Discovery BoxIsaiah 38:3 
Context38:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you 1 faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, 2 and how I have carried out your will.” 3 Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4
Isaiah 47:12
Context47:12 Persist 5 in trusting 6 your amulets
and your many incantations,
which you have faithfully recited 7 since your youth!
Maybe you will be successful 8 –
maybe you will scare away disaster. 9
Isaiah 47:15
Context47:15 They will disappoint you, 10
those you have so faithfully dealt with since your youth. 11
Each strays off in his own direction, 12
leaving no one to rescue you.”
1 tn Heb “walked before you.” For a helpful discussion of the background and meaning of this Hebrew idiom, see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 254.
2 tn Heb “and with a complete heart”; KJV, ASV “with a perfect heart.”
3 tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”
4 tn Heb “wept with great weeping”; NCV “cried loudly”; TEV “began to cry bitterly.”
5 tn Heb “stand” (so KJV, ASV); NASB, NRSV “Stand fast.”
6 tn The word “trusting” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See v. 9.
7 tn Heb “in that which you have toiled.”
8 tn Heb “maybe you will be able to profit.”
9 tn Heb “maybe you will cause to tremble.” The object “disaster” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See the note at v. 9.
10 tn Heb “So they will be to you”; NIV “That is all they can do for you.”
11 tn Heb “that for which you toiled, your traders from your youth.” The omen readers and star gazers are likened to merchants with whom Babylon has had an ongoing economic relationship.
12 tn Heb “each to his own side, they err.”
