After Hezekiah’s prayer Isaiah received a new message from Yahweh for the king. This verse implies that Yahweh responded immediately to the king’s prayer, but the parallel passage in 2 Kgs 20.4 suggests some delay. It says Isaiah received the divine message while he was on his way out of the royal palace. Here in Isaiah it is possible to assume that the prophet remained with the king, since the verb “Go” in the next verse could simply add emphasis to the divine command. Good News Translation (also Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch) clearly implies the prophet’s departure when it translates “go” in verse 5 as “go back,” as in 2 Kgs 20.5.

Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah is literally “And there was the word of the LORD to Isaiah saying.” The expression the word of the LORD came to is common in the Old Testament (see, for example, Gen 15.1; 1 Sam 15.10; Jer 1.2). In many languages it may not sound natural to say that a word comes to someone, so translators may have to use another expression, such as “the LORD said to” or “the LORD told.”

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 .