Isaiah 8:7

8:7 So look, the sovereign master ¹  is bringing up against them the turbulent and mighty waters of the Euphrates River ²  – the king of Assyria and all his majestic power. It will reach flood stage and overflow its banks. ³ 

Isaiah 9:17

9:17 So the sovereign master was not pleased ⁴  with their young men,

he took no pity ⁵  on their orphans and widows;

for the whole nation was godless ⁶  and did wicked things, ⁷ 

every mouth was speaking disgraceful words. ⁸ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁹ 

[8:7]  ¹ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[8:7]  ² tn Heb “the mighty and abundant waters of the river.” The referent of “the river” here, the Euphrates River, has been specified in the translation for clarity. As the immediately following words indicate, these waters symbolize the Assyrian king and his armies which will, as it were, inundate the land.

[8:7]  ³ tn Heb “it will go up over all its stream beds and go over all its banks.”

[9:17]  ⁴ tn The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has לא יחמול (“he did not spare”) which is an obvious attempt to tighten the parallelism (note “he took no pity” in the next line). Instead of taking שָׂמַח (samakh) in one of its well attested senses (“rejoice over, be pleased with”), some propose, with support from Arabic, a rare homonymic root meaning “be merciful.”

[9:17]  ⁵ tn The translation understands the prefixed verbs יִשְׂמַח (yismakh) and יְרַחֵם (yÿrakhem) as preterites without vav (ו) consecutive. (See v. 11 and the note on “he stirred up.”)

[9:17]  ⁶ tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “profaned”; NIV “ungodly.”

[9:17]  ⁷ tn מֵרַע (mera’) is a Hiphil participle from רָעַע (ra’a’, “be evil”). The intransitive Hiphil has an exhibitive force here, indicating that they exhibited outwardly the evidence of an inward condition by committing evil deeds.

[9:17]  ⁸ tn Or “foolishness” (NASB), here in a moral-ethical sense.

[9:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “in all this his anger is not turned, and still his hand is outstretched.”