Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land: Here it becomes clear that the promises in the previous verse have a time limit. The Assyrian king will let the people of Judah return to their fields that day if they surrender. At this point he is besieging Lachish (verse 2). He promises to come to Jerusalem after victory there and to take the people to another country. When the Assyrians conquered peoples, they would scatter them among other peoples in their empire. This is what happened to the people of the northern kingdom of Israel following the fall of its capital Samaria in 721 B.C. The Assyrian king assures the people of Judah that he will bring them to a land like your own land. They will be no worse off in their land of exile.

A land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards explains how the land of exile will be similar to their own land. A land of grain is parallel to a land of bread since bread is made from grain. Wine and vineyards are also parallel, though in reverse order, since wine comes from vineyards. The Hebrew word for grain has a wide range of meaning and may include beans and peas as well as crops like wheat and barley. The English word grain expresses the broad meaning of this term. In languages that do not have such a general word, a land of grain may be rendered “a land with much food growing on it.” The Hebrew word for wine is literally “new wine” (New International Version; see the comments on 24.7). For vineyards see 1.8. Good News Translation restructures this part of the verse to show more clearly the relationships here, saying “where there are vineyards to give wine and there is grain for making bread.” Bible en français courant is similar with “a land rich in wheat for bread and in grapevines for wine.” These may be good models for some languages.

For the translation of this verse consider the following examples:

• … until such time that I come and take you away to a land like your own—it too is a land where grain grows and where there are vineyards, a land where bread and wine are made.

• … until I come and take you away to another land like this one, where grain grows and bread is made, where there are vineyards and wine is made.

• … until I come and take you to a land like this your own, a land growing grain and producing wine, a land where bread is made and where there are vineyards.

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 .