Isaiah 22:3

¹ All your leaders ran away together – they fled to a distant place; all your refugees ²  were captured together – they were captured without a single arrow being shot. ³ 

All your leaders have fled together; they have been captured without using the bow. All you who were caught were taken prisoner together, having fled while the enemy was still far away.

All your rulers have fled together, And have been captured without the bow; All of you who were found were taken captive together, Though they had fled far away.

All your leaders flee. They surrender without resistance. The people try to slip away, but they are captured, too.

You have no brave soldiers to honor, no combat heroes to be proud of. Your leaders were all cowards, captured without even lifting a sword, A country of cowards captured escaping the battle.

All your rulers…have gone in flight; all your strong ones have gone far away.

Your rulers have all fled together; they were captured without the use of a bow. All of you who were found were captured, though they had fled far away.

All your rulers have fled together; They are captured by the archers. All who are found in you are bound together; They have fled from afar.

¹ All your leaders ran away together – they fled to a distant place; all your refugees ²  were captured together – they were captured without a single arrow being shot. ³ 

¹ tn Verse 3 reads literally, “All your leaders ran away, apart from a bow they were captured, all your found ones were captured together, to a distant place they fled.” J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:403, n. 3) suggests that the lines of the verse are arranged chiastically; lines 1 and 4 go together, while lines 2 and 3 are parallel. To translate the lines in the order they appear in the Hebrew text is misleading to the English reader, who is likely unfamiliar with, or at least insensitive to, chiastic parallelism. Consequently, the translation above arranges the lines as follows: line 1 (Hebrew) = line 1 (in translation); line 2 (Hebrew) = line 4 (in translation); line 3 (Hebrew) = line 3 (in translation); line 4 (Hebrew) = line 2 (in translation).

² tn Heb “all your found ones.” To achieve tighter parallelism (see “your leaders”) some prefer to emend the form to אַמִּיצַיִךְ (’ammitsayikh, “your strong ones”) or to נֶאֱמָצַיִךְ (ne’ematsayikh, “your strengthened ones”).

³ tn Heb “apart from [i.e., without] a bow they were captured”; cf. NAB, NRSV “without the use of a bow.”