb (talk) 17:15, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, there's a person who abuses alcohol(which I'm using as an analogy to this debauched Israel) and some person or people who sold the drink, but didn't abuse alcohol, but by selling alcohol to the alcoholic, he has participated in his sin(this is the forigners who sinned by worshiping their gods[which gave the example the Isrealites followed in their sinning], even though they thought they were doing right), and they both go to hell(in this case hell on earth, temporal divine punishment). This would be a useless analogy if the drunkard story didn't sometimes have another part. JustinCB (talk) 14:31, 5 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I understand the idea -- giving alcohol to a drunkard is bad. But I don't think the bits about drunkenness in these verses mention the foreigners as selling the alcohol. I think the drunkenness in these verses is a metaphor for the confusion and chaos caused by God punishing his people by attacking them with the "spirit of slumber" and closing their "eyes" (leaders, spiritual and political).


 * ''Wait and wonder, shout and cry.
 * ''They are drunk, but not from wine,
 * ''they stagger, but not from beer,
 * because Yahweh has poured out on you the spirit of slumber,
 * and he has closed your eyes -- the prophets and your leaders.
 * He has covered the seers.


 * In other words, Yahweh has cut off the people from the guidance they would normally receive from him. God making people metaphorically drunk as punishment is a repeated motif in the Bible. Alephb (talk) 22:48, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I was thinking of the "drink" as an analogy for the sins in general and the sinner(that knows better, that is, Israel) and the non-sinner(that gives a bad example, but doesn't know better) would both be punished(this happens a bit before God inebriates Israel[the vulgate uses "ebriate"]).

This analogy has, in the common version of the tale, the drunkard(not drunk on alcohol or as a punishment, but as an analogy for sin), and he who sold him the drink(foreign tempters), but at least one version adds "people that gave them the licence"(foriegn countries that sent spiritual "fifth columnists"[to tempt Israel into the sins]).

Obviously all 3 would need to be punished. Does this happen here? JustinCB (talk) 05:36, 7 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't see any sign in this passage that the foreigners are depicted as alcohol-providers. In this passage, I think God is the alcohol-provider (metaphors get weird sometimes). But definitely the passage has mentions of both the foreigners and Israel being punished. In what verse are you finding "people that gave them the license"? Alephb (talk) 17:56, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * This analogy is clearly not very good. What if I ask what I am curious about more directly: Is there any sign of 3 different groups being punished for sinning?  Specifically, can parts of verse 5 be interpreted as referring to, for example, Saul's wives(that by their immoral doing pushed Saul into sin)?


 * Are "your strangers" possibly "strangers" INSIDE Israel that are pushing Israel to sin and therefore being punished for this pushing? These would be immigrants that are subverting the worship of God and therefore causing Israel to be put into a conquerable state: they can be conquered for they are immoral, and they are immoral because they were pushed to immorality by outside agitators, the which were sent of their enemies; this tactick was done by several enemies in other parts, and, of course, it eventually came down on their own head, but not til Israel was conquered of them.   JustinCB (talk) 19:55, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Also, I'm starting from verse 10 working back. I've changed "staggering" to "worst unconsciousness", and changed your "seers: prophets and principal seers" to "prophets and rulers", and "that see visions he will cover" to "he has covered them that see visions".  JustinCB (talk) 20:44, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I'll admit I'm finding it difficult to follow you. Did Saul have more than one wife? And what would Saul have to do with this passage? Isaiah is writing (assuming he is the author of chap 29) about four centuries after Saul, and as far as I know nobody else in the Bible ever mentioned Saul's wife or wives. Alephb (talk) 23:55, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Wrong king. SOLOMON was the one who was tricked by foreign wives.

I think there's another place where an enemy of the Israelites conquers them by undermining their morals(those agents of undermining morals, are they mentioned?) JustinCB (talk) 00:12, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Verse 10(I before mentioned, but it might a-been lost in the wall of text), I changed "staggering" to "worst unconsiousness", "seers: prophets and principal seers" to "prophets and rulers", and "that see visions, he will cover" to "he will cover them that see visions". For what it's worth, I think the vulgate reads more like "your seers: prophets and rulers:", and "seers that see visions", and "staggering" could also be translated "deep sleep". I used "worst unconsiousness" because it's a punishment, so it's not going to be pleasaunt(probably like being knocked unconcious while very drunk).

Verse 9, I changed "blind and sightless" to "unseeing and sightless"(as it seems to have multiple transformations of the same root), and "moved, but not from drunkennes" to "tipsy, but not from beer". For what it's worth, the "moved" probably means a sort of tipsy moving(staggering, talkitivity, &amp;c.), not being moved by a Hank Williams song(or some other beautiful/tragick thing that moves your heart).

If yee want to say any more on those two verses, speak yee. JustinCB (talk) 03:12, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Verse 8, I changed the first "his soul is empty" to "his stomach is empty", and the second to "his stomach yearns".

Verse 7, I changed "the multitude of all gentiles" to "the multitude of all nations". JustinCB (talk) 20:25, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

verse 29:5
Does this verse allow for strangers inside Israel? Are "your strangers" definitively outside Israel, or are they inside pushing them to sin as well? JustinCB (talk) 12:44, 9 January 2018 (UTC)


 * By "inside" and "outside" Israel, are you referring to inside or outside the ethnic group, or inside or outside the territory? Alephb (talk) 00:37, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Living within Israel and within the secular culture, but retaining their own religion(and converting Isrealites thereto), or immigrating to Israel for to tric them into straying from the true worship of God. JustinCB (talk) 02:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I would read them not as sneaky infiltrators, but as violent oppressors, because of the way that the word "strangers" is set up in a poetic parallelism which suggests it is being here used as a synonym of aritsim, roughly "violent powerful oppressor types." I think that's the most straightforward way to read it. Isaiah is a tricky poet, though, and I wouldn't 100% guarantee that I'm not missing something important here. But I wouldn't worry too much about this -- any time two people read the Bible, they tend to see different things. I won't insist here. Alephb (talk) 23:13, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Re-check 29:1-10
I think I've fixed the errors, but please check again. JustinCB (talk) 02:41, 15 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Are there any specific questions you have about 1-10? I think I covered all the major things I had to say in the discussion above. Unless there's any specific points you think still need addressed, I think I've already checked over it all. Alephb (talk) 00:31, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Just read through the verses without skimming(if I've made any obvious mistakes, this is the only way[and it isn't very long]), and actually address my concerns about verse 5(I wasn't asking if it was poetry, which shows you aren't as good at skimming as you think[or skim'd it too fast]). JustinCB (talk) 02:55, 17 January 2018 (UTC)


 * If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to look at those. I don't think I ever claimed to be good at skimming. Alephb (talk) 00:48, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

29:5(Latin vs. Hebrew)
Also, 29:5 seems different in Hebrew and Latin(we'll need more discussion). This is the later Wycliffe translation(a revision attributed to John Purvey), which is mostly correct, with the modern spelling in parentheses: "And the multitude of hem that wyndewen the schal be as thynne dust; and the multitude of hem that hadden the maistrie ayens thee, schal be as a deed sparcle passynge."("And the multitude of them that winnow thee, shall be as thin dust; and the multitude of them that had the mastery against thee, shall be as a dead sparkle passing."). [Note that "it shall be in an instant suddenly" is part of verse 6 in the vulgate as well.]. For comparison, the KJV has "Moreover the multitude of thy strangers shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones shall be as chaff that passeth away: yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly."

It's important to have reference translations so we don't talk past each other like we did at 2 Samuel. JustinCB (talk) 02:41, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, both metaphors do the same thing in Latin: "small dust" is innumerable and totaly at the mercy of the wind(God), and a "dead sparkle" is both hot fire and dead/burnt out.

However, isn't this poetick in Hebrew? JustinCB (talk) 03:00, 15 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, the verse is poetic in Hebrew. Alephb (talk) 00:28, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

That isn't helpful because you just skimmed my words and didn't look at the different metaphors in Hebrew and Latin(If you read what I wrote, you would see that I was asking a question about poetick metaphors that are very different in Latin and Hebrew in a way that's unusual for Jerome). JustinCB (talk) 02:45, 17 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I didn't just skim your words. I read them all. I saw you show me a bunch of old English, and then some early modern English, and then the KJV of the verse. Yes, they're different. Yes, the Latin has a bit about a "dead sparkle" that doesn't appear in Hebrew. I see that. Then you asked if the verse was poetic in Hebrew. It is. There is probably some sort of implied question you're trying to ask. But I do not know what it is. If you want an answer, you'll either have to try to rephrase the question, or find someone else to ask. Alephb (talk) 00:56, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Do you think that Jerome's Hebrew that he was working from might have been purer than what we have now, and does this verse exist in the Quamran/Dead Sea Scrolls?

Even if there's nothing in those ancient sources, note that all the imagry in the Hebrew is in the Latin, but not the other way around.

The multitude(first) of "them that winnow thee"(Latin) is the same imagry as God's punishment to the (second) multitude(Hebrew) to make them "be as chaff that passeth away".

Also "the terrible ones"(Hebrew) have mastery in the Latin(they "had the mastery against thee", but that means that they were forcing mastery[they didn't say, "Jews, will you please be our servants, we'll pay you a living wage, and give you weekends and holidays off, we'll give you everything you need for your sacrifices, and if you want to leave, you can leave."], and probably being terrible and oppressive too).

Once a long winded(though perhaps interesting) explanation of "had the mastery against thee", we can return to the fact that winnowing moved from being done to the multitude towards the end to being done by the multitude towards the beginning, and it was replaced by a burnt-out fire. "Dead sparkle passing" is perhaps not the best, but this burnt-out fire repeats the meaning of the "small dust" metaphor, but in this case they were powerful and deadly(a fire), but now they're destroyed/dead(ashes/dying ember/dead sparkle).

I hope I'm explaining it better, and not just being more long-winded without being more clear. JustinCB (talk) 17:49, 18 January 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't think Jerome was working from a Hebrew text with any significant differences from the Masoretic tradition. The text of the Bible seems to have been pretty well standardized in Jewish circles by about 200 AD or a little earlier, and so Jerome, who learned his biblical Hebrew from Jews, would basically have just been giving his interpretation of the standard text.


 * Qumran has two copies of the verse -- one basically complete and the other fractional. Both agree with today's standard Hebrew text.


 * I don't think verse 5 is describing two different multitudes. I think it's describing one event in two different ways: the multitude of your foes (KJV "strangers") will be like fine dust / the multitude of the oppressors will be like chaff blowing away.


 * My guess -- though of course I wasn't there -- is that Jerome was a very well-educated and skilled writer, and when he came across a word he didn't know, he made a good guess that fit the poetic context and so on. So when he came across zaraik ("your foes") he guessed "those who winnow you" which is poetic and basically gets the meaning across. And when he came to chaff blowing away, chaff is a fairly rare word, and he guessed "ash," which gets the gist too.


 * But of course, whenever I try to look over Jerome's shoulder I'm basically making an educated guess. Alephb (talk) 23:38, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. I'll see what I can do with the English, then. I could tell that the two multitudes were the same, but it is easier to say first and second(perhaps they are two different enemy nations, but that doesn't really affect what's going on in any meaningful way, and it's probably more in line with Hebrew poetry for them to be the same. JustinCB (talk) 14:31, 19 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Ah, I understand what you were saying about the multitudes. Sort of the core idea of Hebrew poetry is the repetition of the same thing in different words on different lines. There's no "rule" that I know of that would demand they be the same multitude, but that would be sort of the default expectation. I think a lot of times omitting the "and" in English between two lines works. Alephb (talk) 00:57, 21 January 2018 (UTC)