1:13 You are too just 1 to tolerate 2 evil;
you are unable to condone 3 wrongdoing.
So why do you put up with such treacherous people? 4
Why do you say nothing when the wicked devour 5 those more righteous than they are? 6
2:18 What good 7 is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? 8
What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? 9
Why would its creator place his trust in it 10
and make 11 such mute, worthless things?
1 tn Heb “[you] are too pure of eyes.” God’s “eyes” here signify what he looks at with approval. His “eyes” are “pure” in that he refuses to tolerate any wrongdoing in his presence.
2 tn Heb “to see.” Here “see” is figurative for “tolerate,” “put up with.”
3 tn Heb “to look at.” Cf. NEB “who canst not countenance wrongdoing”; NASB “You can not look on wickedness with favor.”
4 tn Heb “Why do you look at treacherous ones?” The verb בָּגַד (bagad, “be treacherous”) is often used of those who are disloyal or who violate agreements. See S. Erlandsson, TDOT 1:470-73.
5 tn Or “swallow up.”
6 tn Heb “more innocent than themselves.”
7 tn Or “of what value.”
8 tn Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.
9 tn Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 126.
10 tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.
11 tn Heb “to make.”