Isaiah — Linguistic Gap Analysis (Hmong Language Package)

0. Purpose and Method

This document executes PRD Phase 1 Step 8. It does not re-derive terms already fixed in analysis/08_core_glossary.md (Sections A/B) or assets/bible_term_registry.json; it analyzes the structural linguistic problems those terms create when set side by side across the full 66-chapter book and, especially, across the seven assigned doctrines anchored in the core passage, Isaiah 53:1-12. Three problem-classes are distinguished throughout:

1. Missing vocabulary — a source concept with no workable Hmong lexical item at all, requiring paraphrase or transliteration from scratch (not previously logged).
2. Crowded semantic neighborhoods — a single Hmong morpheme/lexeme forced to carry multiple distinct biblical referents, requiring “fencing” (mandatory disambiguating co-text) to prevent doctrinal bleed between senses.
3. Collision risk — a Hmong term whose primary cultural meaning actively competes with a specific traditional-religion concept (animism, shamanism, ancestor veneration, fate), inherited and extended from the Romans baseline’s risk-tier discipline.

All risk tiers, review-routing, and forbidden-substitution conventions are inherited unchanged from assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json and 12_ai_translation_requirements.md. This document adds no new permanent TM entries; every recommendation below is either (a) a fencing rule applied to an already-logged term, or (b) a newly surfaced gap requiring [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED] treatment pending formal TM-revision review.

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1. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the seven assigned doctrines: the available Hmong terms (drawing on Sections A/B of the core glossary and the term registry), their specific weaknesses, and the recommended Phase-2 generation strategy.

1.1 The Holiness and Majesty of God (Isaiah 6)

Available Terms	Registry ID	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
Dawb Huv, Dawb Huv, Dawb Huv (holy x3)	reg. id 5	Shares the morpheme dawb huv with (a) Romans-baseline sanctification (A21, kev raug ua kom dawb huv), (b) folk ritual purity from spirit-contamination, and (c) the new virgin-marker B5 (tus ntxhais dawb huv) — a triple crowded neighborhood, see §3.1	Fence with mandatory co-text: never bare dawb huv for God’s own nature without the seraphim-acclamation formula or explicit “God’s own unapproachable nature” gloss in the same teaching unit
tus Dawb Huv ntawm Cov Yixalayees (Holy One of Israel)	reg. id 5	Same morpheme collision, compounded by ~25 occurrences across the whole book — the highest-frequency new Critical term identified	Treat as a single fixed title-phrase never abbreviated to bare Dawb Huv; every first occurrence per lesson module requires the Doctrine-1 distinguishing note (see core glossary §C.5)
tus Tswv uas Kav Tag Nrho Cov Tub Rog Saum Ntuj (LORD of Hosts)	reg. id 4	”Cov Tub Rog Saum Ntuj” (heavenly armies) risks assimilation into Hmong folk cosmology’s layered sky-realms populated by celestial spirits/warrior-spirits negotiable by a shaman	Always co-occur with Vajtswv/tus Tswv; never present as a standalone army-title; mandatory contrast note: God commands, is never negotiated with
hwjchim (majesty/power, 6:3 “the whole earth is full of his glory”)	reg. id 34	Inherits the full Romans-baseline shamanic-power collision	Qualifier convention (Vajtswv hwjchim) applies without exception, including in the throne-vision context
lub yeeb koob (glory)	reg. id 80	Stable; no collision, but extremely dense at 6:3 alongside three other flagged terms in a single verse	No fencing required beyond normal usage; flag 6:1-4 as a single teaching unit requiring simultaneous correct handling of ids 4, 5, 34, and 80 — the single densest term-cluster verse-set in the doctrine

Missing-vocabulary flag (new): the seraphim themselves (6:2, “each had six wings”) have no dedicated registry entry. See §2.3 below.

1.2 The Coming Messiah and Suffering Servant

Available Terms	Registry ID(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
Tus Qhev ntawm tus Tswv (Servant of the LORD, title)	reg. id 14	Bare qhev reused from Romans doulos carries literal chattel-slavery connotation in Hmong social memory; risk compounds because the referent shifts between corporate Israel and the individual Messiah across chs. 41-53 without warning	Title-qualifier ntawm tus Tswv mandatory at every occurrence, no exception, plus explicit referent-tracking note (corporate vs. individual) at each new occurrence cluster
Wonderful Counselor / Mighty God / Everlasting Father / Prince of Peace (9:6 title cluster)	reg. ids 9-12	Four-title cluster risks piecemeal use — teaching only one title (e.g. Prince of Peace) without the others loses the deliberate full-deity ascription	Never separate the four titles in generation; always present as a fixed unit with the mandatory Trinity-persons note for “Everlasting Father”
Healing (nirpa)	reg. id 23	Direct, high-density collision with shamanic (txiv neeb) ritual healing, which is typically repeatable and mediator-negotiated	Mandatory once-for-all/substitutionary qualifier clause at every occurrence — single highest-priority fencing rule in the entire Isaiah package
Borne/Carried (nasa/sabal)	reg. id 19	Softenable to “helped carry” (shared burden) rather than “bore exclusively/vicariously”	Verb selection restricted to nqa / thauj / ris used with an explicit substitutionary object marker (“rau peb,” “hloov peb chaw”)
Guilt Offering (asham)	reg. id 25	Risk of collapse into either the general khoom fij (living-sacrifice) entry or the NT propitiation term, erasing the three-way OT/NT/ethical distinction	Maintain the mandatory three-way fence (§3.2 below)
Numbered with the Transgressors (nimnah)	reg. id 28	Same forensic-accounting verb-family as justification, but pointed in the opposite direction (guilt reckoned onto the innocent One)	Cross-teach explicitly as the mirror-image of suav / suav tias (reg. id 52) — never presented as an unrelated idiom
Immanuel / Virgin	reg. ids 7, 13	Both require an unambiguous, non-softened deity/virginity marker; Immanuel risks a weakened “God helps us” gloss	Mandatory first-use footnote (Immanuel) and retained virginity marker (Virgin), per registry notes

1.3 Judgment on Israel’s Idolatry and Injustice

Available Terms	Registry ID(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
dab mlom (idol)	reg. id 58	This is the exact Hmong term for actively venerated spirit-images; doctrinally correct, but the term’s cultural weight is so strong that hearers may treat the polemic (esp. 44:9-20) as foreign anti-Hmong rhetoric rather than universal indictment	Frame 44:9-20’s manufacture-satire explicitly as addressed to all idol-making cultures (Babylonian craftsmen in the narrative), not as a targeted critique of Hmong practice specifically — a pastoral-sensitivity note, not a lexical fix
kev npau taws ntawm Vajtswv (wrath of God)	reg. id 59	Inherits Romans-baseline collision with capricious, ritually-appeasable spirit/ancestor anger	Judicial-not-capricious contrast teaching required at every occurrence, especially 10:5 (sovereign use of a pagan empire) and 63:1-6 (divine warrior imagery, which could otherwise read as a war-spirit narrative)
kev fav xeeb (transgression, pesha) vs kev txhaum (sin) vs kev tsis ncaj ncees (unrighteousness, avon)	reg. ids 55-57	Crowded sin-vocabulary neighborhood — three Hebrew terms risk flattening into one generic Hmong “wrongdoing” concept, losing Isaiah’s deliberate rhetorical layering (esp. dense at 53:5,8,12; 59:2-3,12)	See §3.3 fencing rule below
kev txiav txim ncaj (mishpat, justice)	reg. id 53	Risk of collapsing into the righteousness entry (id 50), losing Isaiah’s deliberate justice/righteousness word-pair	Always present mishpat and tsedaqah as a paired formula where the source text pairs them (1:27, 5:16, 9:7, 33:5, 59:9, etc.), never substitute one for the other
Txom nyem lauj (woe)	reg. id 63	Stable, low risk	No fencing required; log once, reuse by reference throughout the woe-oracle collections (chs. 5, 10, 28-31, 33, 45)

1.4 Comfort and Restoration for God’s People

Available Terms	Registry ID(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
Nplig…lub siab (comfort, nacham)	reg. id 45	Risk of reduction to merely emotional/psychological consolation	Always anchor to forgiveness (40:2) and coming glory in the same teaching unit; treat 40:1/66:13 as a deliberate inclusio spanning the doctrine
Tsis txhob ntshai (fear not) vs kev hwm thiab paub ntshai Vajtswv lub hwjchim (fear of the LORD)	reg. ids 40, 44	Crowded “fear” neighborhood — both operate simultaneously across chs. 40-66; using the same bare verb/noun risks an apparent contradiction	Mandatory lexical fencing per §3.4 below; never interchange
Tus Txhiv (Redeemer, go’el)	reg. id 6	Built on the Romans-baseline abstract noun kev txhiv, but the kinsman-family legal frame (buying back a relative from debt-bondage) has no exact Hmong legal-institutional equivalent — comprehension gap, not collision	Introduce with a brief explanatory bridge to the Hmong debt-redemption custom already flagged positively in the Romans-baseline entry, while noting the kinship dimension explicitly since Hmong debt-redemption custom does not always presuppose a family redeemer
kev cog lus (ntawm Vajtswv) (covenant, berit) vs lus cog tseg (promise)	reg. ids 41-42	Two related but distinct entries; risk of conflating a formal bilateral covenant-oath with a general solemn pledge	Reserve kev cog lus for formal covenant contexts (54:10, 55:3, 61:8) and lus cog tseg for the general promise-sense (9:6-7); never substitute freely
kev hlub ncaj ncees ntawm kev cog lus (chesed)	reg. id 43	Risk of flattening into the existing mercy entry (id 77), losing the covenant-loyalty nuance	Use only where the Hebrew is chesed (54:8,10; 55:3); do not backfill into general mercy contexts

1.5 The Sovereignty of God over the Nations

Available Terms	Registry ID(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
Hnub ntawm tus Tswv (Day of the LORD)	reg. id 66	Risk of assimilation into Hmong divinatory/astrological fate-day concepts — an impersonally fixed date rather than a personal divine act	Same personal-agency safeguard as the Romans-baseline hmoov prohibition for election; never presented as calendrically predetermined apart from God’s personal decree
tus uas Vajtswv tau xaiv thiab pleev roj tsa (Cyrus, “mine anointed”)	reg. id 15	Shares the anointing-vocabulary (pleev roj) with the ultimate Messianic anointing (9:6, 61:1) — a crowded neighborhood risking Cyrus being mistaken for a Messianic figure, or conversely the Messiah’s anointing being flattened to a merely instrumental-historical sense	See §3.5 fencing rule below
hwjchim / Vajtswv hwjchim (power over empires, e.g. 10:5,13)	reg. id 34	Same shamanic-power collision as elsewhere, intensified here because God’s sovereignty is exercised through pagan military power (Assyria, Cyrus)	Explicit note: God’s sovereign use of foreign powers as instruments is never their own independent spiritual power — must not be read as God “borrowing” a stronger spirit’s power

1.6 Salvation Extended to the Nations

Available Terms	Registry ID(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
lwm Haiv Neeg uas koom nrog tus Tswv (foreigner joined to the LORD)	reg. id 48	Risk of under-teaching as a minor exception clause rather than a central doctrinal statement (56:3-8; cf. 19:19-25)	Always present as a major proof-text of Gentile inclusion, cross-referenced with the Romans-baseline nations_gentiles and adoption_as_sons entries
kev cawm dim / cawm (salvation)	reg. id 32	Inherits full Romans-baseline dim/shamanic-soul-rescue collision, now extended to a universal (all-nations) scope	Anchoring convention applies without exception; 45:22 (“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth”) is a maximal-scope occurrence requiring the same God-anchoring discipline as any narrower verse
lwm Haiv Neeg (nations/Gentiles)	reg. id 46	Stable; extremely high frequency	No fencing required; note that this doctrine’s textual base is nearly co-extensive with every occurrence of this term across the book

1.7 The New Heavens and New Earth

Available Terms	Registry ID(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
lub Ntuj Tshiab thiab Lub Ntiajteb Tshiab (New Heavens and New Earth)	reg. id 69	Direct collision risk with Hmong layered-heavens cosmology (multiple spirit-inhabited sky realms); “new heavens” could be heard as a renewed spirit-realm rather than literal physical cosmic re-creation	Mandatory teaching note: this is a literal, physical, future re-creation of the entire cosmos, not a renewed or purified spirit-world
cov tuag yuav sawv rov qab muaj txoj sia (resurrection)	reg. id 30	Crowded neighborhood with ntsuj plig (soul) vocabulary — must not be assimilated to hu plig (ritually calling back a wandering soul to ongoing indefinite existence)	See §3.6 fencing rule below
tej uas raug tsim los (creation)	reg. id 70	Stable; shares root morpheme with the New Heavens/Earth entry deliberately	No fencing required beyond noting the intentional morphemic echo

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2. Missing Vocabulary (Newly Surfaced Gaps, No Prior Registry Entry)

The following concepts, encountered in full-book coverage for this Step, have no dedicated registry or glossary entry to date and require either a proposed paraphrase (logged here for TM-revision review) or a [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED] flag in any Phase 2 generation that touches them.

2.1 Cosmic sea-monster / chaos-combat imagery (Leviathan, Rahab)

• Texts: Isa 27:1 (“the LORD… shall punish Leviathan”), 51:9 (“art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?”).
• Gap: No existing entry addresses this mythological-poetic register. Hmong traditional cosmology includes water-dwelling serpent/dragon spirits (dab dej, zaj) believed to cause floods and misfortune, actively propitiated in some highland traditions.
• Risk: Rendering Leviathan/Rahab/dragon with the ordinary Hmong word for a water-dragon spirit (zaj) risks being heard as an admission that such spirits genuinely exist as independent cosmic rivals to God, rather than as poetic personifications of chaos/evil that God has already decisively defeated.
• Recommended provisional strategy: Render with a marked, non-standard descriptive phrase (e.g., “tus tsov txhu loj hauv hiav txwv uas ua li tus zaj,” “the great sea-monster like a dragon”) plus a mandatory footnote clarifying this is poetic imagery for God’s total sovereignty over all chaos and evil, not an acknowledgment of a rival spirit-being. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: Leviathan/Rahab, Isa 27:1, 51:9] pending formal theologian review, given the water-spirit collision risk.

2.2 “Day Star, son of the morning” (Isa 14:12, taunt against the king of Babylon)

• Text: Isa 14:12-15, historically read by some traditions as a name/description of a fallen angelic/demonic being.
• Gap: No existing entry addresses this. The passage is, in its primary Isaianic context, a taunt-song against the king of Babylon; later theological tradition has read it typologically of Satan’s fall.
• Risk (High, newly identified): In Hmong traditional religion, naming a spirit-being is often treated as significant — a name can function almost as an invocation or acknowledgment of that spirit’s ongoing active reality. Rendering this verse as though it supplies a proper name for a spirit-being (“Lucifer”) — rather than as a poetic taunt against a human king using cosmic-mockery imagery — risks (a) unintentionally supplying Hmong hearers with what functions as a spirit’s name, and (b) importing an extra-biblical angelology not warranted by the primary sense of the text.
• Recommended provisional strategy: Render descriptively and grammatically as address to the human king (“koj, tus vajntxwv uas xav ua tus ci tshaj plaws tom ntej kaj ntug” — “you who wanted to be the brightest star at dawn”), reserving any Satan-typology teaching for an explicit, clearly labeled secondary/typological footnote, never the primary translation. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: Isa 14:12-15 typological reading].

2.3 Seraphim and the coal-purification rite (Isa 6:2, 6:6-7)

• Text: “Above it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings” (6:2); the seraph touches Isaiah’s mouth with a live coal from the altar (6:6-7).
• Gap: No dedicated entry for the seraphim as a class of heavenly being, nor for the altar-coal purification act.
• Risk (High): A six-winged, fire-associated heavenly being is close enough to figures in Hmong folk cosmology (winged sky-spirits, fire-spirits) that an unglossed transliteration or bare “cov tim tswv” (angels/messengers) rendering could be assimilated into that folk category rather than understood as a unique class of throne-attendant created being in submission to God alone.
• Recommended provisional strategy: Render as “cov tub qhe muaj tis saum ntuj uas nyob ncig lub zwm txwv” (“winged heavenly servants surrounding the throne”) with a footnote distinguishing them categorically from any class of spirit that could be invoked, appeased, or negotiated with — they only ever serve and proclaim God’s holiness. The coal-touching act (6:6-7) should be rendered plainly and paired with the mandatory note that this is a unique, one-time prophetic commissioning-purification, not a repeatable ritual technique. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: seraphim class-term, Isa 6:2,6-7].

2.4 Political/geographic proper nouns (Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Moab, Edom, Cyrus, Cush, etc.)

• Gap: No systematic transliteration table has yet been produced for Isaiah’s dense geopolitical vocabulary (chs. 13-23, 36-39, 45).
• Risk: Low doctrinally, but a real comprehension/consistency gap — inconsistent ad hoc transliteration across lessons would undermine the register discipline required by §5 of 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
• Recommended strategy: Adopt the existing Hmong Bible tradition’s (Vaj Lug Kub Npaiv Npaum) established transliterations for these proper nouns wherever they already exist (e.g., established renderings for “Iyi/Egypt,” “Aixi/Assyria,” “Npanpiloo/Babylon”) rather than generating new ones; log any not already attested for a lightweight TM-revision pass, but do not treat as Critical/High risk.

2.5 Sackcloth, ashes, and mourning-ritual vocabulary (e.g., 3:24, 15:3, 22:12, 37:1-2)

• Gap: No dedicated entry; Hmong funerary/mourning custom has its own rich ritual vocabulary (white mourning garments, specific ritual gestures) that only partially overlaps with the sackcloth-and-ashes image.
• Risk (Medium, comprehension-level): Using an unglossed literal “khaub ntoo tsaus daim” (sackcloth) plus “tshauv” (ashes) transfers reasonably as a grief-marker, but risks being read through the specific ritual logic of Hmong funeral custom (which is bound up with ancestral-spirit rites) rather than as a simple grief/repentance gesture.
• Recommended strategy: Retain literal rendering (sackcloth/ashes) but add a brief comprehension note distinguishing this as a generic ancient Near Eastern grief-and-repentance gesture, not a request for ancestral-spirit ritual mediation. Native-speaker review sufficient; not Critical/High tier.

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3. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods Requiring Mandatory Fencing

A “crowded neighborhood” is a single Hmong lexical item forced to bear multiple distinct biblical referents across Isaiah (or across Isaiah and the Romans baseline). Each requires an explicit, non-optional fencing rule for Phase 2 generation.

3.1 dawb huv (holy/pure) — four-way collision

Sense	Where Used	Fence
God’s own transcendent, unapproachable holiness	Isa 6:3, “Holy One of Israel” (25+ occurrences)	Always co-occur with the seraphim-acclamation formula or an explicit “God’s own nature” gloss
Believers’ progressive Spirit-wrought sanctification (Romans baseline, A21)	Not native to Isaiah but shares the same morpheme; risk of cross-book bleed in curricula combining both books	Never apply Isaiah’s Doctrine-1 holiness language to describe a believer’s growth in godliness without an explicit note that these are two distinct doctrines
Folk ritual purity from spirit-contamination	Cultural background sense, not textual, but the default hearer-association	Explicit contrast note required at every first occurrence per lesson module
Virgin-marker compound (tus ntxhais dawb huv uas tsis tau sib deev, B5/id 13)	Isa 7:14	Always used as the full compound phrase, never abbreviated to bare dawb huv in this context, to avoid triggering the holiness or ritual-purity senses instead of the virginity sense

Rule: No Phase 2 content may use bare, unqualified dawb huv for any of these four senses; each requires its own fixed co-text as tabulated above.

3.2 fij (sacrifice/offering domain) — extended to a mandatory THREE-plus-one-way fence

Building on the core glossary’s existing three-way distinction (§C.3), full-book coverage surfaces a fourth sense requiring explicit separation:

1. Christ’s/the NT propitiation — qhov theej txhoj kev txhaum (Romans-baseline, reg. id 60).
2. The OT guilt-offering type — khoom fij daws txim (asham, Isa 53:10, reg. id 25) — taught as the direct prophetic type of #1.
3. Ethical living-sacrifice devotion — khoom fij uas muaj txoj sia nyob (Romans-baseline, reg. id 61 shared usage).
4. Empty, condemned ritual sacrifice — Isa 1:11’s critique of “the multitude of your sacrifices” — the general zevach/qorban domain used negatively, describing hollow cultic performance God rejects.

Risk: Without explicit marking, sense #4 (condemned empty ritual) could bleed backward into sense #2 (the Servant’s genuinely efficacious guilt offering) — producing the theologically backwards impression that all sacrificial language in Isaiah, including the Servant’s death, is being critiqued as empty ritual. Rule: Isa 1:11 must always be taught with an explicit forward-pointing note: “this critique is of hollow ritual substituting for obedience — it is not a critique of sacrifice as such, and it does not diminish the necessity and sufficiency of the Servant’s own guilt-offering in ch. 53.”

3.3 Sin-vocabulary triad: kev txhaum / kev fav xeeb / kev tsis ncaj ncees

Hebrew distinguishes chatta’ah (sin/missing the mark), pesha (willful rebellion), and avon (guilt-liability/iniquity) as three overlapping but distinct terms, most densely stacked in Isaiah 53:5,8,12 and 59:2-3,12.

Fence:

• kev txhaum (reg. id 55) — the general, default sin-vocabulary term; use where the Hebrew is chatta’ah or where no finer distinction is being made by the source text.
• kev fav xeeb (reg. id 56) — reserve specifically for pesha contexts emphasizing willful covenant-rebellion (1:2; 53:5,8,12; 59:12; 65:2 — directly quoted Rom 10:20-21).
• kev tsis ncaj ncees (reg. id 57) — reserve for avon/guilt-liability contexts mirroring the righteousness vocabulary (59:2-3).

Rule: Where Isaiah 53 stacks more than one of these terms in close proximity (as it does across vv.5-12), Phase 2 generation must preserve the distinct Hmong renderings side by side rather than collapsing all three into a single repeated kev txhaum, or the passage’s rhetorical intensification (sin as mistake → sin as rebellion → sin as guilt-debt) is lost.

3.4 ntshai (fear) — two-way fence, comfort vs. reverence

• Fear removed (comfort): Tsis txhob ntshai (reg. id 40) — 41:10,13-14; 43:1,5; 44:2,8; 54:4.
• Fear retained (reverence): kev hwm thiab paub ntshai Vajtswv lub hwjchim (reg. id 44) — 11:2-3; 33:6.

Rule: These two motifs run simultaneously through Isa 40-66 and must never be merged or presented with the same bare vocabulary. A lesson on Isa 41:10 (“fear not”) must not use unqualified ntshai without the “Tsis txhob” negation, and a lesson on Isa 11:2-3 (“fear of the LORD”) must never use the bare negatable form without the reverence-specific compound — otherwise a hearer moving between lessons could conclude Scripture contradicts itself on whether fearing God is commanded or forbidden.

3.5 pleev roj (anointing) — Cyrus vs. the ultimate Messiah

• Cyrus (instrumental/historical anointing): tus uas Vajtswv tau xaiv thiab pleev roj tsa (reg. id 15), Isa 45:1.
• The ultimate Messiah (eternal Messianic anointing): embedded within the title-cluster of 9:6 and the Servant’s Spirit-anointing of 61:1 (reg. id 16).

Fence rule: Isa 45:1 must always retain the explicit qualifying clause distinguishing Cyrus’s one-time, historical, instrumental anointing from the eternal Messianic office; conversely, 61:1 must never be introduced without its full compound (Vaj Ntsuj Plig nyob rau saum kuv...) that ties the anointing explicitly to the Spirit’s abiding presence — a marker Cyrus’s anointing never carries. Any generation task juxtaposing 45:1 and 61:1/9:6 in the same lesson (e.g., a “who is the Anointed One?” module) carries elevated risk and should be flagged for native-speaker review at minimum.

3.6 ntsuj plig / resurrection / “calling back” vocabulary — triple collision zone

• Holy Spirit (never bare) — Vaj Ntsuj Plig (reg. id 3).
• Human soul (anthropological) — bare ntsuj plig (Romans-baseline, inherited, not separately re-entered in the Isaiah registry but implicitly present wherever human inner-life vocabulary occurs, e.g. 26:9 “with my soul have I desired thee”).
• Bodily resurrection — cov tuag yuav sawv rov qab muaj txoj sia (reg. id 30), Isa 26:19; typologically 53:10-12.
• Folk practice of ritually “calling back” a wandering soul (hu plig) — cultural background sense, not textual, but the default hearer-association risk.

Fence rule: Isa 26:19’s resurrection-hope and its typological application to the Servant (53:10-12, “he shall see… he shall be satisfied… prolong his days”) must always be rendered with the bodily, literal, permanent resurrection phrase (sawv rov qab muaj txoj sia), and must never be phrased using any verb resembling hu (call/summon), which would assimilate a permanent bodily resurrection into the folk practice of a soul being temporarily and repeatably “called back” from wandering. This extends the existing Romans-baseline forbidden-substitution rule against hu for “call on the name of the Lord” (§3.1 of 12_ai_translation_requirements.md) into the resurrection domain.

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4. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Item	Decision	Rationale
Proper names of persons/places already attested in existing Hmong Bible tradition (Yixayas/Isaiah, Yixalayees/Israel, Yudas/Judah, Npanpiloo/Babylon, Aixi/Assyria, Iyi/Egypt, Xailab/Cyrus — pending live verification)	Transliterate, reusing existing tradition’s forms	Consistency with the register baseline (§5 of 12_ai_translation_requirements.md); inventing new transliterations would fragment the existing Hmong Christian textual tradition
Immanuel (7:14)	Transliterate + mandatory gloss (Emanuyees + Vajtswv nrog peb nyob)	Parallel treatment to the existing Abba, Leej Txiv convention; the name itself is theologically load-bearing and must not be silently paraphrased away
Guilt offering / asham (53:10)	Paraphrase (khoom fij daws txim), not transliterate	An opaque Hebrew loanword would prevent the necessary three-way contrast-teaching (§3.2); this mirrors the Romans-baseline decision to paraphrase rather than transliterate hilastērion
Seraphim (6:2)	Paraphrase, not transliterate (cov tub qhe muaj tis saum ntuj...) pending TM-revision review	A transliterated loanword (“Xelafi”) would be doctrinally inert and would not carry the necessary distinction from folk winged-spirit categories; a descriptive paraphrase allows the disambiguating note to be built into the term itself
Leviathan / Rahab (27:1, 51:9)	Marked descriptive paraphrase, not transliteration, not the ordinary Hmong dragon-spirit word unqualified	See §2.1; transliteration would be opaque and unteachable, while an unmarked native equivalent (zaj) risks affirming the being’s independent reality
”Day Star, son of the morning” (14:12)	Paraphrase in the human-king register, explicitly avoid transliterating or proper-naming a spirit-being	See §2.2; this is the most sensitive transliteration-avoidance decision in the book
LORD of Hosts (6:3 et al.)	Paraphrase (tus Tswv uas Kav Tag Nrho Cov Tub Rog Saum Ntuj), not a shortened title or loanword	Already fixed in the term registry (id 4); reaffirmed here as correct given the seraphim/army-imagery collision risk
Cherubim (if/when encountered in future Isaiah-adjacent lessons, e.g. cross-references to Ezekiel)	Out of scope for this book — Isaiah itself does not use this term; flagged only to prevent future confusion with the seraphim decision above	No action required for this Language Package
Abba-style Aramaic retention pattern	Not applicable — Isaiah, as a Hebrew OT book, has no Aramaic loanword-retention analogue comparable to Romans’ “Abba”	Documented for completeness; no decision needed

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5. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision specificity × frequency), spanning the whole book with special weight given to the core passage (Isaiah 53:1-12).

1. Healing (53:5, “by his wounds we are healed”) — Critical. The single highest-priority collision in the entire package: shamanic ritual healing is repeatable, mediator-negotiated, and often fee-based; the Servant’s healing is once-for-all, substitutionary, and free. Failure to fence this at every occurrence risks assimilating the atonement itself into the shamanic healing-ritual framework. (reg. id 23)

2. Stricken/Smitten by God — the crowd’s mistaken inference (53:4) — Critical. If not explicitly marked as the onlookers’ mistaken assumption, corrected by v.5, the passage reads as confirming rather than overturning a merit-based suffering theology — directly reinforcing, rather than correcting, the Hmong customary linkage of suffering/illness to ancestral or spirit offense. (reg. id 20)

3. “Holy One of Israel” / threefold holiness acclamation (ch. 6 and 25+ occurrences) — Critical. Highest-frequency new Critical term in the book; the dawb huv four-way crowded neighborhood (§3.1) means a single dropped qualifier anywhere in the curriculum risks bleed into folk ritual-purity or Romans-sanctification senses. (reg. id 5)

4. New Heavens and New Earth (65:17, 66:22) — Critical. Direct collision with Hmong layered-heavens cosmology; without explicit “literal cosmic re-creation” framing, this doctrine’s entire eschatological force could be reinterpreted as a renewed spirit-realm narrative. (reg. id 69)

5. Made Intercession for the Transgressors (53:12) — High. Close structural resemblance to shamanic third-party spirit-negotiation; must be taught as the Servant’s own unrepeatable self-sacrificial act, not a hired mediator’s service. (reg. id 29)

6. “Day Star, son of the morning” (14:12) — High (newly surfaced). Risk of supplying what functions as an invocable spirit-name in a culture where naming a spirit carries ritual weight; compounded by the risk of importing an extra-biblical angelology into the primary translation. (§2.2)

7. Leviathan / Rahab (27:1, 51:9) — High (newly surfaced). Water-dragon-spirit collision; risk of affirming, rather than subordinating, a rival cosmic-spirit narrative. (§2.1)

8. Servant of the LORD referent-shifting (corporate Israel vs. individual Messiah, chs. 41-53) — High. Distinct from the lexical qhev slavery-connotation risk already flagged; this is a referent-tracking ambiguity that could cause an entire lesson to misattribute a corporate-Israel text to the individual Messiah or vice versa, distorting both the Israel-doctrine and the Messiah-doctrine. (reg. id 14)

9. Day of the LORD (13:6,9; 34:8) — High. Fatalistic/astrological-fate collision risk, same family as the Romans-baseline hmoov prohibition; requires the identical personal-agency safeguard. (reg. id 66)

10. Cyrus’s anointing vs. the Messiah’s anointing (45:1 vs. 9:6/61:1) — High. A comprehension/precision ambiguity rather than a traditional-religion collision, but doctrinally consequential if conflated — risks either deifying a pagan king or historicizing/de-eschatologizing the Messiah. (§3.5)

11. Sin-vocabulary triad flattening (chatta’ah/pesha/avon, densest at 53:5-12) — Medium-High. Not a collision but a doctrinal-precision loss; Isaiah’s rhetorical intensification across the three terms is a structural argument feature of the core passage itself and must not be silently collapsed. (§3.3)

12. Seraphim as a class of heavenly being (6:2) — Medium-High (newly surfaced). Winged, fire-associated being risks folk sky-spirit assimilation if left unglossed. (§2.3)

13. “Fear not” vs. “fear of the LORD” (throughout chs. 11, 33, 40-66) — Medium. Internal-consistency risk if the two motifs are not kept lexically distinct across a multi-lesson curriculum arc. (§3.4)

14. Guilt offering (asham) collapsing into either the NT propitiation term or the general sacrifice domain (53:10) — Medium (mitigated by the existing three/four-way fence in §3.2, but remains a live risk wherever a single lesson must move quickly between OT type and NT fulfillment).

15. Comfort (nacham) reduced to mere emotional consolation (40:1 and throughout chs. 40-66) — Medium. Not a collision, but a doctrinal-flattening risk that would weaken the covenant-restoration argument spanning the entire second half of the book. (reg. id 45)

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6. Full-Book Coverage Confirmation

Every chapter of Isaiah has been reviewed for this Step, either because it contributes directly to the vocabulary matrix, missing-vocabulary, or crowded-neighborhood analysis above, or because it has been affirmatively logged as introducing no new linguistic-gap issue beyond what analysis/08_core_glossary.md §C.6 already documents (chs. 12, 15-18, 20-23, 29, 32-39, 46-48, 57-58, 60, 62, 64). No chapter has been silently skipped. Chapters newly implicated by this Step specifically (beyond the core glossary’s prior chapter list) are: 6 (seraphim, §2.3), 14 (Day Star taunt, §2.2), 27 and 51 (Leviathan/Rahab, §2.1), and 3, 15, 22, 37 (mourning-ritual vocabulary, §2.5) — all now logged for formal TM-revision review before Phase 2 generation may rely on any provisional rendering proposed here.