8:9 The king’s scribes were quickly 1 summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. 2 They wrote out 3 everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia 4 – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.
18:1 The land of buzzing wings is as good as dead, 5
the one beyond the rivers of Cush,
1 tn Heb “in that time”; NIV “At once.”
2 sn Cf. 3:12. Two months and ten days have passed since Haman’s edict to wipe out the Jews.
3 tn Heb “it was written”; this passive construction has been converted to an active one in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
4 tn Heb “Cush” (so NIV), referring to the region of the upper Nile in Africa. Cf. KJV and most other English versions “Ethiopia.”
5 tn Heb “Woe [to] the land of buzzing wings.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
sn The significance of the qualifying phrase “buzzing wings” is uncertain. Some suggest that the designation points to Cush as a land with many insects. Another possibility is that it refers to the swiftness with which this land’s messengers travel (v. 2a); they move over the sea as swiftly as an insect flies through the air. For a discussion of the options, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:359-60.
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “Cush” (so NASB); NIV, NCV “the Cushite king of Egypt.”
8 tn Heb “heard concerning Tirhakah king of Cush, ‘He has come out to fight with you.’”
9 tn The Hebrew text has, “and he heard and he sent,” but the parallel in 2 Kgs 19:9 has וַיָּשָׁב וַיִּשְׁלַח (vayyashav vayyishlakh, “and he returned and he sent”), i.e., “he again sent.”