The Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

By Bob MacDonald

How will we fathom the three great books of prophecies, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel?

These three books are the first section of the later prophets. Isaiah is filled with songs to be sung. Imagine the original melodies of the song for the vineyard, or the thrice repeated Holy of the Cherubim, and the musical shape of the Servant Songs. Imagine Jeremiah meditating on the first chapter of Genesis as he laments the destruction of the temple and the exile of the people. Imagine his sadness expressed in the music embedded in the text itself, and hear the music from Genesis 1 as a counterpoint. Hear the chanting of Ezekiel, from the likeness of the four living creatures, to the vision of the temple, to the name of the city.

Imagine comparing the music of the first dwelling specified in Exodus to that of the last, revealed in Ezekiel.

The Major Prophets is volume 3 of the series, The Hebrew Bible and Its Music.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Energion Publications
• Release date: Apr 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781631996337

Bob MacDonald

Bob MacDonald is a retired West Australian Police officer of thirty years experience. Bob's last day at school was his 14th birthday - commencing work, the very next day, in a timber mill in his home town of Pemberton, West Australia.He later self-educated and enlisted in the West Australian police force, retiring as a superintendent in the Internal Investigations Branch of the Professional Standards portfolio.Since retirement Bob has been working at remote aboriginal communities in Central Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. He also did a tour of duty on the island nation of Cyprus with the United Nations Blue Beret Peacekeepers.Bob, a keen sportsman continues with various sporting activities; which also includes fishing and camping trips. Writing articles for various magazines and now venturing into anecdotal short story compilations and fictional manuscripts ensures Bob leads a busy life.

Book preview

The Major Prophets

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

A close translation for the original music

by

Bob MacDonald

The Hebrew Bible and its Music, Volume 3

Energion Publications

Gonzalez, Florida, U.S.A.

2019

The Major Prophets

Copyright © D. Robert MacDonald 2019, 2021 – all rights reserved.

Cover Design: The author

ISBN: 978-1-63199-633-7

Energion Publications

P. O. Box 841

Gonzalez, Florida, 32560

850-525-3916

www.energionpubs.com

3 October 2021 23:20

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

The Cover

A fractal enclosing a treble clef suggests both the intricate organization of the Biblical language and the music embedded in the manuscripts.

Other books by the author

Seeing the Psalter, Patterns of Recurrence in the Poetry of the Psalms, Energion 2013

The Song in the Night, According to the melody in the accents of the Hebrew text, Energion 2016

(With Jonathan Orr-Stav) The SimHebrew Bible, The Hebrew Bible in Simulated Hebrew – with English Guide, Qualum Publishing 2021

Books in this series

1 The Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

2 The Former Prophets, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings

3 The Major Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

4 The Twelve, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

5 The Books of Truth, Psalms, Proverbs, Job

6 The Five Scrolls, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Qohelet, Esther

7 The Remaining Writings, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles

8 A Biblical Hebrew to English Concordance

9 A is for Abandon, An English to Biblical Hebrew Alphabet Book

10 The Progression of the Music, The Accents of the Hebrew Bible

Preface

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the twelve are called the later prophets in distinction from the former prophets, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. The later prophets divide into the three longer books, called ‘major’ and the twelve called ‘minor’. In the Hebrew canon, the twelve are considered a single book. In the Christian canonical order, these twelve end the Old Testament. In the Hebrew order, the prophets are followed by the writings.

This close translation was initially developed to show in English the intricate patterns of repeated words in Hebrew poetry. Having discovered the inferences concerning the music at a conference on the Psalms in 2010, the author decided that the whole corpus of the Hebrew canonical text should be approached to allow English speaking readers some understanding of the music. The translation retains the order of Hebrew words wherever reasonable, so that changes in reciting note and ornaments can be in English on the same syllable that corresponds to the Hebrew.

The line breaks have been chosen to correspond with the major rest points as indicated in the Hebrew manuscripts by the accents. These are the cadences in the music. The music has been derived through automation based on the deciphering key developed by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura in the latter half of the twentieth century. All the music is available as noted below, though only a small portion of it has been performed.

In the English text of this volume next to the verse number, you may see a letter. This letter is the first note of the verse if the first note is not the default (e). Such a first note indicates that the verse is somehow related to what has come before it. The nature of the relationship is not specific. You the reader / singer must decide how the opening relates to what has been already. When you see a ~, it indicates an ornament on the first note.

The notes of the scale in the default mode for the text of the prose books are c, d, e, f, g#, A, B, C. Absolute pitch is not important. Sing the music wherever it is comfortable for your voice. For instruction on the music, see The Song in the Night.

The music for all 929 chapters of the Hebrew Bible is all available online through the pages at https://meafar.blogspot.com.

This edition includes minor changes to the translation from 2019-2021.

Table of Contents

Preface

List of Musical Examples

Introduction to the Bible and its Music

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Ezekiel

Acknowledgements

List of Musical Examples

Score 1 Isaiah 3:16-17 a mincing rhythm

Score 2 Jeremiah 1:5

Score 3 Hear, heavens, and give ear, earth

Score 4 Swords into plowshares

Score 5 The song of the vineyard

Score 6 Sanctus

Score 7 Immanuel

Score 8 Isaiah and his children

Score 9 A newborn is born to us

Score 10 The smell test

Score 11 The earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh

Score 12 Fallen is Babel

Score 13 Intoxicated, but not with wine

Score 14 Now I will arise

Score 15 Pregnant with Hay

Score 16 Wilderness will sing for joy

Score 17 Splintered calamus

Score 18 Opening of the book of consolation

Score 19 Face the way of Yahweh

Score 20 Lo, my servant

Score 21 With you I am

Score 22 Making peace and creating evil

Score 23 The seed of your inner parts מעה as the particles מעה of sand

Score 24 Joy and everlasting gladness

Score 25 He will see his seed

Score 26 The glory over you

Score 27 To bandage the broken of heart

Score 28 Their worm will not die and their fire will not be quenched

Score 29 The almond tree

Score 30 Amendation of glory

Score 31 The foreskin of your heart

Score 32 The undoing of creation

Score 33 About burnt offerings

Score 34 There is none like you

Score 35 Do not pray concerning this people

Score 36 Bury that girdle

Score 37 Intricate relationships

Score 38 Cursed the valiant who trusts in humanity

Score 39 Jeremiah a laughingstock

Score 40 O land, O land, O land

Score 41 Yet again I will build you

Score 42 Restoration

Score 43 Baruch writes the words of Yahweh

Score 44 Into the hand of the king of Babel

Score 45 Zedekiah is blinded and bound

Score 46 Yahweh regrets the evil

Score 47 The refusal to hear

Score 48 Sword, scarcity, and pestilence in Egypt

Score 49 A promise to Baruch

Score 50 Babel desolated

Score 51 Babel as sledgehammer

Score 52 A long delayed rest

Score 53 Jehoiakin's situation improves

Score 54 The likeness of four living creatures

Score 55 Ezekiel eats the scroll

Score 56 Ezekiel is allowed to cook with oxen patties

Score 57 Four faces for each

Score 58 Usefulness for a vine?

Score 59 Where is stability

Score 60 The two sisters

Score 61 Against the children of Ammon

Score 62 Dirge over Tyre

Score 63 Against Tyre

Score 64 Against Egypt

Score 65 Dirge over Pharaoh

Score 66 Stability in judgment

Score 67 One nation, not two

Score 68 Against Gog

Score 69 In the mirrors of God

Score 70 Entry of the glory of God

Score 71 Its leaf will not wither

Score 72 The name of the city

Introduction to the Bible and its Music

This reading of the Bible is in seven sections according to the divisions of traditional Judaism. First the three major divisions: Torah, Prophets, and Writings. Torah is not further subdivided. The prophets are subdivided into three: the former prophets, and the latter prophets, which in turn are in 2 sections: the three major prophets, and the twelve. The Writings are similarly divided into three: The books of truth, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, the five scrolls, The Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Qohelet, and Esther, and the remaining writings, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

What is unique in this reading?

Music

This English reading of the Hebrew Bible is intended to be the ground for an underlay to the musical score. The deciphering key of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura is a full musical clarification of the text, not just verse by verse but as a whole. The shape of each part of the text becomes transparent. To learn Hebrew, it is good to begin with hearing the music.

ISAIAH-003-1

Score 1 Isaiah 3:16-17 a mincing rhythm

For every book, some examples of the music are included. The music is best sung in Hebrew, but the translation is close enough to allow a non-Hebrew reader to know what the words signify. The accents are always aptly placed. The scores show by the presence of a bar line a change in reciting note and by implication, the accentuation of the word, and the rest point(s) for the recitation.

The reciting note is an indication of tone of voice. The high recitation in verse 16 in this case is a note of warning. The ornaments (accents over the text) may indicate significant similarities in the surrounding text. The opening note of a verse, if not the default tonic, indicates a connection with prior verses or even a prior book or set of books.

Concordance

The algorithms that were used to support this work strive for a one-to-one mapping of Hebrew stems to English lemmas.

Take nation as an example of an English lemma form. In English we recognize nation in a word form like nationalize or international. This word has the same lemma at its base. Similarly, Hebrew words in their many word forms have a stem. For example, the Hebrew stem גוי, goi, occurs in the Hebrew text 561 times in 23 distinct word forms, 247 times in these three major prophets. In this reading it is always rendered as nation, a word derived from the idea of native, i.e. where you were born.

In contrast to a consistent simple rendering, when the King James translators of the Bible translated גוי they used a variety of glosses in English, nation, heathen, Gentiles, people. Some variety may be necessary. Sometimes there are different nuances to the use of a word, even different senses for the same stem. In this case, however, the nuance of heathen has a negative and prejudicial intent to an English reader. There did not seem to be an adequate reason to suppose that such negative intent was intended by the Hebrew, so this reading does not use heathen as a gloss. Gentile also escaped usage. And people, for this reading, is the gloss for עם, a different stem.

As in English, there are Hebrew stems that indicate two or more differing senses, i.e. homonyms in Hebrew. The stem has more than one sense. For example, the English word slip might have to do with slipping on ice, or it might have to do with a tender plant or an undergarment. Similarly in Hebrew, the same stem may have more than one sense. The two-letter example above, עם, may be people or the preposition with. As a second example, נשׁך (nshk) has two distinct uses, to bite, (Jeremiah, once) and to take or have an interest (Ezekiel, four times).

In contrast to the one-to-one simplicity of nation, and the several more complex one-to-many mappings, there are several stems in Hebrew describing common human actions, like walk, come, go, bring. In both languages these glosses are multi-faceted and were allowed to have a many-to-many mapping between the two languages. There are relatively few of these stems, about 1%, perhaps 2 dozen in all, but they are common and pervasive in our speech and our writing. They account for about 4% of the words in the Hebrew canon.

One consequence of this process is that if a stem is used only once in the Hebrew text, then there is an obligation to find a unique English gloss for it. There are over 200 such single-usage stems (hapax legomena) in the concordance for this reading. Two such occur in verse 16 above, ogle שקר and mince טפף.

In contrast to unique stems, the count of unique Hebrew word forms is quite high at 18,971. These represent 2,072 stems outside of the domain of names. About 12.5% of the words of Isaiah are unique forms in the Bible. Contrast this with the earlier books from Genesis to Kings where the average is less than 5% for each book.

There are also some compromises in the algorithms. This reading allows exceptions to the rules for figures of speech and word games, especially when imitating an alphabetic acrostic. It also allows some helping verbs and prepositions to distinguish some stems from others. E.g. hold back, hold fast, lay hold of, hold innocent, are all separate stems. In these cases the English is a multi-word gloss for a more complex sense in each Hebrew stem for which there may be no convenient single word English gloss.

Grammatical connectors like prepositions are notorious for not mapping consistently to single values. There are various reasons for this difference in languages. Sometimes, a preposition is implied by the usage of a verb. One language may require it and the other assume it. Each preposition has a dominant sense, but will not always take its dominant sense. Identifying the exceptions is subjective. For example, the prefix ב b, in Hebrew is usually in, but it may also be rendered as any one of a number of other glosses. In this reading for this volume of the major prophets, it is rendered as follows: about(3), against(49), among(139), as(5), at(46), because(1), by(133), for(9), from(10), her(6), him(3), his(6), in(1270), into(105), its(3), my(1), of(6), on(76), their(6), through(9), to(18), under(1), when(37), with(173), your(2), and there are several times when it is left untranslated.

This brings up a significant difference between Hebrew and English ‘words’. A Hebrew word is more like an English phrase than an English word. Hebrew has several frequently used prefixed prepositions. In general, Hebrew has far more prefixes and suffixes than English.

JEREMIAH_001_005-1

Score 2 Jeremiah 1:5

So for example: לגוים (la-goy-im) is comprised of ל, a lamed (l), followed by גוי, the stem, followed by the masculine plural form ים, yod mem, in this case a form of mem that signals the end of a word. In English it could be rendered as of or to or for the nations. The definite article is marked in this case by the vowel.

Pronouns may be separate words as in English but are more frequent as suffixes. Verb forms are many, and their affixes indicate their form including person, gender, number, mode, voice, and aspect. There are several suffixed pronouns on the verb forms in the above verse. The second, fourth, eighth, and eleventh words all have the singular you seen in the lyrics as ka.

Translation of Names

Thirteen percent of the words in the Bible are classified as names. Some names are opaque to us, and some may be made easier to hear if we translate rather than transcribe them. With 1,690 distinct personal names used 16,279 times, a translation of every name would be as tedious to the reader as a consistent transcription. So the somewhat capricious variations in this reading may keep us on our toes. Some names, readers will recognize. Some will be surprising. The major prophets include 394 distinct names.

Isaiah

Chapter 1

¹ The vision of Isaiah, child of Amoz which he gazed on about Judah and Jerusalem,

in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

C:\Users\Bob\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Word\ISAIAH-001_(1)-1.jpg

Score 3 Hear, heavens, and give ear, earth

² Hear, heavens, and give ear, earth, for Yahweh has spoken,

Children I have reared and made prominent, but they, they have transgressed against me.

³ A bull knows his buyer and an ass his owner's manger.

Israel does not know. My people do not discern.

⁴B Alas sinful nation, a people heavy with iniquity, the seed of evildoers, destructive children.

They have forsaken Yahweh. They have spurned the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged, averse.

⁵B Why will you be stricken any more? You add again to revolt.

The whole head is sickness and the whole heart melancholy.

⁶ From the sole of the foot and up to the head, there is no completeness in it, inflicted with wounds, and striped, and freshly stricken,

neither closed up, nor bandaged, nor eased with oil.

⁷ Your land desolate, your city incinerated with fire,

your ground, strangers, conspicuous before you, devour it and it is desolate, changed by strangers.

⁸ And the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard,

as a lodge in a cucumber field, as a city blockaded.

⁹ Unless Yahweh of hosts had left for us a few survivors,

as Sodom we would have become, like so much failed merchandise.

¹⁰ Hear the word of Yahweh, magistrates of Sodom.

Lend an ear to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah.

¹¹ What to me is the abundance of your offerings? says Yahweh. I am sated with burnt offerings of rams and the milk of fatlings,

and in the blood of young bulls and young lambs or goats, I have no delight.

¹²B When you come to appear before me,

who demanded this from your hand to trample my courts.

¹³B Do not repeatedly bring gifts. That vain incense is an abomination to me.

New moon and Sabbath, the convoking of convocation. I will not endure the mischief of conclave.

¹⁴ Your new moons and appointed times, I hate. They are to me encumbrance,

exasperation for me to bear.

¹⁵ And when you spread your palms, I obscure my eyes from you. Even though with excess you pray, there is no me to hear.

Your hands are full of blood.

¹⁶ Wash. Be clear. Put aside the injury of your wantonness from before my eyes.

Set aside the injury.

¹⁷ Learn what is good. Search out judgment. Make one who is sour happy.

Judge orphan. Contend for a widow.

¹⁸ Come now, let us referee together, says Yahweh.

Though your sins be as scarlet, as snow, they will be white. If they are ruddy as crimson, as wool, they will be.

¹⁹ If you are amenable and you hear,

the good of the land you will eat.

²⁰ And if you would not and you provoke,

you will be devoured by sword, for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.

²¹ How a faithful town has become a prostitute!

It was full of judgment. Righteousness lodged in her, and now murderers.

²² Your silver becomes dross.

Your liquor is diluted with water.

²³ Your nobility are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and pursues a payoff.

Orphan they do not judge, and the contention of a widow does not come to their attention.

²⁴ So, an oracle of the Lord Yahweh of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, 

ah, I will show pity more than my foes, and vengeance more than my enemies.

²⁵ And I will turn toward you my hands, and I will refine as purity, your dross,

and I will turn aside all your differences.

²⁶ And I will turn toward your judges as at the beginning and your counselors as at the commencement.

After this, indeed it is yours to be called city of the righteous, a faithful town.

²⁷ Zion in judgment will be ransomed,

and those restored to her, in righteousness.

²⁸ And a shattering of transgressions and sins will be as one,

and those forsaking Yahweh will be consumed.

²⁹B For they will be ashamed of the potency which you coveted,

and you will be confounded at the gardens which you had chosen.

³⁰B For you will become as the senseless ram offered up,

as the garden which has no water in it.

³¹ And the invincible will become as tinder, and his work a spark,

and they will be kindled, the two as one, and there is none to quench.

Chapter 2

¹ The word that Isaiah child of Amoz gazed on,

about Judah and Jerusalem.

² And it will be, in the aftermath of the days, established will be the hill of the house of Yahweh as the first of the hills, and it will be lifted up among the hillocks,

and all the nations will flow together to it.

³ And many peoples will go and say, Come, let us go up to the hill of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will instruct us from his ways, and we will walk in his paths,

for from Zion will go forth instruction and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.

⁴ And he will judge between the nations and referee for many peoples.

And they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation nor will they teach war any more.

⁵g House of Jacob,

Come and let us walk in the light of Yahweh.

ISAIAH-002_(1)-1

Score 4 Swords into plowshares

⁶B For you have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob, for they are full from antiquity, and are fortunetellers like the Philistines,

and with successions of foreigners they make a compact.

⁷ And his land is filled with silver and gold and there is no limit to his treasuries.

And his land is filled with horses and there is no limit to his chariots.

⁸ And his land is filled with good for nothings.

They worship the deed of their hands, that their fingers have made.

⁹ And humanity presses down and each abases itself,

so do not assume liability for them.

¹⁰B Enter into the rock. Bury yourself in the dust,

in the presence of the dread of Yahweh and the honour of his pride.

¹¹ The haughty eyes of humanity will be abased, and the exaltation of everyone will be pressed down,

and Yahweh will be set on high, he alone, in that day.

¹²B For a day of Yahweh of hosts is over all pride and exaltation,

and over all lifting up. And he abases.

¹³ And over all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and that are lifted up,

and over all the oaks of Bashan.

¹⁴ And over all the hills that are high,

and over all the hillocks that are lifted up.

¹⁵ And over every haughty tower,

and over every fortified wall.

¹⁶ And over all the ships of Tarshish,

and over every attractive veneer.

¹⁷ And the haughtiness of humanity will be pressed down and he will abase the exaltation of everyone,

and Yahweh will be set on high, he alone, in that day.

¹⁸ And the good for nothings perfectly he will renew.

¹⁹ And they will enter into rocky caves and dusty grottoes,

in the presence of the dread of Yahweh and the honour of his pride, when he arises for the ruthlessness of the land.

²⁰ In that day the earthling will cast down his good for nothing silver and his good for nothing gold,

that they made for him to worship, mole, rats, and bats.

²¹ To enter into the quarried rocks and into the fissure of the cliffs,

in the presence of the dread of Yahweh and the honour of his pride when he arises for the ruthlessness of the land.

²² Set yourselves aside from the earthling whose breath is in his nose,

for with what is he to be reckoned?

Chapter 3

¹ For behold the Lord Yahweh of hosts puts aside from Jerusalem and from Judah staff and buttress,

everything to lean on, bread and the whole staff of water:

² Valiant and warrior, 

judge and prophet, soothsayer and elder,

³ Chief of fifty, one who is shown partiality,

and counselor and shrewd of artifice, and discerning conjurer.

⁴ And I will give youngsters as their nobility,

infants, and they will govern them.

⁵ And the people will harass each other and each his associate,

the youngster will defy the elder, and the disgraced the glorified.

⁶ For each will arrest his kin, of the house of his father, A stole you have. Dictator you will be for us,

so this stumbling will be under your hand.

⁷ He will forbear in that day, saying, I will not be the one who binds, and in my house there is no bread, and there is no stole.

You will not set me up as dictator of the people.

⁸C For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah fallen,

for their tongues and their wantonness to Yahweh are a provocation of the eyes of his glory.

⁹ The expression on their faces answers in them, and their sin as Sodom they make evident. They do not conceal it.

Woe to them, for they have rewarded themselves evil.

¹⁰ Say to the righteous one that it will be good,

for the fruit of their wantonness they will eat.

¹¹g Woe to the wicked one, evil,

because the reward of his hands will be done for him.

¹² My people, its taskmasters are infants, and creditors govern it.

My people, those making you happy are wandering and the way of your paths, they swallow.

¹³ Yahweh stood firm to contend,

and he will stand to make the case for the peoples.

¹⁴ Yahweh enters into judgment with the elders of his people and their nobility,

for you, you have kindled the vineyard. The ravaging of the poor is in your houses.

¹⁵ Why for yourselves do you crush my people, and the faces of the poor you grind?

An oracle of my Lord Yahweh of hosts.

¹⁶ And Yahweh said, Because high and lofty are the daughters of Zion and they walk with stretched gullets and ogling eyes,

walking mincing in their gait and with their feet tinkling,

¹⁷ So my Lord will deform the scalp of daughters of Zion,

and Yahweh their fragments will expose.

¹⁸ In that day my Lord will put aside the adornment of the ankle-clasps, and their head-bands and crescents,

¹⁹ the ear-droplets, and the arm-chains, and the fluttering veils,

²⁰ the adornments and the stepping-chains, and the dress-girdles, and the smelling-bottles, and the amulets,

²¹ the finger-rings and nose-rings,

²² the gala-dresses and the sleeve-frocks and the cloaks and the pockets,

²³ and the hand mirrors and the linen from Sind and the head-dresses and the wraps,

²⁴ And it will be instead of spices there will be rot, and instead of the sash a halter, and instead of a hair-do, baldness, and instead of a dress-cloak, a sash with sackcloth,

a brand instead of beauty.

²⁵ Your men by the sword will fall,

and your valiant in the battle.

²⁶ And her doors will moan and will lament,

and acquitted on the earth, she will sit.

Chapter 4

¹ And seven women will be resolved on one man in that day, saying, Our bread we will eat and with our shawl we will be clothed,

but let your name be called over us to gather our reproach.

² In that day the sprout of Yahweh will be for status and for glory,

and the fruit of the earth for pride and for adornment for those who are secure of Israel.

³ And it will be that the residue in Zion and the remaining in Jerusalem will be pronounced holy to him,

all those written of the living in Jerusalem.

⁴B When my Lord washes the filth of the daughters of Zion and rinses the blood of Jerusalem from within her,

by the spirit of judgment and in the spirit of kindling.

⁵ And Yahweh will create over every establishment of the hill of Zion and over her convocations a cloud by day and smoke and illumination of a flaming fire by night,

for over all glory is a canopy.

⁶ And a booth will be for a shadow by day from the desert,

and for a refuge and a hiding place from inundation and rain.

Chapter 5

¹ I will sing, if you will, for my beloved, a song of my beloved for his vineyard.

A vineyard there is for my beloved against an intensely bright destiny of density.

² And he barricaded it and ringed it with stones and planted it, a noble vine. And he built a tower in the midst of it, and moreover, a wine-vat he hewed in it,

and he waited for the making of grapes, and it made bindweed.

ISAIAH-005-1

Score 5 The song of the vineyard

³ And now, O inhabitant of Jerusalem, and those of Judah,

judge, if you will, between me and my vineyard.

⁴ What is to be done further for my vineyard that I have not done in it?

Why do I wait for it to do grapes when it does bindweed?

⁵ And now I will make known, if you will, to you, what I am doing for my vineyard,

to put aside its entwining, and it will be for kindling, to breach its fences, and will be trampled.

⁶ And I will set it fallow. It will not be pruned, nor will it be hoed, and spike and gibe will come up,

and I will command to the thick clouds, to refrain from raining rain upon it.

⁷B For the vineyard of Yahweh of hosts is the house of Israel and those of Judah, his muddy plant,

and he waited for lessons in judgment, and behold, lesions, for justice, and behold, an outcry.

⁸~ Alas those who join house with house. Field with field they bring together,

until there is no place. And you are those who settle, you alone, within the land.

⁹ In the ears of Yahweh of hosts,

without fail many houses will be desolate, the great and the good without inhabitant.

¹⁰~ For ten acres of vineyard will make one bath,

and the seed of a homer will make an ephah.

¹¹d Alas, those who rise early in the morning, strong drink to pursue,

and late in the twilight, for wine to inflame them.

¹² And harp and lute, tambourine and flute and wine, are in their parties,

and the work of Yahweh they do not notice, and what his hands make, they do not see.

¹³ So gone into exile are my people, without knowledge,

and its glory, how famished, their tumult sobered by thirst.

¹⁴ So Sheol has enlarged her throat, and her mouth gawking without decree,

and descending are the honoured and the tumult, and the commotion and the exultant, into her.

¹⁵ And humanity will be pressed down and each will be abased,

and the eyes of the haughty humbled.

¹⁶ But haughty will be Yahweh of hosts in the judgment,

and the One, the Holy, will be sanctified in righteousness.

¹⁷ Then young lambs will graze according to their routine,

and the deserts of those fattened on marrow, guests will eat.

¹⁸d Alas those who draw out iniquity with vain pledges,

and as cords for the wagon, use sin.

¹⁹ Those saying, Let it rush headlong, and let it hurry its deeds, so that we may see,

and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel be brought near and come, so we may know.

²⁰B Alas those saying to evil, Good, and to good, Evil,

setting darkness for light and light for darkness, setting bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

²¹g Alas the wise in their own eyes,

and before their own faces, are the ones who understand.

²²~ Alas the valiant to imbibe wine,

and persons of ability to mix strong drink.

²³ Who justify one who is wicked, foot planted for a bribe,

and the righteousness of those who are righteous, they put aside from them.

²⁴ So as a tongue of fire devours stubble and a flame makes hay timid, their root will be rot, and their flourish as powder will ascend,

for they refused the instruction of Yahweh of hosts, and the sayings of the Holy One of Israel they have spurned.

²⁵ Therefore the anger of Yahweh burned against his people, and he has stretched out his hand upon him, and struck him, and the hills shuddered, and their corpses were cut away from within the streets.

In all this his anger will not turn, but yet his hand is stretched out.

²⁶ And he will lift up a standard for the nations from afar, and will hiss for himself from the extremity of the earth,

and behold, swiftly, fleet, he will come.

²⁷ There is none exhausted, and there is none who stumble among it. None will snooze or sleep,

nor open the girdle of his reins, nor snap the thong of his sandal.

²⁸ Whose arrows are sharp, and all its bows directed.

The hoofs of its horses, like rock they are reckoned, and its whirlwind spreads havoc.

²⁹ Its roaring is like a great cat.

It roars like young lions, and it growls. It will hold fast prey securely, and there is none to deliver.

³⁰ And it will growl over him in that day like the growling of the sea.

And take note of the land, and behold, darkness, trouble, and the light is darkened in its spray.

Chapter 6

¹ In the year of the death of the king Uzziah, and I saw my Lord sitting on a throne exalted and lifted up,

and his skirts filled the temple.

² Seraphim were standing above it. Six wings, six wings for each one.

With two he covers his face and with two he covers his feet and with two he flies.

³ And this one called to this one and said, Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of hosts.

Full is all the earth of his glory.

ISAIAH_006_003-1

Score 6 Sanctus

⁴ And the cubits of the threshold tottered from the voice of the one calling,

and the house was filled with smoke.

⁵ And I said, Woe is mine, for I am undone, for a person of unclean lips I am, and among a people of unclean lips I myself sit,

for the king, Yahweh of hosts, my eyes have seen.

⁶ And one from the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand a tessellation,

in the tongs, he took from the altar.

⁷ And he touched on my mouth and he said, Behold this has touched on your lips,

and your iniquity is put aside and your sin is covered over.

⁸ And I heard the voice of my Lord, saying, Whom will I send, and who will go for us?

And I said, Here am I. Send me.

⁹ And he said. Go, and you will say to this people,

You hear, to hear, and you have no discernment. And you see, to see, and you have no knowledge.

¹⁰ Make dense the heart of this people and make its ear heavy and its eyes muddy,

lest it see with its eyes and with its ears hear and its heart discern and turn and it be healed.

¹¹ And I said, How long, my Lord?

And he said, Until that the noisy cities are without inhabitant, and houses without humanity, and the humus is noised as desolate,

¹² and Yahweh has put far the human,

and the frequent disavowal within the land.

¹³ But yet in her is a tenth, and it will return, and she will be for kindling,

as a turpentine tree and as an oak that in being cast down have a monument in them. The seed of the holy is from her monument.

Chapter 7

¹ It was in the days of Ahaz, child of Jotham, child of Uzziah king of Judah, Rezin king of Aram went up, and Peqach child of Remalia, king of Israel, to Jerusalem to make war on her,

but he was not able to fight against her.

² And it was made clear to the house of David, saying, Aram has reposed over Ephraim.

And his heart was wavering to and fro and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest waver to and fro in the face of wind.

³ And Yahweh said to Isaiah, Go forth, if you will, to encounter Ahaz, you and The-Residue-Will-Return, your son,

to the limit of the conduit of the blessing pool, the upper part, to the highway of the field of the fuller.

⁴ And say to him, Keep watch and be quiet. Do not fear and let not your heart be flustered from these two tails of smoking incendiaries,

burning with anger, Rezin and Aram, and the child of Remalia.

⁵~ Because Aram has evil counsel against you,

Ephraim and the child of Remalia, saying,

⁶ Let us go up to Judah and make her bristle, and let us split her in two for us,

and let us make a king reign in her midst, the child of Tabeel.

⁷f Thus says my Lord Yahweh,

It will not