Isaiah 38:20-22

38:20 The Lord is about to deliver me, ¹ 

and we will celebrate with music ² 

for the rest of our lives in the Lord’s temple.” ³ 

38:21 ⁴  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?”

[38:20]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “and music [or perhaps, “stringed instruments”] we will play.”

[38:20]  ³ tn Heb “all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.”

[38:21]  ⁴ 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.