6:12 and the Lord has sent the people off to a distant place,
and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned. 1
37:21 Isaiah son of Amoz sent this message to Hezekiah: “This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘Because you prayed to me concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria, 8
40:7 The grass dries up,
the flowers wither,
when the wind sent by the Lord 9 blows on them.
Surely humanity 10 is like grass.
1 tn Heb “and great is the abandonment in the midst of the land.”
2 tn Heb “elders of the priests” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); NCV “the older priests”; NRSV, TEV, CEV “the senior priests.”
3 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn Heb “Cush” (so NASB); NIV, NCV “the Cushite king of Egypt.”
5 tn Heb “heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, ‘He has come out to fight with you.’”
6 tn The Hebrew text has, “and he heard and he sent,” but the parallel in 2 Kgs 19:9 has וַיָּשָׁב וַיִּשְׁלַח (vayyashav vayyishlakh, “and he returned and he sent”), i.e., “he again sent.”
7 tn Heb “Hear all the words of Sennacherib which he sent to taunt the living God.”
8 tn The parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:20 reads, “That which you prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard.” The verb “I have heard” does not appear in Isa 37:21, where אֲשֶׁר (’asher) probably has a causal sense: “because.”
9 tn The Hebrew text has רוּחַ יְהוָה (ruakh yehvah), which in this context probably does not refer to the Lord’s personal Spirit. The phrase is better translated “the breath of the Lord,” or “the wind of [i.e., sent by] the Lord.” The Lord’s sovereign control over nature, including the hot desert winds that dry up vegetation, is in view here (cf. Ps 147:18; Isa 59:19).
10 tn Heb “the people” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).