Isaiah 38:15-22

38:15 What can I say?

He has decreed and acted. ¹ 

I will walk slowly all my years because I am overcome with grief. ² 

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

may years of life be restored to me. ³ 

Restore my health ⁴  and preserve my life.’

38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. ⁵ 

You delivered me ⁶  from the pit of oblivion. ⁷ 

For you removed all my sins from your sight. ⁸ 

38:18 Indeed ⁹  Sheol does not give you thanks;

death does not ¹⁰  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, ¹¹ 

and we will celebrate with music ¹² 

for the rest of our lives in the Lord’s temple.” ¹³ 

38:21 ¹⁴  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?”

[38:15]  ¹ tn Heb “and he has spoken and he has acted.”

[38:15]  ² tn Heb “because of the bitterness of my soul.”

[38:16]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”

[38:17]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”

[38:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”

[38:18]  ⁹ tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[38:18]  ¹⁰ tn The negative particle is understood by ellipsis in this line. See GKC 483 §152.z.

[38:20]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Heb “and music [or perhaps, “stringed instruments”] we will play.”

[38:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.”

[38:21]  ¹⁴ 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.