Isaiah 27
1 In that day YHWH lays a charge, With His sword—the sharp, and the great, and the strong, On leviathan—a fleeing serpent, And on leviathan—a crooked serpent, And He has slain the dragon that [is] in the sea.
At that time, Yahweh will punish Leviathan, the swift-moving monster/dragon, that coiling serpent that lives in the sea. Yahweh will kill it with his sharp, huge, and powerful sword.
2 In that day respond to her, “A desirable vineyard,
At that time, [Yahweh will say], “You [Israeli people, who are like] [MET] a fruitful vineyard, must sing!
3 I, YHWH, am its keeper, I water it every moment, Lest any lay a charge against it, Night and day I keep it!
I will [protect you] [like a farmer] [MET] waters his crops carefully [in order that they will grow well]. I will guard you day and night, in order that no one harms you.
4 Fury is not in Me; Who gives Me a brier—a thorn in battle? I step into it, I burn it at once.
I am no [longer] angry [with my people]; [if any of your enemies try to injure you like briers and thorns injure people] [MET], I will attack them [in battles]; I will get rid of them completely,
5 Or—he takes hold on My strength, [That] he makes peace with Me, [And] he makes peace with Me.”
unless they request me to protect them; I strongly invite them to make peace with me [DOU]!”
6 He causes those coming in to take root, Jacob blossoms, and Israel has flourished, And they have filled the face of the world [with] increase.
There will be a time when the (descendants of Jacob/Israeli people) will [prosper like] a plant that has good roots; they will be like [MET] trees that bud and blossom and bear a lot of fruit; [what they do will bless] all the people in the world.
7 Has He struck him as the striking of his striker? Does He slay as the slaying of his slain?
[But now I ask], has Yahweh punished us Israelis like he punished our enemies? Has he punished us as much as he punished them?
8 In measure, in sending it forth, you strive with it, He has taken away by His sharp wind, In the day of an east wind,
[No, he has not done that], [but] he punished us Israeli people and (exiled us/forced us to leave our country); we were taken away from our land as though [SIM] we were struck by a windstorm from the east.
9 Therefore the iniquity of Jacob is covered by this, And this [is] all the fruit—To take away his sin, In his setting all the stones of an altar, As chalkstones beaten in pieces, They do not rise—Asherim and images.
Yahweh did that in order to punish us for our sins, and remove our guilt. As a result [of our being exiled], all the altars to other gods [in Israel] will be demolished, and we will be forgiven for the sins that we have committed. There will be no more poles for worshiping the goddess Asherah, or altars for burning incense to other gods; they will all be torn down.
10 For the fortified city [is] alone, A habitation cast out and forsaken as a wilderness, There the calf delights, And there it lies down, And has consumed its branches.
The cities that have strong walls around them will be empty; like the desert, they will have no one living in them. The houses will be abandoned, and the streets will be full of weeds. Calves will eat grass there and lie down there; they will chew up all the leaves on the trees.
11 In the withering of its branch it is broken off, Women are coming in [and] setting it on fire, For it [is] not a people of understanding, Therefore its Maker does not pity it, And its Former does not favor it.
[The Israeli people are like] [MET] dry branches on a tree; women break them off and use them to make fires [under their cooking pots]. Our Israeli people do not have any sense; so Yahweh, who created them, will not act mercifully toward them or be kind to them.
12 And it has come to pass in that day, YHWH beats out from the branch of the river, To the stream of Egypt, And you are gathered one by one, O sons of Israel.
[However], there will be a time when Yahweh will gather them together [again; he will separate them from the people who have conquered them, like people] separate wheat from chaff. He will bring them [back to Israel], one by one, from [the land between] the Euphrates River [in the northeast] and the brook at the border of Egypt [in the southwest].
13 And it has come to pass in that day, It is blown with a great horn, And those perishing in the land of Asshur have come in, And those cast out in the land of Egypt, And have bowed themselves to YHWH, In the holy mountain—in Jerusalem!
At that time, a trumpet will be blown very loudly. And those who were exiled to Assyria and Egypt and who almost died there will return to Jerusalem, to worship Yahweh on [Zion], his holy hill.
