translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: ISA

label: NET study note

text: Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34 , which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.


text: Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.


text: The judgment will severely reduce the earth’s population. See v. 6 .


text: The remnant of the nations (see v. 13 ) may be the unspecified subject. If so, then those who have survived the judgment begin to praise God.


text: The identity of the subject is unclear. Apparently in vv. 15-16 a an unidentified group responds to the praise they hear in the west by exhorting others to participate.


text: The prophet seems to contradict what he hears the group saying. Their words are premature because more destruction is coming.


text: The language reflects the account of the Noahic Flood (see Gen 7:11 ).