Isaiah 26:6

26:6 It is trampled underfoot

by the feet of the oppressed,

by the soles of the poor.”

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 41:7

41:7 The craftsman encourages the metalsmith,

the one who wields the hammer encourages ²  the one who pounds on the anvil.

He approves the quality of the welding, ³ 

and nails it down so it won’t fall over.”

Isaiah 66:8

66:8 Who has ever heard of such a thing?

Who has ever seen this?

Can a country ⁴  be brought forth in one day?

Can a nation be born in a single moment?

Yet as soon as Zion goes into labor she gives birth to sons!

[37:25]  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.

[41:7]  ¹ tn The verb “encourages” is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[41:7]  ² tn Heb “saying of the welding, ‘It is good.’”

[66:8]  ¹ tn Heb “land,” but here אֶרֶץ (’erets) stands metonymically for an organized nation (see the following line).