1. taken off. More literally, “gathered,” in all probability a euphemism for dying, perhaps an elliptical form of the idiom “gathered to his fathers.”

2. they shall rest on their couches. The Hebrew switches from singular to plural and then back to singular (hence the bracketing off of this clause with dashes in the translation). These words became part of the Jewish prayer for the dead.

3. seed of an adulterer and a whore. This verse, set in conjunction with verses 5–9, makes a double use of sexual promiscuity. The prophet seems to assume that dabbling in pagan magical rites is associated with violating the constraints of sexual morality, perhaps because orgiastic rites are practiced. At the same time, promiscuity, as elsewhere in the Bible, is a metaphor for abandoning YHWH, Israel’s true husband, for dalliance with foreign gods. For “a whore,” the Masoretic Text shows a verb “and she went whoring,” but several ancient versions reflect the noun, zonah.

5. Who go into heat over gods / under every lush tree. See the previous comment on the double use of sexuality. The phrase “under every lush tree” occurs in Jeremiah and elsewhere to indicate abandonment to paganism, and what may be in view here is the practice of fertility cults under sacred trees.

slaughtering children in wadis. The inveighing against child sacrifice, which began to be widespread in the eighth century B.C.E., picks up the purely metaphorical aspect of the language of sexual promiscuity just introduced.

6. Your share is in the stones of the wadi. Although the meaning is not certain, this may refer to sacred steles, matseivot, made of piles of stones. The wadis are where the abomination of child sacrifice is performed. It should be noted that throughout this passage, “you” is feminine singular: the female personification of the people, which also accords with the motif of sexual betrayal.

8. you have put your mark. The noun usually means “memorial.” It would appear to be some sort of ritual marker of pagan worship, analogous to the words of Torah to be affixed to the doorpost according to the injunction in Deuteronomy.

away from Me. The sense of the Hebrew preposition is not certain.

climbed up, made room on your couch. “Climbing up” is the verb used in biblical idiom for getting into bed. The adulterous Israel is getting into bed with alien gods.

lust did you behold. The Hebrew appears to say “a hand did you behold.” Blenkinsopp’s claim that yad, “hand,” means “penis” is dubious: he cites two purported proof texts, Isaiah 56:5, where yad clearly means “memorial” or “marker,” and Song of Songs 5:4–5, where yad clearly means “hand.” This translation follows the proposal of the New Jewish Publication Society version that relates yad here to the verbal stem y-d-d, which means “to love.” But this verset is metrically defective, having only two accents, so one suspects that there was originally a longer word here derived from y-d-d that a scribe contracted to yad either because he was unfamiliar with an unusual term or because of prudery.

9. gave gifts. The Hebrew tashuri ordinarily means “to espy,” but that makes no sense here. This translation links it with the noun teshurah, “gift.”

Molech. The Masoretic Text shows melekh, “king,” but the original text almost certainly read “Molech,” the pagan deity to whom children were sacrificed.

as far down as Sheol. The reference to the netherworld may be more than a hyperbole for great distances because it could refer to the worship of Mot, the Canaanite god of death.

13. let those gathered round you save you. This is another ambiguous reference. “Those gathered round” could mean the gods that the paganizing Israelites have collected, or it could refer to the adherents of the pagan cult. In all this, the denunciation of paganism in the Judahite community is a very different theme from what one finds in Isaiah 40–55. The aim of this later prophet is to purge the community of its wayward elements. A sharp division in the Judahites community is envisioned: those who have exerted themselves to go after strange gods (verses 9–10) will be borne off by the wind, while those who have been steadfast in their loyalty to YHWH will “inherit the land,” which is to say, they will be the legitimate possessors of the Persian province of Yehud, now restored to the people of Israel.

14. And He said. Since the Hebrew of course has no capital letters, the verb here could refer to God, or it might be the prophet who is speaking.

build up, clear a road. In Second Isaiah, the road or highway is a thoroughfare through the desert on which the exiles will pass on the way back to their land. It looks as though this later prophet, clearly familiar with both Isaiah and Second Isaiah, has picked up this image and turned it into a metaphor—as “road” or “way” often is used in the Bible—for the right way before God. The “stumbling block” would thus be the sort of scandalous behavior that has just been scathingly denounced.

15. crushed. Most translations render this as “contrite,” but the Hebrew dakaʾ is in the first instance a physical term: the condition of being pushed down.

16. the life-breath—it is I Who made it. The proposed understanding of this verse is as follows: a spirit may be on the point of failing, but I, God, as the Creator of all spirits, will show compassion and revive it.

19. fruit of the lips. This appears to be a kenning for “speech,” though it does not occur elsewhere. The idea is that God, the Creator of the faculty of speech, has the power to pronounce these healing words of peace.

20. But the wicked are like a roiled sea. The prophet continues his notion of a radical split in the people between the faithful and the derelict. This divide has an incipiently sectarian look, preparing the way for the Book of Daniel and the Qumran texts.

21. There is no peace. This verse does not scan as a line of poetry and could be a kind of epilogue to the prophecy added editorially.