Isaiah 37:6-7

37:6 Isaiah said to them, “Tell your master this: ‘This is what the Lord says: “Don’t be afraid because of the things you have heard – these insults the king of Assyria’s servants have hurled against me.¹ 37:7 Look, I will take control of his mind;² he will receive a report and return to his own land. I will cut him down³ with a sword in his own land.”’”

Isaiah 37:29

37:29 Because you rage against me

and the uproar you create has reached my ears,⁴

I will put my hook in your nose,⁵

and my bridle between your lips,

and I will lead you back

the way you came.”

Isaiah 37:36

37:36 The Lord’s messenger⁶ went out and killed 185,000 troops⁷ in the Assyrian camp. When they⁸ got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses!⁹

¹tn Heb “by which the servants of the king of Assyria have insulted me.”

²tn Heb “I will put in him a spirit.” The precise sense of רוּחַ (ruakh, “spirit”) is uncertain in this context. It may refer to a spiritual being who will take control of his mind (see 1 Kgs 22:19), or it could refer to a disposition of concern and fear. In either case the Lord’s sovereignty over the king is apparent.

³tn Heb “cause him to fall” (so KJV, ASV, NAB), that is, “kill him.”

⁴tc Heb “and your complacency comes up into my ears.” The parallelism is improved if שַׁאֲנַנְךָ (sha’anankha, “your complacency”) is emended to שְׁאוֹנְךָ (shÿ’onÿkha, “your uproar”). See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 237-38. However, the LXX seems to support the MT and Sennacherib’s cavalier dismissal of Yahweh depicts an arrogant complacency (J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 1:658, n. 10).

⁵sn The word-picture has a parallel in Assyrian sculpture. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 238.

⁶tn Traditionally, “the angel of the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

⁷tn The word “troops” is supplied in the translation for smoothness and clarity.

⁸tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.

⁹tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies”; NLT “they found corpses everywhere.”