Isaiah 37:24-26

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 37:24 tn The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here is אֲדֹנָי (ʾadonay).
2. Isaiah 37:24 tn Heb “the height of its extremity”; ASV “its farthest height.”
3. Isaiah 37:25 tc The Hebrew text has simply, “I dug and drank water.” But the parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:24 has “foreign waters.” זָרִים (zarim, “foreign”) may have accidentally dropped out of the Isaianic text by homoioteleuton (cf. NCV, NIV, NLT). Note that the preceding word, מַיִם (mayim, “water) also ends in mem (ם). The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has “foreign waters” for this line. However, in several other passages the 1QIsa^a scroll harmonizes with 2 Kgs 19 against the MT (Isa 36:5; 37:9, 20). Since the addition of “foreign” to this text in Isaiah by a later scribe would be more likely than its deletion, the MT reading should be accepted.
4. Isaiah 37:26 tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.
5. Isaiah 37:26 tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.
6. Isaiah 37:26 tn Heb “formed” (so KJV, ASV).
7. Isaiah 37:26 tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְהִי (t^ehi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.