Isaiah 22:2-3

22:2 The noisy city is full of raucous sounds;

the town is filled with revelry. ¹ 

Your slain were not cut down by the sword;

they did not die in battle. ² 

22:3 ³ All your leaders ran away together –

they fled to a distant place;

all your refugees ⁴  were captured together –

they were captured without a single arrow being shot. ⁵ 

[22:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the boisterous town.” The phrase is parallel to “the noisy city” in the preceding line.

[22:2]  ² sn Apparently they died from starvation during the siege that preceded the final conquest of the city. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:409.

[22:3]  ³ tn Verse 3 reads literally, “All your leaders ran away, apart from a bow they were captured, all your found ones were captured together, to a distant place they fled.” J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:403, n. 3) suggests that the lines of the verse are arranged chiastically; lines 1 and 4 go together, while lines 2 and 3 are parallel. To translate the lines in the order they appear in the Hebrew text is misleading to the English reader, who is likely unfamiliar with, or at least insensitive to, chiastic parallelism. Consequently, the translation above arranges the lines as follows: line 1 (Hebrew) = line 1 (in translation); line 2 (Hebrew) = line 4 (in translation); line 3 (Hebrew) = line 3 (in translation); line 4 (Hebrew) = line 2 (in translation).

[22:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “all your found ones.” To achieve tighter parallelism (see “your leaders”) some prefer to emend the form to אַמִּיצַיִךְ (’ammitsayikh, “your strong ones”) or to נֶאֱמָצַיִךְ (ne’ematsayikh, “your strengthened ones”).

[22:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “apart from [i.e., without] a bow they were captured”; cf. NAB, NRSV “without the use of a bow.”