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 33:24

33:24 No resident of Zion ¹  will say, “I am ill”;

the people who live there will have their sin forgiven.

Isaiah 1:5

1:5 ² Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ³ 

Your head has a massive wound, ⁴ 

your whole body is weak. ⁵ 

Isaiah 10:18

10:18 The splendor of his forest and his orchard

will be completely destroyed, ⁶ 

as when a sick man’s life ebbs away. ⁷ 

Isaiah 39:1

Messengers from Babylon Visit Hezekiah

39:1 At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, for he heard that Hezekiah had been ill and had recovered.

Isaiah 19:10

19:10 Those who make cloth ⁸  will be demoralized; ⁹ 

all the hired workers will be depressed. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 38:1

The Lord Hears Hezekiah’s Prayer

38:1 In those days Hezekiah was stricken with a terminal illness. ¹¹  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.’”

Isaiah 10:16

10:16 For this reason ¹²  the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, will make his healthy ones emaciated. ¹³  His majestic glory will go up in smoke. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 19:14

19:14 The Lord has made them undiscerning; ¹⁵ 

they lead Egypt astray in all she does,

so that she is like a drunk sliding around in his own vomit. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 38:15

38:15 What can I say?

He has decreed and acted. ¹⁷ 

I will walk slowly all my years because I am overcome with grief. ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 53:4

53:4 But he lifted up our illnesses,

he carried our pain; ¹⁹ 

even though we thought he was being punished,

attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. ²⁰ 

Isaiah 1:6

1:6 From the soles of your feet to your head,

there is no spot that is unharmed. ²¹ 

There are only bruises, cuts,

and open wounds.

They have not been cleansed ²²  or bandaged,

nor have they been treated ²³  with olive oil. ²⁴ 

Isaiah 38:12

38:12 My dwelling place ²⁵  is removed and taken away ²⁶  from me

like a shepherd’s tent.

I rolled up my life like a weaver rolls cloth; ²⁷ 

from the loom he cuts me off. ²⁸ 

You turn day into night and end my life. ²⁹ 

Isaiah 53:3

53:3 He was despised and rejected by people, ³⁰ 

one who experienced pain and was acquainted with illness;

people hid their faces from him; ³¹ 

he was despised, and we considered him insignificant. ³² 

Isaiah 1:11

1:11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?” ³³ 

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with ³⁴  burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want. ³⁵ 

Isaiah 53:10

53:10 Though the Lord desired to crush him and make him ill,

once restitution is made, ³⁶ 

he will see descendants and enjoy long life, ³⁷ 

and the Lord’s purpose will be accomplished through him.

[33:24]  ¹ tn The words “of Zion” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[1:5]  ¹ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ³ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[10:18]  ¹ tn Heb “from breath to flesh it will destroy.” The expression “from breath to flesh” refers to the two basic components of a person, the immaterial (life’s breath) and the material (flesh). Here the phrase is used idiomatically to indicate totality.

[10:18]  ² tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. מָסַס (masas), which is used elsewhere of substances dissolving or melting, may here mean “waste away” or “despair.” נָסַס (nasas), which appears only here, may mean “be sick” or “stagger, despair.” See BDB 651 s.v. I נָסַס and HALOT 703 s.v. I נסס. One might translate the line literally, “like the wasting away of one who is sick” (cf. NRSV “as when an invalid wastes away”).

[19:10]  ¹ tn Some interpret שָׁתֹתֶיהָ (shatoteha) as “her foundations,” i.e., leaders, nobles. See BDB 1011 s.v. שָׁת. Others, on the basis of alleged cognates in Akkadian and Coptic, repoint the form שְׁתִיתֶיהָ (shÿtiteha) and translate “her weavers.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:370.

[19:10]  ² tn Heb “crushed.” Emotional distress is the focus of the context (see vv. 8-9, 10b).

[19:10]  ³ tn Heb “sad of soul”; cf. NIV, NLT “sick at heart.”

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

[10:16]  ¹ sn The irrational arrogance of the Assyrians (v. 15) will prompt the judgment about to be described.

[10:16]  ² tn Heb “will send leanness against his healthy ones”; NASB, NIV “will send a wasting disease.”

[10:16]  ³ tc Heb “and in the place of his glory burning will burn, like the burning of fire.” The highly repetitive text (יֵקַד יְקֹד כִּיקוֹד אֵשׁ, yeqad yiqod kiqod ’esh) may be dittographic; if the second consonantal sequence יקד is omitted, the text would read “and in the place of his glory, it will burn like the burning of fire.”

[19:14]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord has mixed into her midst a spirit of blindness.”

[19:14]  ² tn Heb “like the going astray of a drunkard in his vomit.”

[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.”

[53:4]  ¹ sn Illness and pain stand by metonymy (or perhaps as metaphors) for sin and its effects, as vv. 11-12 make clear.

[53:4]  ² tn The words “for something he had done” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The group now realizes he suffered because of his identification with them, not simply because he was a special target of divine anger.

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “there is not in it health”; NAB “there is no sound spot.”

[1:6]  ² tn Heb “pressed out.”

[1:6]  ³ tn Heb “softened” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “soothed.”

[1:6]  ⁴ sn This verse describes wounds like those one would receive in battle. These wounds are comprehensive and without remedy.

[38:12]  ¹ tn According to HALOT 217 s.v. דּוֹר this noun is a hapax legomenon meaning “dwelling place,” derived from a verbal root meaning “live” (see Ps 84:10). For an interpretation that understands the form as the well-attested noun meaning “generation,” see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:679, n. 4.

[38:12]  ² tn The verb form appears to be a Niphal from גָּלָה (galah), which normally means “uncovered, revealed” in the Niphal. Because of the following reference to a shepherd’s tent, some prefer to emend the form to וְנָגַל, a Niphal from גָלָל (galal, “roll”) and translate “is rolled [or “folded”] up.”

[38:12]  ³ tn Heb “I rolled up, like a weaver, my life” (so ASV).

[38:12]  ⁴ sn For a discussion of the imagery employed here, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:684.

[38:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “from day to night you bring me to an end.”

[53:3]  ¹ tn Heb “lacking of men.” If the genitive is taken as specifying (“lacking with respect to men”), then the idea is that he lacked company because he was rejected by people. Another option is to take the genitive as indicating genus or larger class (i.e., “one lacking among men”). In this case one could translate, “he was a transient” (cf. the use of חָדֵל [khadel] in Ps 39:5 HT [39:4 ET]).

[53:3]  ² tn Heb “like a hiding of the face from him,” i.e., “like one before whom the face is hidden” (see BDB 712 s.v. מַסְתֵּר).

[53:3]  ³ sn The servant is likened to a seriously ill person who is shunned by others because of his horrible disease.

[1:11]  ¹ tn Heb “Why to me the multitude of your sacrifices?” The sarcastic rhetorical question suggests that their many sacrifices are of no importance to the Lord. This phrase answers the possible objection that an Israelite could raise in response to God’s indictment: “But we are offering the sacrifices you commanded!”

[1:11]  ² tn The verb שָׂבַע (sava’, “be satisfied, full”) is often used of eating and/or drinking one’s fill. See BDB 959 s.v. שָׂבַע. Here sacrifices are viewed, in typical ancient Near Eastern fashion, as food for the deity. God here declares that he has eaten and drunk, as it were, his fill.

[1:11]  ³ sn In the chiastic structure of the verse, the verbs at the beginning and end highlight God’s displeasure, while the heaping up of references to animals, fat, and blood in the middle lines hints at why God wants no more of their sacrifices. They have, as it were, piled the food on his table and he needs no more.

[53:10]  ¹ tn The meaning of this line is uncertain. It reads literally, “if you/she makes, a reparation offering, his life.” The verb תָּשִׂים (tasim) could be second masculine singular,in which case it would have to be addressed to the servant or to God. However, the servant is only addressed once in this servant song (see 52:14a), and God either speaks or is spoken about in this servant song; he is never addressed. Furthermore, the idea of God himself making a reparation offering is odd. If the verb is taken as third feminine singular, then the feminine noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) at the end of the line is the likely subject. In this case one can take the suffixed form of the noun as equivalent to a pronoun and translate, “if he [literally, “his life”] makes a reparation offering.”

[53:10]  ² sn The idiomatic and stereotypical language emphasizes the servant’s restoration to divine favor. Having numerous descendants and living a long life are standard signs of divine blessing. See Job 42:13-16.