Isaiah 18:3-5
New English Translation
3 All you who live in the world,
who reside on the earth,
you will see a signal flag raised on the mountains;
you will hear a trumpet being blown.
4 For this is what the Lord has told me:
“I will wait[a] and watch from my place,
like scorching heat produced by the sunlight,[b]
like a cloud of mist[c] in the heat[d] of harvest.”[e]
5 For before the harvest, when the bud has sprouted,
and the ripening fruit appears,[f]
he will cut off the unproductive shoots[g] with pruning knives;
he will prune the tendrils.[h]
Footnotes
- Isaiah 18:4 tn Or “be quiet, inactive”; NIV “will remain quiet.”
- Isaiah 18:4 tn Heb “like the glowing heat because of light.” The precise meaning of the line is uncertain.
- Isaiah 18:4 tn Heb “a cloud of dew,” or “a cloud of light rain.”
- Isaiah 18:4 tc Some medieval Hebrew mss, with support from the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Latin Vulgate, read “the day.”
- Isaiah 18:4 sn It is unclear how the comparisons in v. 4b relate to the preceding statement. How is waiting and watching similar to heat or a cloud? For a discussion of interpretive options, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:362.
- Isaiah 18:5 tn Heb “and the unripe, ripening fruit is maturing.”
- Isaiah 18:5 tn On the meaning of זַלְזַל (zalzal, “shoot [of the vine] without fruit buds”) see HALOT 272 s.v. *זַלְזַל.
- Isaiah 18:5 tn Heb “the tendrils he will remove, he will cut off.”
Isaiah 18:3-5
New International Version
3 All you people of the world,(A)
you who live on the earth,
when a banner(B) is raised on the mountains,
you will see it,
and when a trumpet(C) sounds,
you will hear it.
4 This is what the Lord says to me:
“I will remain quiet(D) and will look on from my dwelling place,(E)
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,(F)
like a cloud of dew(G) in the heat of harvest.”
5 For, before the harvest, when the blossom is gone
and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he will cut off(H) the shoots with pruning knives,
and cut down and take away the spreading branches.(I)
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