Discovery BoxIsaiah 37:24-25 
Context37:24 Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, 1
‘With my many chariots I climbed up
the high mountains,
the slopes of Lebanon.
I cut down its tall cedars
and its best evergreens.
I invaded its most remote regions, 2
its thickest woods.
37:25 I dug wells
and drank water. 3
With the soles of my feet I dried up
all the rivers of Egypt.’
1 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
2 tn Heb “the height of its extremity”; ASV “its farthest height.”
3 tc The Hebrew text has simply, “I dug and drank water.” But the parallel text in 2 Kgs 19:24 has “foreign waters.” זָרִים (zarim, “foreign”) may have accidentally dropped out of the Isaianic text by homoioteleuton (cf. NCV, NIV, NLT). Note that the preceding word, מַיִם (mayim, “water) also ends in mem (ם). The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has “foreign waters” for this line. However, in several other passages the 1QIsaa scroll harmonizes with 2 Kgs 19 against the MT (Isa 36:5; 37:9, 20). Since the addition of “foreign” to this text in Isaiah by a later scribe would be more likely than its deletion, the MT reading should be accepted.
