Discovery BoxIsaiah 38:16-20 
Context38:16 O sovereign master, your decrees can give men life;
may years of life be restored to me. 1
Restore my health 2 and preserve my life.’
38:17 “Look, the grief I experienced was for my benefit. 3
You delivered me 4 from the pit of oblivion. 5
For you removed all my sins from your sight. 6
38:18 Indeed 7 Sheol does not give you thanks;
death does not 8 praise you.
Those who descend into the pit do not anticipate your faithfulness.
38:19 The living person, the living person, he gives you thanks,
as I do today.
A father tells his sons about your faithfulness.
38:20 The Lord is about to deliver me, 9
and we will celebrate with music 10
for the rest of our lives in the Lord’s temple.” 11
1 tn The translation offered here is purely speculative. The text as it stands is meaningless and probably corrupt. It reads literally, “O lord, on account of them [the suffix is masculine plural], they live, and to all in them [the suffix is feminine plural], life of my spirit.”
2 tn The prefixed verbal form could be taken as indicative, “you restore my health,” but the following imperatival form suggests it be understood as an imperfect of request.
3 tn Heb “Look, for peace bitterness was to me bitter”; NAB “thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.”
4 tc The Hebrew text reads, “you loved my soul,” but this does not fit syntactically with the following prepositional phrase. חָשַׁקְתָּ (khashaqta, “you loved”), may reflect an aural error; most emend the form to חָשַׂכְת, (khasakht, “you held back”).
5 tn בְּלִי (bÿli) most often appears as a negation, meaning “without,” suggesting the meaning “nothingness, oblivion,” here. Some translate “decay” or “destruction.”
6 tn Heb “for you threw behind your back all my sins.”
7 tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
8 tn The negative particle is understood by ellipsis in this line. See GKC 483 §152.z.
9 tn The infinitive construct is used here to indicate that an action is imminent. See GKC 348-49 §114.i, and IBHS 610 §36.2.3g.
10 tn Heb “and music [or perhaps, “stringed instruments”] we will play.”
11 tn Heb “all the days of our lives in the house of the Lord.”
sn Note that vv. 21-22 have been placed between vv. 6-7, where they logically belong. See 2 Kgs 20:7-8.
