Isaiah 38:16-18

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 38:16 tn The translation offered here is purely speculative. The text as it stands is difficult and obscure. It reads literally, “O Lord, on account of them [the suffix is masculine plural], they live, and to all in them [the suffix is feminine plural], life of my spirit.”
2. Isaiah 38:16 tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as indicative, “you restore my health,” but the following imperatival form suggests it be understood as an imperfect of request.
3. Isaiah 38:17 tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”
4. Isaiah 38:17 tc The Hebrew text reads, “you loved my soul,” but this does not fit syntactically with the following prepositional phrase. חָשַׁקְתָּ (khashaqta, “you loved”), may reflect an aural error; most emend the form to חָשַׂכְת, (khasakht, “you held back”).
5. Isaiah 38:17 tn בְּלִי (b^eli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”
6. Isaiah 38:17 tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”
7. Isaiah 38:18 tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
8. Isaiah 38:18 tn The negative particle is understood by ellipsis in this line. See GKC 483 §152.z.