Isaiah 38:13

Isa 38:13 I reckoned till morning, [that], as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day [even] to night wilt thou make an end of me.

Ver. 13. I reckoned until morning.] And then, at utmost, I thought there would be an end of my life and pain together; for what through troubles without and terrors within, he was in a woe case, even as if a lion had broke all his bones. Hoc sentinnt qui magnis febribus aestuant, saith an interpreter. Now, whereas some say all die of a fever, let us take care we die not of a cold shaking fit of fear.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Isa 38:13-14. I reckoned till morning, &c. — When night came I reckoned I should die before the next morning, my pains being as great as if my bones had been broken, and the whole frame of my body crushed by a lion. Bishop Lowth reads: I roared until the morning like the lion; so did he break to pieces all my bones. Like a crane or a swallow, &c. — “My pains were sometimes so violent that they forced me to cry aloud; at other times my strength was so exhausted that I could only groan inwardly, and bemoan my unhappy condition in sighs.” I did mourn as a dove — Whose mournful tone is observed Isa 59:11, and elsewhere; mine eyes fail with looking upward — While I lift up my eyes and heart to God for relief in vain; O Lord, I am oppressed — Namely, by my disease, which, like a sergeant, hath seized upon me, and is haling me to the prison of the grave; undertake for me — Stop the execution, and rescue me out of his hands.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Over night I thought that I should live till morning, but my pangs in the night persuaded me the contrary: he showeth the horror that the faithful have when they apprehend God’s judgment against their sin.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

I reckoned . . . that--rather, I composed (my mind, during the night, expecting relief in the "morning," so Job 7:4): for ("that" is not, as in the English Version, to be supplied) as a lion He was breaking all my bones [VITRINGA] (Job 10:16; Lam 3:10-11). The Hebrew, in Psa 131:2, is rendered, "I quieted." Or else, "I made myself like a lion (namely, in roaring, through pain), He was so breaking my bones!" Poets often compare great groaning to a lion's roaring, so, Isa 38:14, he compares his groans to the sounds of other animals (Psa 22:1) [MAURER].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 13. The last line of the foregoing verse מיום עד לילה תשלימני migom ad layelah tashlimeni, "In the course of the day thou wilt finish my web;" or, as the common version has it, "From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me," is not repeated at the end of this verse in the Syriac version; and a MS. omits it. It seems to have been inserted a second time in the Hebrew text by mistake.

I reckoned till morning, c. - "I roared until the morning like the lion"] For שויתי shivvithi, the Chaldee has נהמית nihameith: he read שאגתי shaagti, the proper term for the roaring of a lion often applied to the deep groaning of men in sickness. See Ps 22:1; Ps 32:3; Ps 38:9; Job 3:24. The Masoretes divide the sentence, as I have done; taking כארי caari, like a lion, into the first member; and so likewise the Septuagint.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(13) I reckoned till morning . . .—Better, I quieted myself, as in Psa_131:2. He threw himself into the calm submission of the weaned child; yet when the morning came there was a fresh access of suffering. Life had been prolonged, contrary to his expectations; but it was only for renewed agony. Surely that would end his sufferings.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

13. I reckoned till morning] R.V. has “I quieted myself until morning.” It is better to amend the text slightly and read I cried until morning.

so will he break (better, he breaketh) all my bones] the crushing effect of pain. Cf. Lam_3:4.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Like a crane, or a swallow, so did I chatter,.... Rather, "like a crane and a swallow", like both; sometimes loud and clamorous, like a crane (o), when the pain was very acute and grievous; and sometimes very low, through weakness of body, like the twittering of a swallow; or the moan he made under his affliction was like the mournful voices of these birds at certain times. Some think he refers to his prayers, which were quick and short, and expressed not with articulate words, but in groans and cries; at least were not regular and orderly, but interrupted, and scarce intelligible, like the chattering of the birds mentioned:

I did mourn as a dove; silently and patiently, within himself, for his sins and transgressions; and because of his afflictions, the fruit of them:

mine eyes fail with looking upwards; or, "on high"; or, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions express it, "to the height of heaven"; to the Lord there, whose Shechinah, as the Targum, is in the highest heavens: in his distress he looked up to heaven for help, but none came; he looked and waited till his eyes were weak with looking, and he could look no longer; both his eyes and his heart failed him, and he despaired of relief; and the prayer he put up was as follows:

O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me; or, "it oppresseth me (p)"; that is, the disease; it lay so heavy upon him, it bore him down with the weight of it, he could not stand up under it; it had seized him, and crushed him; it held him fast, and he could not get clear of it; and therefore entreats the Lord to "undertake" for him, to be his surety for good, as in Psa 119:122, he represents his disease as a bailiff that had arrested him, and was carrying him to the prison of the grave; and therefore prays that the Lord would bail him, or rescue him out of his hands, that he might not go down to the gates of the grave. So souls oppressed with the guilt of sin, and having fearful apprehensions of divine justice, should apply to Christ their surety, and take refuge in his undertakings, where only peace and safety are to be enjoyed. So Gussetius renders the words, "I have unrighteousness, be surety for me" (q); and takes them to be a confession of Hezekiah, acknowledging himself guilty of unrighteousness, praying and looking to Christ the Son of God, and to his suretyship engagements, who, though not yet come to fulfil them, certainly would.

(o) So it is said in the Talmud, "Resh-Lakish cried like a crane", T. Bab. Kiddushin, col. 42. 1. (p) "Opprimit me, sub.infirmitas, vel morbus", Munster. (q) "njustitia est mihi hoc est, habeo injustitiam, reus suro injustitia, sponde pro me", Ebr. Comment, p. 654.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

I reckoned - There has been considerable variety in interpreting this expression. The Septuagint renders it, ‘I was given up in the morning as to a lion.’ The Vulgate renders it, ‘I hoped until morning;’ and in his commentary, Jerome says it means, that as Job in his trouble and anguish Isa 7:4 sustained himself at night expecting the day, and in the daytime waiting for the night, expecting a change for the better, so Hezekiah waited during the night expecting relief in the morning. He knew, says he, that the violence of a burning fever would very soon subside, and he thus composed himself, and calmly waited. So Vitringa renders it, ‘I composed my mind until the morning.’ Others suppose that the word used here (שׁוּיתי shı̂vı̂ythı̂y), means, ‘I made myself like a lion,’ that is, in roaring. But the more probable and generally adopted interpretation is, ‘I looked to God, hoping that the disease would soon subside, but as a lion he crushed my bones. The disease increased in violence, and became past endurance. Then I chattered like a swallow, and mourned like a dove, over the certainty that I must die.’ Our translators, by inserting the word ‘that,’ have greatly marred the sense, as if he had reckoned or calculated through the night that God would break his bones, or increase the violence of the disease, whereas the reverse was true. He hoped and expected that it would be otherwise, and with that view he composed his mind.

As a lion so will he break all my bones - This should be in the past tense. ‘He (God) did crush all my bones.’ The connection requires this construction. The idea is, that as a lion crushes the bones of his prey, producing great pain and sudden death, so it was with God in producing great pain and the prospect of sudden death.

From day even to night ... - (See the note at Isa 38:12) Between morning and night. That is, his pain so resembled the crushing of all the bones of an animal by the lion, that he could not hope to survive the day.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

When I was filled with pain, and could not rest all the night long, even till morning, my thoughts were working and presaging that God would instantly break me to pieces, and that every moment would be my last; and the like restless and dismal thoughts followed me from morning till evening. But he mentions only the time before morning, to aggravate his misery, that he was so grievously tormented, when others had sweet rest and repose.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

13. Night came, but no relief.

Till morning — The disease wrought hard, like a lion, to break all my bones — To kill outright. Then all the following day.

From day… to night — Pain was so great, so resembling a lion crushing all my bones, that I thought a quick end must be certain.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I reckoned till morning, etc.; i.e. "I lay thinking till the morning, that God would crush me as a lion crushes his prey I expected him all day long to make an end of me."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I reckon - When I could not rest all the night even 'till morning, my thoughts were presaging that God would instantly break me to pieces, and the like thoughts followed me from morning 'till evening.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

In strophe 2 the retrospective glance is continued. His sufferings increased to such an extent, that there was nothing left in his power but a whining moan - a languid look for help.

I waited patiently till the morning; like the lion,

So He broke in pieces all my bones:

From day to night Thou makest it all over with me.

Like a swallow, a crane, so I chirped;

I cooed like the dove;

Mine eyes pined for the height.

O Lord, men assault me! Be bail for me."

The meaning of shivvithi may be seen from Psa 131:2, in accordance with which an Arabic translator has rendered the passage, "I smoothed, i.e., quieted (sâweitu) my soul, notwithstanding the sickness, all night, until the morning." But the morning brought no improvement; the violence of the pain, crushing him like a lion, forced from him again and again the mournful cry, that he must die before the day had passed, and should not live to see another. The Masora here has a remark, which is of importance, as bearing upon Psa 22:17, viz., that כּארי occurs twice, and לישׁני בתרי with two different meanings. The meaning of עגוּר סוּס is determined by Jer 8:7, from which it is evident that עגּור is not an attribute of סּוס here, in the sense of "chirping mournfully," or "making a circle in its flight," but is the name of a particular bird, namely the crane. For although the Targum and Syriac both seem to render סוס in that passage (keri סיס, which is the chethib here, according to the reading of Orientals) by כּוּרכּיא) (a crane, Arab. Kurki), and עגוּר, by סנוּניתא) (the ordinary name of the swallow, which Haji Gaon explains by the Arabic chuttaf), yet the relation is really the reverse: sūs (sı̄s) is the swallow, and ‛âgūr the crane. Hence Rashi, on b. Kiddusin 44a ("then cried Res Lakis like a crane"), gives âg, Fr. grue, as the rendering of כרוכי; whereas Parchon (s.verse ‛âgūr), confounds the crane with the hoarsely croaking stork (ciconia alba). The verb 'ătsaphtsēph answers very well not only to the flebile murmur of the swallow (into which the penitential Progne was changed, according to the Grecian myth), but also to the shrill shriek of the crane, which is caused by the extraordinary elongation of the windpipe, and is onomatopoetically expressed in its name ‛âgūr.

(Note: The call of the parent cranes, according to Naumann (Vgel Deutschlands, ix. 364), is a rattling kruh (gruh), which is uncommonly violent when close, and has a trumpet-like sound, which makes it audible at a very great distance. With the younger cranes it has a somewhat higher tone, which often passes, so to speak, into a falsetto.)

Tsiphtsēph, like τρίζειν, is applied to every kind of shrill, penetrating, inarticulate sound. The ordinary meaning of dallū, to hang long and loose, has here passed over into that of pining (syn. kâlâh). The name of God in Isa 38:14 is Adonai, not Jehovah, being one of the 134 ודּין, i.e., words which are really written Adonai, and not merely to be read so.

(Note: Vid., Br, Psalterium, p. 133.)

It is impossible to take עשׁקה־לּי as an imperative. The pointing, according to which we are to read ‛ashqa, admits this (compare shâmrâh in Psa 86:2; Psa 119:167; and on the other hand, zochrālli, in Neh 5:19, etc.);

(Note: Vid., Br, Thorath Emeth, pp. 22, 23.)

but the usage of the language does not yield any appropriate meaning for such an imperative. It is either the third person, used in a neuter sense, "it is sorrowful with me;" or, what Luzzatto very properly considers still more probable, on account of the antithesis of ‛ashqâh and ‛ârbēni, a substantive (‛ashqah for ‛osheq), "there is pressure upon me" (compare רזי־לי, Isa 24:16), i.e., it presses me like an unmerciful creditor; and to this there is appended the petition, Guarantee me, i.e., be bail for me, answer for me (see at Job 17:3).

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

“I set (Him before me) till the morning (i.e., all night) as a lion, (saying) so will He break all my bones; from day to night Thou wilt make an end of me.” Either these last words are repeated in a different sense, or else the repetition shows that they have no special reference, in the foregoing verse, to the process of weaving. ‘I set Him before me,’ (i.e., viewed Him as present, imagined) or conceived of Him as a lion, and expected Him to act as such, saying, ‘so (i.e., as a lion) He will crush all my bones’. This construction gives uniformity of meaning to the clauses, as descriptive of the sufferer’s apprehensions.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I made [myself] myself all night to suffer the tortures of the illness, and I strengthened myself like a lion to suffer.

so it would break my bones Comp. (Ex. 1:12) “So they would multiply and so they would spread.” The more I would strengthen myself, so the illness would overpower me to break all my bones.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

שויתי I made equal; supply נפשי myself; or I compared the illness in its fierce attacks on me, with a lion which generally breaks the bones. From day even to night it maketh peace with me, to my great surprise, after the attacks during the night.

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.