Text -- Isaiah 16:11-14 (NET)

16:11 So my heart constantly sighs for Moab, like the strumming of a harp, my inner being sighs for Kir Hareseth. 16:12 When the Moabites plead with all their might at their high places, and enter their temples to pray, their prayers will be ineffective! 16:13 This is the message the Lord previously announced about Moab. 16:14 Now the Lord makes this announcement: “Within exactly three years Moab’s splendor will disappear, along with all her many people; there will be just a few, insignificant survivors left.”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Isa 16:11

¹ tn Heb “so my intestines sigh for Moab like a harp.” The word מֵעַי (me’ay, “intestines”) is used here of the seat of the emotions. English idiom requires the word “heart.” The point of the comparison to a harp is not entirely clear. Perhaps his sighs of mourning resemble a harp in sound, or his constant sighing is like the repetitive strumming of a harp.

² tn The verb is supplied in the translation; “sighs” in the preceding line does double duty in the parallel structure.

³ tn Heb “Kir Heres” (so ASV, NRSV, TEV, CEV), a variant name for “Kir Hareseth” (see v. 7).

NET Notes: Isa 16:12

¹ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

² tn Heb “when he appears, when he grows tired, Moab on the high places, and enters his temple to pray, he will not prevail.” It is possible that “when he grows tired” is an explanatory gloss for the preceding “when he appears.”

NET Notes: Isa 16:14

¹ tn Heb “in three years, like the years of a hired worker.” The three years must be reckoned exactly, just as a hired worker would carefully keep track of the time he had agreed to work for an employer in exchange for a predetermined wage.

² tn Heb “and the splendor of Moab will be disgraced with all the great multitude, and a small little remnant will not be strong.”