Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land lists the destruction that the Babylonians inflicted on Zion. The Hebrew particle ki rendered Surely is an emphatic marker here. Unfortunately, Good News Translation omits it. The particle ki has a special function in this verse since it also occurs at the beginning of the third line to introduce two contrasting situations, the one past and the other future. It provides a contrast between what the city is like now and what it will become in future. New International Version expresses this contrast by saying “Though you were … now you will be…” (similarly New American Bible).

Your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land is a literal rendering of the Hebrew, which consists of three noun phrases without a verb. A Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia footnote here suggests emending the Hebrew text by turning the nouns into verbs, but there is no textual support for this. However, most versions use verbs to express the meaning of the first two lines of this verse, because a list of nouns without a verb, as in Revised Standard Version, appears incomplete; for example, Revised English Bible has “I [Yahweh] did indeed make you waste and desolate, I razed you to the ground.” Good News Translation summarizes it quite simply: “Your country was ruined and desolate.” Some languages may wish to follow this summary form if they lack a variety of terms to describe destruction. Some versions keep noun phrases, but they find other ways of linking these two lines to the remainder of the verse; for example, New Jerusalem Bible translates “For your desolated places and your ruins and your devastated country from now on will be….” However, this reading appears to be based on a small textual emendation that Hebrew Old Testament Text Project does not favor. For desolate places, see Isa 49.8.

Surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants: As noted above, the Hebrew particle ki rendered surely introduces a contrast here. It occurs with the adverb now to contrast the past destruction with what will begin to happen in the near future. Now does not carry the sense of “at this very moment,” but rather “soon” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Bible en français courant). God assures Zion that soon it will be too small for the number of exiles returning to it. You will be too narrow pictures a city that will be limited in size, making it impossible for everyone returning to find room to live. This is not a complaint, but is a cause for rejoicing, as verse 20 will elaborate. The Hebrew verb rendered too narrow actually refers to something “restricted,” “bound up,” or “too cramped” (New Jerusalem Bible). New Revised Standard Version suggests “too crowded” (similarly New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), since too narrow describes only one dimension of its size. Good News Translation and Revised English Bible use plainer English, saying “too small.” Revised English Bible has present tense for this verb, but future tense is better. The word inhabitants has occurred several times already (see, for example 5.3; 8.14).

And those who swallowed you up will be far away: This line is similar in content to verse 17b. God also assures Zion that the enemy garrison that had remained in it (or simply its enemies) will soon be in a place that is far away, presumably back to Babylonia. Those who swallowed you up is a figurative way of speaking about the invasion and the destruction caused by the Babylonian army when it came in 587 B.C. Swallowed you up means “destroyed you completely” or “conquered you decisively.” This expression is probably understandable in most languages. It may also be rendered “devoured/overran/engulfed you.” For this whole line Bible en français courant (1997) has “while those who made you disappear will leave for a faraway place,” and Good News Translation says “And those who left you in ruins will be far removed from you” (similarly Revised English Bible).

Translation examples for this verse are:

• Truly, your land was made a wasteland,
desolate and devastated.
But truly you will now become too small for those who will live there,
and those who overran you will be [or, go] far away.

• Indeed, you were made a wasteland,
desolated and destroyed;
But now you will become too crowded for your inhabitants,
and those who devoured [or, overpowered] you will be sent far away.

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 .