Isaiah 3:24

Sweet smell. That is, “perfume,” probably from balsam oil.

Stink. Or, “musty smell.” Many living in luxury would be stripped of earthly wealth and carried captive to foreign lands. The Assyrians were cruel masters. Sennacherib claims to have taken 200,150 of the people of Judah captive to Assyria in the year 701. Among the captives he particularly mentions daughters of the royal household, royal concubines, and male and female musicians. Many of the “daughters of Jerusalem” who flaunted their finery at the time of Isaiah’s scathing denunciation were no doubt among those stripped and taken to Assyria in disgrace and shame. Instead of the balmy scent of perfume there would be the stench of squalor, pestilence, and death.

Instead of a girdle a rent. Instead of an embroidered girdle there would be rags — a “rope” around the loins instead of a “sash.”

Well set hair. Heb. miqsheh, “artificially set hair.” Instead of beautiful, well-dressed hair there would be the cropped head of the slave.

Stomacher. Heb. pethigil, a “garment” of fine material and workmanship. Instead of such a garment there would be nothing but a scrap of sackcloth to wear as a cover over the loins.

Burning instead of beauty. This translation is based on the Masoretic Hebrew text (see Vol. I, pp. 34-36), which reads, ki-tachath yophi. Both the LXX and the Vulgate omit the phrase completely, though Lucian’s revision of the LXX has the interpretive rendering tauta soi anti kallopismou, “all of these [shall be] to you instead of adornment.” This makes the last phrase of v. 24 a summary statement of the entire verse rather than the final item in the list of woes. The KJV reading is based on the belief that the Heb. ki is from the verb kawah, “to burn,” “to scorch,” “to brand.” No other instance of ki thus used is known, and it is extremely doubtful that this can be its meaning here. Modern translators and commentators have followed the conjectural rendering of the KJV, suggesting that the women of Jerusalem were to be branded as slaves (see Moffatt’s translation) as cattle are branded, with a hot iron. The recent discovery of the Dead Sea scroll 1QIs, dating from about 125 B.C., and thus a thousand years older than the oldest Masoretic text of Isaiah (see Vol. I, p. 31; Vol. IV, pp. 86-88), solves the problem with the reading ki-tachath yophi bosheth, “thus instead of beauty, shame,” bosheth meaning “shame” (see on 2 Sam. 2:8). The Heb. ki thus assumes its normal meaning as a conjunction — “thus,” “therefore,” “yea,” or “for” — in this instance introducing the summary phrase for Isa. 3:24. Ki is translated “for” in chs. 5:7; 51:3, for instance. Isa. 3:24 thus provides an interesting illustration of the value of the recently discovered Isaiah scroll in restoring the original reading of the Hebrew text.