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The Lord Will Judge Ephraim

28 The splendid crown of Ephraim’s drunkards is doomed,[a]
the withering flower, its beautiful splendor,[b]
situated[c] at the head of a rich valley,
the crown of those overcome with wine.[d]
Look, the Lord[e] sends a strong, powerful one.[f]
With the force of a hailstorm or a destructive windstorm,[g]
with the might of a driving, torrential rainstorm,[h]
he will knock that crown[i] to the ground with his hand.[j]

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 28:1 tn Heb “Woe [to] the crown [or “wreath”] of the splendor [or “pride”] of the drunkards of Ephraim.” The “crown” is Samaria, the capital city of the northern kingdom (Ephraim). Priests and prophets are included among these drunkards in v. 7.
  2. Isaiah 28:1 tn Heb “the beauty of his splendor.” In the translation the masculine pronoun (“his”) has been replaced by “its” because the referent (the “crown”) is the city of Samaria.
  3. Isaiah 28:1 tn Heb “which [is].”
  4. Isaiah 28:1 tn Heb “ones overcome with wine.” The words “the crown of” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The syntactical relationship of the final phrase to what precedes is uncertain. הֲלוּמֵי יָיִן (halume yayin, “ones overcome with wine”) seems to correspond to שִׁכֹּרֵי אֶפְרַיִם (shikkore ʾefrayim, “drunkards of Ephraim”) in line 1. The translation assumes that the phrase “the splendid crown” is to be understood in the final line as well.
  5. Isaiah 28:2 tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here and in vv. 16, 22 is אֲדֹנָי (ʾadonay).
  6. Isaiah 28:2 tn Heb “Look, a strong and powerful [one] belongs to the Lord.”
  7. Isaiah 28:2 tn Heb “like a rainstorm of hail, a wind of destruction.”
  8. Isaiah 28:2 tn Heb “like a rainstorm of mighty, overflowing waters.”
  9. Isaiah 28:2 tn The words “that crown” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The object of the verb is unexpressed in the Hebrew text.
  10. Isaiah 28:2 tn Or “by [his] power.”