8:18 Look, I and the sons whom the Lord has given me 1 are reminders and object lessons 2 in Israel, sent from the Lord who commands armies, who lives on Mount Zion.
40:5 The splendor 8 of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people 9 will see it at the same time.
For 10 the Lord has decreed it.” 11
1 sn This refers to Shear-jashub (7:3) and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (8:1, 3).
2 tn Or “signs and portents” (NAB, NRSV). The names of all three individuals has symbolic value. Isaiah’s name (which meant “the Lord delivers”) was a reminder that the Lord was the nation’s only source of protection; Shear-jashub’s name was meant, at least originally, to encourage Ahaz (see the note at 7:3), and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz’s name was a guarantee that God would defeat Israel and Syria (see the note at 8:4). The word מוֹפֶת (mofet, “portent”) can often refer to some miraculous event, but in 20:3 it is used, along with its synonym אוֹת (’ot, “sign”) of Isaiah’s walking around half-naked as an object lesson of what would soon happen to the Egyptians.
3 tn The masculine noun מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbbeakh, “altar”) in v. 19 is probably the subject of the masculine singular verb הָיָה (hayah) rather than the feminine noun מַצֵּבָה (matsevah, “sacred pillar”), also in v. 19.
4 tn Heb “a sign and a witness to the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] in the land of Egypt.”
5 tn רָב (rav) is a substantival participle (from רִיב, riv) meaning “one who strives, contends.”
6 tn Heb “he will be entreated.” The Niphal has a tolerative sense here, “he will allow himself to be entreated.”
7 tn The parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:19 reads, “that you, Lord, are the only God.”
8 tn Or “glory.” The Lord’s “glory” is his theophanic radiance and royal splendor (see Isa 6:3; 24:23; 35:2; 60:1; 66:18-19).
9 tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, ASV, NASB); NAB, NIV “mankind”; TEV “the whole human race.”
10 tn Or “indeed.”
11 tn Heb “the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).