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ISAIAH INSTITUTE TRANSLATION

  Isaiah

37

Isaiah 37

As King Hezekiah intercedes on behalf of his people Jehovah delivers them from the besieging Assyrians.

1 When King Hezekiah heard it, he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and entered the house of Jehovah. 2 And he sent Eliakim the overseer of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the elders of the priests in sackcloth to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz.
5 a And when King Hezekiah’s servants came to Isaiah, 3 they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah: This is a woeful day, a day of reproof and disgrace. Children have reached the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them. 4 It may be that Jehovah your God has heard the words of Rabshakeh, whom his lord the king of Assyria has sent to scorn the living God, and will rebuke him for the things Jehovah your God has heard, were you to offer up prayer on behalf of the remnant that is left.
6 And Isaiah said to them, Tell your lord, Thus says Jehovah: Be not afraid because of the words with which you have heard the king of Assyria’s subordinates ridicule me. 7 See, I will give him a notion to return home upon hearing a rumor, and will cause him to fall by a sword in his own land.
8 And when Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found him fighting against Libnah.
9 Now Sennacheribb received a report that Tirhakah king of Cush had set out to fight against him. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, telling them, 10 Speak thus to Hezekiah king of Judah: Let not your God in whom you trust delude you into thinking that Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 You yourself have heard what the kings of Assyria have done, annexing all lands. Shall you then escape? 12 Did the gods of the nations my fathers destroyed deliver them? Did they deliver Gozan and Haran, Rezeph and the Edenites in Tel Assar? 13 Where are the kings of Hamath and Arpad and the kings of the cities of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?
14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the house of Jehovah and unrolled it before Jehovah. 15 And Hezekiah prayed to Jehovah and said,
16 O Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, who sits enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. It is you who made the heavens and the earth . . .
17 O Jehovah, give ear and hear; O Jehovah, open your eyes and see. Listen to all the words Sennacherib has sent to mock the living God.
18 O Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have indeed destroyed all peoplesc and their lands, 19 committing their gods to the fire. For they were no gods, but mere works of men’s hands, of wood and of stone, and so they could destroy them. 20 But now, O Jehovah our God, deliver us out of his hand, that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone are Jehovah.
21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says Jehovah, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is what Jehovah has spoken against him:
The Virgin Daughter of Zion holds you in contempt; she laughs you to scorn. The Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head at you.
23 Whom have you mocked and ridiculed?
Against whom have you raised your voice,lifting your eyes to high heaven?Against the Holy One of Israel!
24 By your servants you have blasphemed my Lord.You thought, On account of my vast chariotryI have conquered the highest mountains,the farthest reaches of Lebanon.I have felled its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses.I have reached its loftiest summit, its finest forest. 25 I have dug wells and drunk of foreignd waters.With the soles of my feetI have dried up all Egypt’s rivers!
26 Have you not heardhow I ordained this thing long ago,how in days of old I planned it?Now I have brought it to pass.You were destined to demolish fortified cities,turning them into heaps of rubble, 27 while their timorous inhabitantsshrank away in confusion,becoming as wild grass, transiently green,or like weeds on a roofethat scorche before they grow up.
28 But I know where you dwell,and your comings and goings,and how stirred up you are against me. 29 And because of your snortingsand bellowings against me,which have mounted up to my ears,I will put my ring in your noseand my bit in your mouthand turn you back by the way you came.
30 But to you this shall be a sign:This year eat what grows wild,and the following year what springs up of itself.But in the third year sow and harvest,plant vineyards and eat their fruit: 31 the remnant of the house of Judah that survivesshall once more take root below and bear fruit above. 32 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant,and from Mount Zion a band of survivors.The zeal of Jehovah of Hosts will accomplish it.
33 Therefore, thus says Jehovahconcerning the king of Assyria:He shall not enter this city or shoot an arrow here.
He shall not advance against it with armor,nor erect siegeworks against it.
34 By the way he came he shall return;he shall not enter this city, says Jehovah. 35 I will protect this city and save it,for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.
36 Then the angel of Jehovah went out and slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. And when men arose in the morning, there lay all their dead bodies!
37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. And he returned to Nineveh, where he dwelt.
38 And as he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer slew him with a sword and fled to the land of Ararat. And his son Esarhaddon succeeded him as king.

  • a5 Verse appears out of sequence in the text.
  • b9 Hebrew he.
  • c18 Hebrew hāᵓǎrāṣot, the lands, emended to haggôyîm; compare 2 Kings 19:17.
  • d25 So 1QIsaa; 2 Kings 19:24. Term not in MT.
  • e27 So 1QIsaa; MT reading obscure.


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