Text -- Isaiah 38:14-22 (NET)

38:14 Like a swallow or a thrush I chirp, I coo like a dove; my eyes grow tired from looking up to the sky. O sovereign master, I am oppressed; help me! 38:15 What can I say? He has decreed and acted. I will walk slowly all my years because I am overcome with grief. 38:16 O sovereign master, your decrees can give men life; may years of life be restored to me. Restore my health and preserve my life.’ 38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. You delivered me from the pit of oblivion. For you removed all my sins from your sight. 38:18 Indeed Sheol does not give you thanks; death does not praise you. Those who descend into the pit do not anticipate your faithfulness. 38:19 The living person, the living person, he gives you thanks, as I do today. A father tells his sons about your faithfulness. 38:20 The Lord is about to deliver me, and we will celebrate with music for the rest of our lives in the Lord’s temple.” 38:21 Isaiah ordered, “Let them take a fig cake and apply it to the ulcerated sore and he will get well.” 38:22 Hezekiah said, “What is the confirming sign that I will go up to the Lord’s temple?”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Isa 38:14

¹ tn Or “moan” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); KJV, CEV “mourn.”

² tn Heb “my eyes become weak, toward the height.”

³ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in v. 16 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

⁴ tn Heb “stand surety for me.” Hezekiah seems to be picturing himself as a debtor who is being exploited; he asks that the Lord might relieve his debt and deliver him from the oppressive creditor.

NET Notes: Isa 38:15

¹ tn Heb “and he has spoken and he has acted.”

² tn Heb “because of the bitterness of my soul.”

NET Notes: Isa 38:16

¹ tn The translation offered here is purely speculative. The text as it stands is meaningless and probably corrupt. It reads literally, “O lord, on account of them [the suffix is masculine plural], they live, and to all in them [the suffix is feminine plural], life of my spirit.”

² tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as indicative, “you restore my health,” but the following imperatival form suggests it be understood as an imperfect of request.

NET Notes: Isa 38:17

¹ tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”

² tc The Hebrew text reads, “you loved my soul,” but this does not fit syntactically with the following prepositional phrase. חָשַׁקְתָּ (khashaqta, “you loved”), may reflect an aural error; most emend the form to חָשַׂכְת, (khasakht, “you held back”).

³ tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”

⁴ tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”

NET Notes: Isa 38:18

¹ tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

² tn The negative particle is understood by ellipsis in this line. See GKC 483 §152.z.

NET Notes: Isa 38:20

¹ tn The infinitive construct is used here to indicate that an action is imminent. See GKC 348-49 §114.i, and IBHS 610 §36.2.3g.

² tn Heb “and music [or perhaps, “stringed instruments”] we will play.”

³ tn Heb “all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.”

sn Note that vv. 21-22 have been placed between vv. 6-7, where they logically belong. See 2 Kgs 20:7-8.

NET Notes: Isa 38:21

¹ tc If original to Isaiah 38, vv. 21-22 have obviously been misplaced in the course of the text’s transmission, and would most naturally be placed here, between Isa 38:6 and 38:7. See 2 Kgs 20:7-8, where these verses are placed at this point in the narrative, not at the end. Another possibility is that these verses were not in the original account, and a scribe, familiar with the 2 Kgs version of the story, appended vv. 21-22 to the end of the account in Isaiah 38.