Yesaya 9:3

9:3 You ¹  have enlarged the nation;

you give them great joy. ² 

They rejoice in your presence

as harvesters rejoice;

as warriors celebrate ³  when they divide up the plunder.

Yesaya 38:3

38:3 “Please, Lord. Remember how I have served you ⁴  faithfully and with wholehearted devotion, ⁵  and how I have carried out your will.” ⁶  Then Hezekiah wept bitterly. ⁷ 

[9:3]  ¹ sn The Lord is addressed directly in vv. 3-4.

[9:3]  ² tc The Hebrew consonantal text reads “You multiply the nation, you do not make great the joy.” The particle לֹא (lo’, “not”) is obviously incorrect; the marginal reading has לוֹ (lo, “to him”). In this case, one should translate, “You multiply the nation, you increase his (i.e., their) joy.” However, the parallelism is tighter if one emends הַגּוֹי לוֹ (hagoy lo, “the nation, to him”) to הַגִּילָה (haggilah, “the joy,” a noun attested in Isa 65:18), which corresponds to הַשִּׂמְחָה (hasimkhah, “the joy”) later in the verse (H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:386). As attractive as this reading is, it has not textual evidence supporting it. The MT reading (accepting the marginal reading “to him” for the negative particle “not”) affirms that Yahweh caused the nation to grow in population and increased their joy.

[9:3]  ³ tn Heb “as they are happy.” The word “warriors” is supplied in the translation to clarify the word picture. This last simile comes close to reality, for vv. 4-5 indicate that the people have won a great military victory over their oppressors.

[38:3]  ⁴ 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.

[38:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “and with a complete heart”; KJV, ASV “with a perfect heart.”

[38:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “and that which is good in your eyes I have done.”

[38:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “wept with great weeping”; NCV “cried loudly”; TEV “began to cry bitterly.”