Isaiah 7:18

7:18 At that time ¹  the Lord will whistle for flies from the distant streams of Egypt and for bees from the land of Assyria. ² 

Isaiah 7:20

7:20 At that time ³  the sovereign master will use a razor hired from the banks of the Euphrates River, ⁴  the king of Assyria, to shave the head and the pubic hair; ⁵  it will also shave off the beard.

Isaiah 8:4

8:4 for before the child knows how to cry out, ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria ⁶  will be carried off by the king of Assyria.” ⁷ 

Isaiah 14:25

14:25 I will break Assyria ⁸  in my land,

I will trample them ⁹  underfoot on my hills.

Their yoke will be removed from my people,

the burden will be lifted from their shoulders. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 19:25

19:25 The Lord who commands armies will pronounce a blessing over the earth, saying, ¹¹  “Blessed be my people, Egypt, and the work of my hands, Assyria, and my special possession, ¹²  Israel!”

Isaiah 20:4

20:4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, both young and old. They will be in undergarments and barefoot, with the buttocks exposed; the Egyptians will be publicly humiliated. ¹³ 

Isaiah 23:13

23:13 Look at the land of the Chaldeans,

these people who have lost their identity! ¹⁴ 

The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals.

They erected their siege towers, ¹⁵ 

demolished ¹⁶  its fortresses,

and turned it into a heap of ruins. ¹⁷ 

Isaiah 27:13

27:13 At that time ¹⁸  a large ¹⁹  trumpet will be blown, and the ones lost ²⁰  in the land of Assyria will come, as well as the refugees in ²¹  the land of Egypt. They will worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem. ²² 

Isaiah 31:8

31:8 Assyria will fall by a sword, but not one human-made; ²³ 

a sword not made by humankind will destroy them. ²⁴ 

They will run away from this sword ²⁵ 

and their young men will be forced to do hard labor.

Isaiah 36:1

Sennacherib Invades Judah

36:1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, ²⁶  King Sennacherib of Assyria marched up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

Isaiah 36:8

36:8 Now make a deal with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, provided you can find enough riders for them.

Isaiah 36:13

36:13 The chief adviser then stood there and called out loudly in the Judahite dialect, ²⁷  “Listen to the message of the great king, the king of Assyria.

Isaiah 36:15

36:15 Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

Isaiah 36:18

36:18 Hezekiah is misleading you when he says, “The Lord will rescue us.” Has any of the gods of the nations rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria? ²⁸ 

Isaiah 37:8

37:8 When the chief adviser heard the king of Assyria had departed from Lachish, he left and went to Libnah, where the king was campaigning. ²⁹ 

Isaiah 37:36

37:36 The Lord’s messenger ³⁰  went out and killed 185,000 troops ³¹  in the Assyrian camp. When they ³²  got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! ³³ 

[7:18]  ¹ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[7:18]  ² sn Swarming flies are irritating; bees are irritating and especially dangerous because of the pain they inflict with their sting (see Deut 1:44; Ps 118:12). The metaphors are well chosen, for the Assyrians (symbolized by the bees) were much more powerful and dangerous than the Egyptians (symbolized by the flies). Nevertheless both would put pressure on Judah, for Egypt wanted Judah as a buffer state against Assyrian aggression, while Assyrian wanted it as a base for operations against Egypt. Following the reference to sour milk and honey, the metaphor is especially apt, for flies are attracted to dairy products and bees can be found in the vicinity of honey.

[7:20]  ³ tn Heb “in that day” (so ASV, NASB); KJV “In the same day.”

[7:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “the river” (so KJV); NASB “the Euphrates.” The name of the river has been supplied in the present translation for clarity.

[7:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “the hair of the feet.” The translation assumes that the word “feet” is used here as a euphemism for the genitals. See BDB 920 s.v. רֶגֶל.

[8:4]  ⁵ map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[8:4]  ⁶ sn The child’s name foreshadows what will happen to Judah’s enemies; when their defeat takes place, the child will be a reminder that God predicted the event and brought it to pass. As such the child will be a reminder of God’s protective presence with his people.

[14:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “to break Assyria.”

[14:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “him.” This is a collective singular referring to the nation, or a reference to the king of Assyria who by metonymy stands for the entire nation.

[14:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “and his [i.e., Assyria’s] yoke will be removed from them [the people?], and his [Assyria’s] burden from his [the nation’s?] shoulder will be removed.” There are no antecedents in this oracle for the suffixes in the phrases “from them” and “from his shoulder.” Since the Lord’s land and hills are referred to in the preceding line and the statement seems to echo 10:27, it is likely that God’s people are the referents of the suffixes; the translation uses “my people” to indicate this.

[19:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “which the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] will bless [it], saying.” The third masculine singular suffix on the form בֵּרֲכוֹ (berakho) should probably be emended to a third feminine singular suffix בֵּרֲכָהּ (berakhah), for its antecedent would appear to be the feminine noun אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) at the end of v. 24.

[19:25]  ¹⁰ tn Or “my inheritance” (NAB, NASB, NIV).

[20:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “lightly dressed and barefoot, and bare with respect to the buttocks, the nakedness of Egypt.”

[23:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “this people [that] is not.”

[23:13]  ¹⁴ tn For the meaning of this word, see HALOT 118 s.v. *בַּחוּן.

[23:13]  ¹⁵ tn Or “laid bare.” For the meaning of this word, see HALOT 889 s.v. ערר.

[23:13]  ¹⁶ sn This verse probably refers to the Assyrian destruction of Babylon.

[27:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and it will be 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.

[27:13]  ¹⁶ tn Traditionally, “great” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT); CEV “loud.”

[27:13]  ¹⁷ tn Or “the ones perishing.”

[27:13]  ¹⁸ tn Or “the ones driven into.”

[27:13]  ¹⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[31:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Assyria will fall by a sword, not of a man.”

[31:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and a sword not of humankind will devour him.”

[31:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he will flee for himself from before a sword.”

[36:1]  ¹⁹ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[36:13]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew text includes “and he said.”

[36:18]  ²³ tn Heb “Have the gods of the nations rescued, each his land, from the hand of the king of Assyria?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course not!”

[37:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and the chief adviser returned and he found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish.”

[37:36]  ²⁷ tn Traditionally, “the angel of the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[37:36]  ²⁸ tn The word “troops” is supplied in the translation for smoothness and clarity.

[37:36]  ²⁹ tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.

[37:36]  ³⁰ tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies”; NLT “they found corpses everywhere.”