4:10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. 1
I killed your young men with the sword,
along with the horses you had captured.
I made the stench from the corpses 2 rise up into your nostrils.
Still you did not come back to me.”
The Lord is speaking!
8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, 3
and all your songs into funeral dirges.
I will make everyone wear funeral clothes 4
and cause every head to be shaved bald. 5
I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; 6
when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. 7
1 tn Heb “in the manner [or “way”] of Egypt.”
2 tn Heb “of your camps [or “armies”].”
3 tn Heb “mourning.”
4 tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”
sn Mourners wore sackcloth (funeral clothes) as an outward expression of grief.
5 tn Heb “and make every head bald.” This could be understood in a variety of ways, while the ritual act of mourning typically involved shaving the head (although occasionally the hair could be torn out as a sign of mourning).
sn Shaving the head or tearing out one’s hair was a ritual act of mourning. See Lev 21:5; Deut 14:1; Isa 3:24; 15:2; Jer 47:5; 48:37; Ezek 7:18; 27:31; Mic 1:16.
6 tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”
7 tn Heb “and its end will be like a bitter day.” The Hebrew preposition כְּ (kaf) sometimes carries the force of “in every respect,” indicating identity rather than mere comparison.