This verse contains an embedded quotation, which will be extremely difficult to translate literally in many languages. Good News Translation provides a possible model for reducing the number of direct quotes to one instead of two.

They said to him: If the pronoun references are unclear here, translators should ensure that readers understand that the officials and senior priests mentioned in the previous verse are speaking to the prophet Isaiah. They are, of course, talking on behalf of King Hezekiah.

This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace: The words distress, rebuke, and disgrace have a cumulative effect. But each noun seems to have a slightly different focus. Distress centers on the feeling of the people of Judah themselves. The Hebrew word used here has to do with restriction or tightness, just as some speakers of English would speak of being “in a tight spot.” The Hebrew text does not make explicit who is experiencing distress. The reference may be to Hezekiah rather than the people in general. In any case, the Assyrian threat is the cause of the distress. Rebuke has to do with chastisement or correction, and in this case the punishment comes from God. In some languages this will need to be made explicit in translation. It is also possible that the agent of rebuke is the military officer referred to as “the Rabshakeh” (2 Kgs 18.19-35) rather than God, but this interpretation is less likely. The word disgrace focuses more on the attitude of other people observing the people of Judah. The result of their punishment by God is that they are humiliated in the presence of other nations. In view of all this, a possible model for this part of the verse might be something like the following:

• We are in a narrow place because God is punishing us. And so we are humiliated in the presence of other people.

Children have come to the birth does not mean that children have been born, but rather that they have come to term so that the time for them to be born has arrived. The context shows, however, that the women who should give birth to these children have no strength to bring them forth. It is important to recognize that this is figurative language and not to be taken literally. Certain versions show this by adding “as when” to begin these words (New International Version, New Century Version). Others begin a new sentence, saying something like “We are like a woman who has no strength to bring to birth the child she is carrying” (Revised English Bible). Compare also the Good News Translation model.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .