10:24 So 1 here is what the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, says: “My people who live in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria, even though they beat you with a club and lift their cudgel against you as Egypt did. 2
28:13 So the Lord’s word to them will sound like
meaningless gibberish,
senseless babbling,
a syllable here, a syllable there. 3
As a result, they will fall on their backsides when they try to walk, 4
and be injured, ensnared, and captured. 5
37:33 So this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:
‘He will not enter this city,
nor will he shoot an arrow here. 6
He will not attack it with his shielded warriors, 7
nor will he build siege works against it.
1 tn Heb “therefore.” The message that follows is one of encouragement, for it focuses on the eventual destruction of the Assyrians. Consequently “therefore” relates back to vv. 5-21, not to vv. 22-23, which must be viewed as a brief parenthesis in an otherwise positive speech.
2 tn Heb “in the way [or “manner”] of Egypt.”
3 tn Heb “And the word of the Lord will be to them, ‘tsahv latsahv,’ etc.” See the note at v. 10. In this case the “Lord’s word” is not the foreigner’s strange sounding words (as in v. 10), but the Lord’s repeated appeals to them (like the one quoted in v. 12). As time goes on, the Lord’s appeals through the prophets will have no impact on the people; they will regard prophetic preaching as gibberish.
4 tn Heb “as a result they will go and stumble backward.” Perhaps an infant falling as it attempts to learn to walk is the background image here (cf. v. 9b). The Hebrew term לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) could be taken as indicating purpose (“in order that”), rather than simple result. In this case the people’s insensitivity to the message is caused by the Lord as a means of expediting their downfall.
5 sn When divine warnings and appeals become gibberish to the spiritually insensitive, they have no guidance and are doomed to destruction.
6 tn Heb “there” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). In terms of English style “here” is expected in collocation with “this” in the previous line.
7 tn Heb “[with] a shield” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV).