Thus says the Lord GOD: Yahweh continues speaking here. The poet introduces this part of the divine speech with the set formula thus says the Lord, which is found in all prophetic writings but is used for the first time in Isaiah here. With this formula Isaiah is to remind King Ahaz that he is speaking as a divine representative. These particular words are not his own, but the LORD’s. For the Lord GOD, see 3.15.

It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass: These two clauses are synonymous. The duplicate expression is for emphasis. It shall not stand is a literal rendering. The Hebrew verb for stand has a wide variety of meanings, depending on the context. Here the sense is that something will not happen, it will not take place. It shall not come to pass is literally “it will not be.” Revised English Bible attempts to bring out the emphasis of these two clauses by saying “This shall not happen now or ever,” while others add the adverb “never”; for example, New Jerusalem Bible has “This will not happen, it will never occur.”

Both occurrences of the pronoun It refer to the plan by the enemy kings to defeat Judah and place another ruler in Jerusalem. It may be rendered “What they plan.”

Possible models for this verse are:

• My Master Yahweh says, “What they propose will never ever happen.

• My Lord Yahweh declares, “What they plan will never happen, it will never take place.

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 .