Isaiah 38:16

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

may years of life be restored to me. ¹ 

Restore my health ²  and preserve my life.’

Isaiah 38:9

Hezekiah’s Song of Thanks

38:9 This is the prayer of King Hezekiah of Judah when he was sick and then recovered from his illness:

Isaiah 7:21

7:21 At that time ³  a man will keep alive a young cow from the herd and a couple of goats.

Isaiah 38:21

38:21 ⁴  Isaiah ordered, “Let them take a fig cake and apply it to the ulcerated sore and he will get well.”

Isaiah 57:15

57:15 For this is what the high and exalted one says,

the one who rules ⁵  forever, whose name is holy:

“I dwell in an exalted and holy place,

but also with the discouraged and humiliated, ⁶ 

in order to cheer up the humiliated

and to encourage the discouraged. ⁷ 

Isaiah 26:14

26:14 The dead do not come back to life,

the spirits of the dead do not rise. ⁸ 

That is because ⁹  you came in judgment ¹⁰  and destroyed them,

you wiped out all memory of them.

Isaiah 26:19

26:19 ¹¹ Your dead will come back to life;

your corpses will rise up.

Wake up and shout joyfully, you who live in the ground! ¹² 

For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, ¹³ 

and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 55:3

55:3 Pay attention and come to me!

Listen, so you can live! ¹⁵ 

Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to ¹⁶  you,

just like the reliable covenantal promises I made to David. ¹⁷ 

Isaiah 38:1

The Lord Hears Hezekiah’s Prayer

38:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. ¹⁸  The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz visited him and told him, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Give instructions to your household, for you are about to die; you will not get well.’”

[38:16]  ¹ 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]  ² 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.

[7:21]  ³ tn Heb “in that day.” The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[38:21]  ⁵ 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.

[57:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “the one who dwells forever.” שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) is sometimes translated “the one who lives forever,” and understood as a reference to God’s eternal existence. However, the immediately preceding and following descriptions (“high and exalted” and “holy”) emphasize his sovereign rule. In the next line, he declares, “I dwell in an exalted and holy [place],” which refers to the place from which he rules. Therefore it is more likely that שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) means “I dwell [in my lofty palace] forever” and refers to God’s eternal kingship.

[57:15]  ⁸ tn Heb “and also with the crushed and lowly of spirit.” This may refer to the repentant who have humbled themselves (see 66:2) or more generally to the exiles who have experienced discouragement and humiliation.

[57:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “to restore the lowly of spirit and to restore the heart of the crushed.”

[26:14]  ⁹ sn In light of what is said in verse 14b, the “dead” here may be the “masters” mentioned in verse 13.

[26:14]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew term לָכֵן (lakhen) normally indicates a cause-effect relationship between what precedes and follows and is translated, “therefore.” Here, however, it infers the cause from the effect and brings out what is implicit in the previous statement. See BDB 487 s.v.

[26:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “visited [for harm]” (cf. KJV, ASV); NAB, NRSV “you have punished.”

[26:19]  ¹¹ sn At this point the Lord (or prophet) gives the people an encouraging oracle.

[26:19]  ¹² tn Heb “dust” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[26:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “for the dew of lights [is] your dew.” The pronominal suffix on “dew” is masculine singular, like the suffixes on “your dead” and “your corpses” in the first half of the verse. The statement, then, is addressed to collective Israel, the speaker in verse 18. The plural form אוֹרֹת (’orot) is probably a plural of respect or magnitude, meaning “bright light” (i.e., morning’s light). Dew is a symbol of fertility and life. Here Israel’s “dew,” as it were, will soak the dust of the ground and cause the corpses of the dead to spring up to new life, like plants sprouting up from well-watered soil.

[26:19]  ¹⁴ sn It is not certain whether the resurrection envisioned here is intended to be literal or figurative. A comparison with 25:8 and Dan 12:2 suggests a literal interpretation, but Ezek 37:1-14 uses resurrection as a metaphor for deliverance from exile and the restoration of the nation (see Isa 27:12-13).

[55:3]  ¹³ tn The jussive with vav (ו) conjunctive following the imperative indicates purpose/result.

[55:3]  ¹⁴ tn Or “an eternal covenant with.”

[55:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the reliable expressions of loyalty of David.” The syntactical relationship of חַסְדֵי (khasde, “expressions of loyalty”) to the preceding line is unclear. If the term is appositional to בְּרִית (bÿrit, “covenant”), then the Lord here transfers the promises of the Davidic covenant to the entire nation. Another option is to take חַסְדֵי (khasde) as an adverbial accusative and to translate “according to the reliable covenantal promises.” In this case the new covenantal arrangement proposed here is viewed as an extension or perhaps fulfillment of the Davidic promises. A third option, the one reflected in the above translation, is to take the last line as comparative. In this case the new covenant being proposed is analogous to the Davidic covenant. Verses 4-5, which compare David’s international prominence to what Israel will experience, favors this view. In all three of these interpretations, “David” is an objective genitive; he is the recipient of covenantal promises. A fourth option would be to take David as a subjective genitive and understand the line as giving the basis for the preceding promise: “Then I will make an unconditional covenantal promise to you, because of David’s faithful acts of covenantal loyalty.”

[38:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “was sick to the point of dying”; NRSV “became sick and was at the point of death.”