Isaiah 8:1

A Sign-Child is Born

8:1 The Lord told me, “Take a large tablet ¹  and inscribe these words ²  on it with an ordinary stylus: ³  ‘Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.’ ⁴ 

Isaiah 8:9

8:9 You will be broken, ⁵  O nations;

you will be shattered! ⁶ 

Pay attention, all you distant lands of the earth!

Get ready for battle, and you will be shattered!

Get ready for battle, and you will be shattered! ⁷ 

Isaiah 10:7

10:7 But he does not agree with this,

his mind does not reason this way, ⁸ 

for his goal is to destroy,

and to eliminate many nations. ⁹ 

Isaiah 10:16

10:16 For this reason ¹⁰  the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, will make his healthy ones emaciated. ¹¹  His majestic glory will go up in smoke. ¹² 

Isaiah 10:18

10:18 The splendor of his forest and his orchard

will be completely destroyed, ¹³ 

as when a sick man’s life ebbs away. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 10:27

10:27 At that time ¹⁵ 

the Lord will remove their burden from your shoulders, ¹⁶ 

and their yoke from your neck;

the yoke will be taken off because your neck will be too large. ¹⁷ 

Isaiah 10:32-33

10:32 This very day, standing in Nob,

they shake their fist at Daughter Zion’s mountain ¹⁸  –

at the hill of Jerusalem.

10:33 Look, the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies,

is ready to cut off the branches with terrifying power. ¹⁹ 

The tallest trees ²⁰  will be cut down,

the loftiest ones will be brought low.

Isaiah 33:18

33:18 Your mind will recall the terror you experienced, ²¹ 

and you will ask yourselves, ²²  “Where is the scribe?

Where is the one who weighs the money?

Where is the one who counts the towers?” ²³ 

Isaiah 36:4

36:4 The chief adviser said to them, “Tell Hezekiah: ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: “What is your source of confidence? ²⁴ 

Isaiah 36:19

36:19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? ²⁵  Indeed, did any gods rescue Samaria ²⁶  from my power? ²⁷ 

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. ²⁸ 

[8:1]  ¹ sn Probably made of metal, wood, or leather. See HALOT 193 s.v. גִּלָּיוֹן.

[8:1]  ² tn Heb “write” (so KJV, ASV, NIV, NRSV).

[8:1]  ³ tn Heb “with the stylus of a man.” The significance of the qualifying genitive “a man” is uncertain. For various interpretations see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:219, n. 1.

[8:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “quickly, [the] plunder; it hurries, [the] loot.” The first word (מַהֵר, maher) is either a Piel imperative (“hurry [to]”) or infinitive (“hurrying,” or “quickly”). The third word (חָשׁ, khash) is either a third masculine singular perfect or a masculine singular participle, in either case from the root חוּשׁ (khush, “hurry”). Perhaps it is best to translate, “One hastens to the plunder, one hurries to the loot.” In this case מַהֵר is understood as an infinitive functioning as a verb, the subject of חוּשׁ is taken as indefinite, and the two nouns are understood as adverbial accusatives. As we discover in v. 3, this is the name of the son to be born to Isaiah through the prophetess.

[8:9]  ⁵ tn The verb רֹעוּ (ro’u) is a Qal imperative, masculine plural from רָעַע (ra’a’, “break”). Elsewhere both transitive (Job 34:24; Ps 2:9; Jer 15:12) and intransitive (Prov 25:19; Jer 11:16) senses are attested for the Qal of this verb. Because no object appears here, the form is likely intransitive: “be broken.” In this case the imperative is rhetorical (like “be shattered” later in the verse) and equivalent to a prediction, “you will be broken.” On the rhetorical use of the imperative in general, see IBHS 572 §34.4c; GKC 324 §110.c.

[8:9]  ⁶ tn The imperatival form (Heb “be shattered”) is rhetorical and expresses the speaker’s firm conviction of the outcome of the nations’ attack. See the note on “be broken.”

[8:9]  ⁷ tn The initial imperative (“get ready for battle”) acknowledges the reality of the nations’ hostility; the concluding imperative (Heb “be shattered”) is rhetorical and expresses the speakers’ firm conviction of the outcome of the nations’ attack. (See the note on “be broken.”) One could paraphrase, “Okay, go ahead and prepare for battle since that’s what you want to do, but your actions will backfire and you’ll be shattered.” This rhetorical use of the imperatives is comparable to saying to a child who is bent on climbing a high tree, “Okay, go ahead, climb the tree and break your arm!” What this really means is: “Okay, go ahead and climb the tree since that’s what you really want to do, but your actions will backfire and you’ll break your arm.” The repetition of the statement in the final two lines of the verse gives the challenge the flavor of a taunt (ancient Israelite “trash talking,” as it were).

[10:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “but he, not so does he intend, and his heart, not so does it think.”

[10:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for to destroy [is] in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.”

[10:16]  ¹³ sn The irrational arrogance of the Assyrians (v. 15) will prompt the judgment about to be described.

[10:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “will send leanness against his healthy ones”; NASB, NIV “will send a wasting disease.”

[10:16]  ¹⁵ 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.”

[10:18]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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”).

[10:27]  ²¹ tn Or “in that day” (KJV). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[10:27]  ²² tn Heb “he [i.e., the Lord] will remove his [i.e, Assyria’s] burden from upon your shoulder.”

[10:27]  ²³ tc The meaning of this line is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads literally, “and the yoke will be destroyed (or perhaps, “pulled down”) because of fatness.” Perhaps this is a bizarre picture of an ox growing so fat that it breaks the yoke around its neck or can no longer fit into its yoke. Fatness would symbolize the Lord’s restored blessings; the removal of the yoke would symbolize the cessation of Assyrian oppression. Because of the difficulty of the metaphor, many prefer to emend the text at this point. Some emend וְחֻבַּל (vÿkhubbal, “and it will be destroyed,” a perfect with prefixed vav), to יִחְבֹּל (yikhbol, “[it] will be destroyed,” an imperfect), and take the verb with what precedes, “and their yoke will be destroyed from your neck.” Proponents of this view (cf. NAB, NRSV) then emend עֹל (’ol, “yoke”) to עָלָה (’alah, “he came up”) and understand this verb as introducing the following description of the Assyrian invasion (vv. 28-32). מִפְּנֵי־שָׁמֶן (mippÿney-shamen, “because of fatness”) is then emended to read “from before Rimmon” (NAB, NRSV), “from before Samaria,” or “from before Jeshimon.” Although this line may present difficulties, it appears best to regard the line as a graphic depiction of God’s abundant blessings on his servant nation.

[10:32]  ²⁵ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has “a mountain of a house (בֵּית, bet), Zion,” but the marginal reading (Qere) correctly reads “the mountain of the daughter (בַּת, bat) of Zion.” On the phrase “Daughter Zion,” see the note on the same phrase in 1:8.

[10:33]  ²⁹ tc The Hebrew text reads “with terrifying power,” or “with a crash.” מַעֲרָצָה (ma’aratsah, “terrifying power” or “crash”) occurs only here. Several have suggested an emendation to מַעֲצָד (ma’atsad, “ax”) parallel to “ax” in v. 34; see HALOT 615 s.v. מַעֲצָד and H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:448.

[10:33]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the exalted of the height.” This could refer to the highest branches (cf. TEV) or the tallest trees (cf. NIV, NRSV).

[33:18]  ³³ tn Heb “your heart will meditate on terror.”

[33:18]  ³⁴ tn The words “and you will ask yourselves” are supplied in the translation for clarification and stylistic reasons.

[33:18]  ³⁵ sn The people refer to various Assyrian officials who were responsible for determining the amount of taxation or tribute Judah must pay to the Assyrian king.

[36:4]  ³⁷ tn Heb “What is this object of trust in which you are trusting?”

[36:19]  ⁴¹ tn The rhetorical questions in v. 34a suggest the answer, “Nowhere, they seem to have disappeared in the face of Assyria’s might.”

[36:19]  ⁴² map For location see Map2 B1; Map4 D3; Map5 E2; Map6 A4; Map7 C1.

[36:19]  ⁴³ tn Heb “that they rescued Samaria from my hand?” But this gives the impression that the gods of Sepharvaim were responsible for protecting Samaria, which is obviously not the case. The implied subject of the plural verb “rescued” must be the generic “gods of the nations/lands” (vv. 18, 20).

[37:8]  ⁴⁵ 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.”