Gr. logos, generally translated “word.” However, logos is used in the NT with a great variety of meanings. For example, it is translated “matter” (Mark 1:45), “question” (Mark 11:29), “thing” (Luke 20:3), “account” (Heb. 13:17). Logos occurs than 300 times in the NT, but is translated “work” only here. However, the idea is approached in the translation “matter” and in dabar, the Hebrew equivalent of logos. Several meanings are possible in this particular context. One is suggested by the KJV translation of logos in Rom. 14:12, “So then every one of us shall give account [logos] of himself to God.” Such a meaning is behind the following translation of the passage under consideration: “For the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch” (RSV). Another interpretation makes logos refer to the promises of God concerning Israel which were fulfilled in only a limited degree in the remnant. Or the “cutting short” may refer to Israel itself whose numbers would be greatly reduced in the selection of the remnant.

 The verse may be translated literally, “For a word, finishing [it] and cutting [it] short in righteousness, because a short word will the Lord make upon the earth.” However, textual evidence favors (cf. p. 10) omitting the words “in righteousness, because a short word.” The longer reading is that of the LXX. For the meaning of the Hebrew text see on Isa. 10:22.