1:12 Lord, you have been active from ancient times; 1
my sovereign God, 2 you are immortal. 3
Lord, you have made them 4 your instrument of judgment. 5
Protector, 6 you have appointed them as your instrument of punishment. 7
2:15 “You who force your neighbor to drink wine 8 are as good as dead 9 –
you who make others intoxicated by forcing them to drink from the bowl of your furious anger, 10
so you can look at their genitals. 11
3:8 Is the Lord mad at the rivers?
Are you angry with the rivers?
Are you enraged at the sea? 12
Is this why 13 you climb into your horse-drawn chariots, 14
your victorious chariots? 15
3:13 You march out to deliver your people,
to deliver your special servant. 16
You strike the leader of the wicked nation, 17
laying him open from the lower body to the neck. 18 Selah.
1 tn Heb “Are you not from antiquity, O
2 tn Heb “My God, my holy one.” God’s “holiness” in this context is his sovereign transcendence as the righteous judge of the world (see vv. 12b-13a), thus the translation “My sovereign God.”
3 tc The MT reads, “we will not die,” but an ancient scribal tradition has “you [i.e., God] will not die.” This is preferred as a more difficult reading that can explain the rise of the other variant. Later scribes who copied the manuscripts did not want to associate the idea of death with God in any way, so they softened the statement to refer to humanity.
4 tn Heb “him,” a collective singular referring to the Babylonians. The plural pronoun “them” has been used in the translation in keeping with contemporary English style.
5 tn Heb “for judgment.”
6 tn Heb “Rock” or “Cliff.” This divine epithet views God as a place where one can go to be safe from danger. The translation “Protector” conveys the force of the metaphor (cf. KJV, NEB “O mighty God”).
7 tn Heb “to correct, reprove.”
8 tn No direct object is present after “drink” in the Hebrew text. “Wine” is implied, however, and has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
9 tn On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.
10 tc Heb “pouring out your anger and also making drunk”; or “pouring out your anger and [by] rage making drunk.” The present translation assumes that the final khet (ח) on מְסַפֵּחַ (misapeakh, “pouring”) is dittographic and that the form should actually be read מִסַּף (missaf, “from a bowl”).
sn Forcing them to drink from the bowl of your furious anger. The Babylonian’s harsh treatment of others is compared to intoxicating wine which the Babylonians force the nations to drink so they can humiliate them. Cf. the imagery in Rev 14:10.
11 tn Heb “their nakedness,” a euphemism.
sn Metaphor and reality are probably blended here. This may refer to the practice of publicly humiliating prisoners of war by stripping them naked. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 124.
12 sn The following context suggests these questions should be answered, “Yes.” The rivers and the sea, symbolizing here the hostile nations (v. 12), are objects of the Lord’s anger (vv. 10, 15).
13 tn Heb “so that.” Here כִּי (ki) is resultative. See the note on the phrase “make it” in 2:18.
14 tn Heb “you mount your horses.” As the next line makes clear, the Lord is pictured here as a charioteer, not a cavalryman. Note NRSV here, “when you drove your horses, // your chariots to victory.”
15 tn Or “chariots of deliverance.”
16 tn Heb “anointed one.” In light of the parallelism with “your people” in the preceding line this could refer to Israel, but elsewhere the Lord’s anointed one is always an individual. The Davidic king is the more likely referent here.
17 tn Heb “you strike the head from the house of wickedness.”
18 tn Heb “laying bare [from] foundation to neck.”