Isaiah 37:25

37:25 I dug wells

and drank water. ¹ 

With the soles of my feet I dried up

all the rivers of Egypt.’

Isaiah 37:2

37:2 Eliakim the palace supervisor, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, ²  clothed in sackcloth, sent this message to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz:

Isaiah 19:24

19:24 At that time Israel will be the third member of the group, along with Egypt and Assyria, and will be a recipient of blessing ³  in the earth. ⁴ 

¹ tc The Hebrew text has simply, “I dug and drank water.” But the parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:24 has “foreign waters.” זָרִים (zarim, “foreign”) may have accidentally dropped out of the Isaianic text by homoioteleuton (cf. NCV, NIV, NLT). Note that the preceding word, מַיִם (mayim, “water) also ends in mem (ם). The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has “foreign waters” for this line. However, in several other passages the 1QIsa^a scroll harmonizes with 2 Kgs 19 against the MT (Isa 36:5; 37:9, 20). Since the addition of “foreign” to this text in Isaiah by a later scribe would be more likely than its deletion, the MT reading should be accepted.

² tn Heb “elders of the priests” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); NCV “the older priests”; NRSV, TEV, CEV “the senior priests.”

³ tn Heb “will be a blessing” (so NCV).

⁴ tn Or “land” (KJV, NAB).