“I will rise up against them,” says the LORD of hosts: This is another occurrence of the “rise up – go down” theme. Instead of Babylonia rising up, Yahweh will arise. I rise up against them means he will turn against Babylonia. Good News Translation says it explicitly: “I will attack Babylon and bring it to ruin.” Good News Translation also places says the LORD of hosts at the beginning of the verse, which will be a natural way of arranging the text for many languages. For the LORD of hosts, see the comments on 1.9.

And will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, offspring and posterity: This explains how Yahweh will rise up against Babylonia. The verb cut off here means “to remove,” which Good News Translation renders clearly with “I will leave nothing.” Yahweh will remove four things. The first thing is Babylonia’s name, which refers to its reputation or perhaps even its very existence (Good News Translation “bring it to ruin”). The second thing is its remnant, that is, the people who remain after Babylonia’s downfall. If they are removed, then the nation will cease to exist. There will be “no survivors at all” (Good News Translation). For remnant see 10.20. The other two things the LORD will remove are its offspring and posterity. Both these nouns refer to descendants or “children” (Good News Translation). Thus the removal of all four things points to the complete end of the nation. In Hebrew the nouns for name and remnant form one word pair while the nouns for offspring and posterity form another one. There is assonance or sound rhythm between these two pairs of nouns in Hebrew (shem [name] and sheʾar [remnant], nin [offspring] and neked [posterity]). Of course, natural word pairs are not the same in all languages. So translators may choose word pairs that are appropriate in their language.

Says the LORD emphasizes that the LORD is speaking. This closing clause is often added in prophetic speech.

As we have noted before, Isaiah often uses a cluster of nouns or verbs to describe a particular situation. This is true here. Translators should respect the features of Isaiah’s writing as much as possible, but repetitions of this type may not be natural, or the wide vocabulary needed may be lacking in the receptor language. If the repetition needs to be reduced here, Good News Translation provides a good model. Some other translation examples for this verse are:

• This is what Yahweh of hosts says: “I will rise against Babylonia and remove its reputation, its offspring and descendants, leaving none to remain.” This is Yahweh’s word.

• These are the words of the LORD of hosts: “I will act against Babylonia, removing its name, the remnant of its people, its children and descendants.” This is the solemn word of the LORD.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .