9:1 I saw the sovereign One 1 standing by the altar 2 and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, 3 so the thresholds shake!
Knock them down on the heads of all the people, 4
and I will kill the survivors 5 with the sword.
No one will be able to run away; 6
no one will be able to escape. 7
9:2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, 8
my hand would pull them up from there.
Even if they could climb up to heaven,
I would drag them down from there.
1 tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
2 sn The altar is perhaps the altar at Bethel.
3 tn Or “the capitals.” The Hebrew singular form is collective.
4 tn Heb “cut them off on the head of all of them.” The translation assumes the objective suffix on the verb refers to the tops of the pillars and that the following prepositional phrase refers to the people standing beneath. Another option is to take this phrase as referring to the pillars, in which case one could translate, “Knock all the tops of the pillars off.”
5 tn Heb “the remnant of them.” One could possibly translate, “every last one of them” (cf. NEB “to the last man”). This probably refers to those who survive the collapse of the temple, which may symbolize the northern kingdom.
6 tn Heb “a fugitive belonging to them will not run away.”
7 tn Heb “a survivor belonging to them will not escape.”
8 tn Heb “into Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), that is, the land of the dead localized in Hebrew thought in the earth’s core or the grave. Cf. KJV “hell”; NCV, NLT “the place of the dead”; NIV “the depths of the grave.”