Isaiah 22:2-4

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 22:2 tn Heb “the boisterous town.” The phrase is parallel to “the noisy city” in the preceding line.
2. Isaiah 22:2 sn Apparently they died from starvation during the siege that preceded the final conquest of the city. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:409.
3. Isaiah 22:3 tn Verse 3 reads literally, “All your leaders ran away; apart from a bow they were captured; all your found ones were captured together; to a distant place they fled.” J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:403, n. 3) suggests that the lines of the verse are arranged chiastically; lines 1 and 4 go together, while lines 2 and 3 are parallel. To translate the lines in the order they appear in the Hebrew text is misleading to the English reader, who is likely unfamiliar with, or at least insensitive to, chiastic parallelism. Consequently, the main translation arranges the lines as follows: line 1 (Hebrew) = line 1 (in translation); line 2 (Hebrew) = line 4 (in translation); line 3 (Hebrew) = line 3 (in translation); line 4 (Hebrew) = line 2 (in translation).
4. Isaiah 22:3 tn Heb “all your found ones.” To achieve tighter parallelism (see “your leaders”) some prefer to emend the form to אַמִּיצַיִךְ (ʾammitsayikh, “your strong ones”) or to נֶאֱמָצַיִךְ (neʾematsayikh, “your strengthened ones”).
5. Isaiah 22:3 tn Heb “apart from [i.e., without] a bow they were captured”; cf. NAB, NRSV “without the use of a bow.”
6. Isaiah 22:4 tn Heb “look away from me” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).
7. Isaiah 22:4 tn Heb “don’t hurry” (so NCV).
8. Isaiah 22:4 tn Heb “the daughter of my people.” “Daughter” is here used metaphorically to express the speaker’s emotional attachment to his people, as well as their vulnerability and weakness.