Discovery BoxIsaiah 37:11-13 
Context37:11 Certainly you have heard how the kings of Assyria have annihilated all lands. 1 Do you really think you will be rescued? 2 37:12 Were the nations whom my predecessors 3 destroyed – the nations of Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden in Telassar – rescued by their gods? 4 37:13 Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the kings of Lair, 5 Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”
Isaiah 37:24-26
Context37:24 Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, 6
‘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, 7
its thickest woods.
37:25 I dug wells
and drank water. 8
With the soles of my feet I dried up
all the rivers of Egypt.’
37:26 9 Certainly you must have heard! 10
Long ago I worked it out,
in ancient times I planned 11 it,
and now I am bringing it to pass.
The plan is this:
Fortified cities will crash
into heaps of ruins. 12
Isaiah 37:36
Context37:36 The Lord’s messenger 13 went out and killed 185,000 troops 14 in the Assyrian camp. When they 15 got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! 16
1 tn Heb “Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, annihilating them.”
2 tn Heb “and will you be rescued?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No, of course not!”
3 tn Heb “fathers” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); NIV “forefathers”; NCV “ancestors.”
4 tn Heb “Did the gods of the nations whom my fathers destroyed rescue them – Gozan and Haran, and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who are in Telassar?”
5 sn Lair was a city located in northeastern Babylon. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 235.
6 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
7 tn Heb “the height of its extremity”; ASV “its farthest height.”
8 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.
9 tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.
10 tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.
11 tn Heb “formed” (so KJV, ASV).
12 tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.
13 tn Traditionally, “the angel of the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
14 tn The word “troops” is supplied in the translation for smoothness and clarity.
15 tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.
16 tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies”; NLT “they found corpses everywhere.”
