Isaiah 10:18-20

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 10:18 tn Heb “from breath to flesh it will destroy.” The expression “from breath to flesh” refers to the two basic components of a person, the immaterial (life’s breath) and the material (flesh). Here the phrase is used idiomatically to indicate totality.
2. Isaiah 10:18 tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. מָסַס (masas), which is used elsewhere of substances dissolving or melting, may here mean “waste away” or “despair.” נָסַס (nasas), which appears only here, may mean “be sick” or “stagger, despair.” See BDB 651 s.v. I נָסַס and HALOT 703 s.v. I נסס. One might translate the line literally, “like the wasting away of one who is sick” (cf. NRSV “as when an invalid wastes away”).
3. Isaiah 10:19 tn Heb “and the rest of the trees of his forest will be counted, and a child will record them.”
4. Isaiah 10:20 tn Or “in that day.” The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.
5. Isaiah 10:20 tn Heb “house” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
6. Isaiah 10:20 tn Heb “on one who strikes him down.” This individual is the king (“foreign leader”) of the oppressing nation (which NLT specifies as “the Assyrians”).
7. Isaiah 10:20 tn Or “sincerely”; KJV, ASV, NAB, NRSV “in truth.”
8. Isaiah 10:20 sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.