1. a large parchment sheet. “Parchment” is merely implied in the Hebrew.

a man’s stylus. This is a literal representation of the Hebrew, which sounds a little odd. Perhaps the phrase is meant to indicate an ordinary stylus used by human beings rather than some magical or supernatural writing implement.

Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. The name means “Hasten Booty Hurry Spoils.” Hosea is another prophet enjoined to give his offspring a symbolic name. The dire portent of this name corresponds antithetically to the hopeful portent of the name Immanuel given to the child prophesied in 7:14.

2. two trusty witnesses. Their purpose is to confirm the validity of the document with the name that Isaiah has written.

3. I drew close. Isaiah, understandably, uses the most decorous of biblical idioms for sexual intimacy since it might be unseemly for him to say he “knew” his wife or “lay with” her.

the prophet-wife. Although the literal meaning of neviʾah, the feminine form of the word for “prophet,” is “prophetess,” she is given this designation only because she is the spouse of a prophet.

4. Damascus . . . Samaria. These are the two allies, Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel, that had attacked Jerusalem.

6. and rejoiced. The Hebrew syntax at this point is suspect: this single Hebrew word means, literally, “and rejoicing of.” Proposed emendations remain unconvincing.

7. the great and mighty waters of the Euphrates. The antithesis with “the quietly flowing waters of Shiloh” is clear. The inhabitants of Jerusalem have not trusted in their own small kingdom, in the gentle brook Shiloh that flows through Jerusalem, but instead have turned to Samaria and Aram. For this, they will be overwhelmed by the mighty stream of the Assyrian empire.

8. its outstretched wings. The imagery of wings in the midst of flooding water is a little strange, but “wings” in biblical usage has a variety of metaphorical applications, and hence the loose application may not have seemed unnatural.

Immanuel. This designation, apparently for the people of Judah, is ironic because God is scarcely with the people as it is overcome by the Assyrian forces. If the word at the end of verse 10, ʿimmanuel, is a statement (“God is with us”) and not a name, it would reflect a pivot in the prophet’s discourse: Assyria will sweep down over Judah, but the nations of the earth (verse 9–10) will be fear-stricken because, nevertheless, God is with His people. Yet the subsequent verses go on with a prophecy of doom.

9. Take note. This translation reads deʿu instead of the Masoretic roʿu, which would seem to mean “smash” (though some interpreters, by a stretch, understand it as “band together”).

14. the two houses of Israel. That is, both the northern and the southern kingdom.

16. Wrap up the testimony, seal the teaching. The evident reference is to the parchment scroll on which was written the child’s name that is the dire portent. The Hebrew shows a strong alliteration between the two nouns, teʿudah and torah, which this translation tries to emulate.

among My disciples. The reference is a little obscure, and though this is the conventional rendering of the Hebrew noun, it could equally be translated as “My teachings.”

19. the ghosts and the familiar spirits who chirp and murmur. Necromancy was, one may infer, a widespread practice in ancient Israel—so much so that King Saul was impelled to make it a capital crime (which he himself, in his last desperation, violated). It was believed that the spirits of the dead, when called up, emitted indistinct sounds, which the necromancer could then interpret as speech.

20. this word that has no dawn. The words of the purportedly murmurous dead are swathed in the dark of meaninglessness, and they will never have a dawn. This phrase became idiomatic in later Hebrew for anything hopeless or pointless.

21. And he shall pass through it. Given the grim fate of this person, “he” would refer to the inquirer of the spirits of the dead (or, alternately, to the “people” mentioned in verse 19). Although this sort of unmarked switch from plural to singular may be disorienting for the modern reader, it is fairly common in biblical usage. The “it” is feminine in the Hebrew and probably refers to the land, a feminine noun, though the term does not appear in the preceding verses.

22. swooping straits. The Hebrew of the received text, meʿuf tsuqah, sounds equally bizarre. The end of this verse and all of the next one, which concludes the chapter, look as though they have been mangled in scribal transmission, and neither the ancient versions nor scholarly emendations provide much help.

23. For there is no swoop for him in straits. The translation candidly reflects the unintelligibility of the Hebrew.

Now the former. Some interpreters think this is a reference to Pekah son of Ramaliah, but, in the general textual murkiness of this verse, that is no more than a guess.

the latter brought honor to the Way of the Sea. No convincing identification for “the latter” has been established. The verb rendered as “brought honor” might also mean “dealt heavily, oppressed,” though if the previous verb in fact means “disgraced” (and not “was lenient”), one would expect hikhbid here to be its precise antonym—the two verbs derive, respectively, from roots that mean “light” and “heavy.” In any case, no one has satisfactorily resolved the enigma of the geographical references here and the military actions performed in or on these regions.