Isaiah 38:14-22

38:14 Like a swallow or a thrush I chirp,

I coo ¹  like a dove;

my eyes grow tired from looking up to the sky. ² 

O sovereign master, ³  I am oppressed;

help me! ⁴ 

38:15 What can I say?

He has decreed and acted. ⁵ 

I will walk slowly all my years because I am overcome with grief. ⁶ 

38:16 O sovereign master, your decrees can give men life;

may years of life be restored to me. ⁷ 

Restore my health ⁸  and preserve my life.’

38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. ⁹ 

You delivered me ¹⁰  from the pit of oblivion. ¹¹ 

For you removed all my sins from your sight. ¹² 

38:18 Indeed ¹³  Sheol does not give you thanks;

death does not ¹⁴  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, ¹⁵ 

and we will celebrate with music ¹⁶ 

for the rest of our lives in the Lord’s temple.” ¹⁷ 

38:21 ¹⁸  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?”

[38:14]  ¹ tn Or “moan” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); KJV, CEV “mourn.”

[38:14]  ² tn Heb “my eyes become weak, toward the height.”

[38:14]  ³ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in v. 16 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[38:14]  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.

[38:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he has spoken and he has acted.”

[38:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “because of the bitterness of my soul.”

[38:16]  ⁷ 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.”

[38:16]  ⁸ 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.

[38:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”

[38:17]  ¹⁰ 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”).

[38:17]  ¹¹ tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”

[38:17]  ¹² tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”

[38:18]  ¹³ tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[38:18]  ¹⁴ tn The negative particle is understood by ellipsis in this line. See GKC 483 §152.z.

[38:20]  ¹⁵ 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.

[38:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and music [or perhaps, “stringed instruments”] we will play.”

[38:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.”

[38:21]  ¹⁸ 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.