At that time …: This verse describes what Yahweh had told Isaiah to do three years before the fall of Ashdod as a flashback or it describes what he told him to do after its fall (see the introductory comments on this section [20.1-6]). The first two examples below do not treat it as a flashback, but the third one does.

The LORD had spoken by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying is literally “the LORD had spoken by the hand of Isaiah….” The Hebrew idiom “by the hand of” usually denotes agency. Here Yahweh uses Isaiah as his agent to convey his message through actions. Revised Standard Version uses the preposition by to express this agency, while New Jerusalem Bible and New International Version say “through.” Many versions simply say “to” (New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch; similarly Good News Translation). They base this rendering on the Septuagint, but Hebrew Old Testament Text Project and de~Waard recommend Masoretic Text since it has wide textual support. The Septuagint made a stylistic correction to clarify that Yahweh’s words are a request to the prophet, rather than the prophet speaking on behalf of Yahweh. However, this loses the idea of agency in the Hebrew text. For Isaiah the son of Amoz, see the comments on 1.1. The quote that follows may be rendered as an indirect quote, as in Good News Translation (see also the third example below).

Go, and loose the sackcloth from your loins and take off your shoes from your feet: Yahweh tells Isaiah to act out his message for the people. Jeremiah and Ezekiel also conveyed God’s word through symbolic actions (see Jer 13.1-12; 19.1-15; 32.1-15; Ezek 3–5), but this is the only time Isaiah did it. The verb Go simply introduces the commands that follow, so it may be left implied. Loose the sackcloth from your loins is a command for Isaiah to take off his clothes, not just loosen them. Sackcloth was a very coarse cloth that was worn to show sorrow, penitence, or shame; see the comments at 3.24. We cannot tell from the text why Isaiah was wearing these mourning clothes. Loins may be rendered “body” (New International Version, New Century Version).

Take off your shoes from your feet is a literal rendering that contains a redundancy. Most languages will not need from your feet. The shoes are sandals rather than boots or some other kind of footwear (see 5.27, where the Hebrew word here is rendered “sandal”). If the receptor language does not have a specific word for sandals, it can use a general term for shoes.

And he had done so, walking naked and barefoot indicates Isaiah’s obedience to the command. The grammatical structure of the Hebrew expression rendered walking naked and barefoot indicates a continual or frequent activity. Here it is used to stress that Isaiah constantly walked around barefoot without wearing any clothes.

For the translation of this verse we offer the following models:

• It was then that Yahweh said to Isaiah the son of Amoz, “Take off both the sackcloth you are wearing and your sandals.” Isaiah did so and went about naked and barefoot.

• At that time Yahweh spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz. He said, “Strip off your sackcloth and your shoes.” Isaiah did so and walked around naked and shoeless.

• Yahweh had previously told Isaiah the son of Amoz to strip off the mourning clothes he was wearing and to take off his sandals. Isaiah did so and went about without wearing [his] clothes and [his] sandals.

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 .