Isaiah 40:15

הֵן גּוֹיִם כְּמַר מִדְּלִי וּכְשַׁחַק מֹאזְנַיִם נֶחְשָׁבוּ הֵן אִיִּים כַּדַּק יִטּוֹל׃

15 Surely the nations are like a drop from a bucket; they are accounted like dust on the scales. Look: he picks up the islands like fine dust.

הֵן גּוֹיִם כְּמַר מִדְּלִי Surely the nations are like a drop from a bucket, Although there is no Mp note to tell us, the word מַר with the meaning "drop" only occurs here in Scripture. דְּלִי "bucket" is probably a bag of leather or an animal organ kept open by wooden crosspieces. In Numbers 24:7, Israel's prosperity is compared to water flowing from buckets.

וּכְשַׁחַק מֹאזְנַיִם נֶחְשָׁבוּ they are accounted like dust on the scales. נֶחְשָׁבוּ is a nifal perfect, "think, account," here used in a passive sense. There may be some affinity of sound between וּכְשַׁחַק "like dust" and נֶחְשָׁבוּ "they are accounted" that isn't quite rhyme but which fits Isaiah's poetic ear. The kind of dust meant by שַׁחַק is a finely pulverized cloud of dust, too fine and insignificant to be sorted apart by anyone but God himself. Isn't that true today even of nations in the Bible itself. Who even among the most scholarly could truly make fine distinctions between all of those in a list like "Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites" (Joshua 3:10)? They are dust on the scales, now.

The Isaiah scroll from Qumran drops the aleph vowel letter from מֹאזְנַיִם, but this is not substantiated by any other manuscript.

הֵן אִיִּים כַּדַּק יִטּוֹל Look: he picks up the islands like fine dust. The verb יִטּוֹל is a qal imperfect, but is it from טּוֹל or טִיל or even נָטַל? This kind of form that appears to draw from more than one root is referred to as a metaplastic form, a mixed verb like our "lie/lay." Here דַּק is "fine, small" (cp. verse 22 below).