13:16 Their children will be smashed to pieces before their very eyes;
their houses will be looted
and their wives raped.
29:2 I will threaten Ariel,
and she will mourn intensely
and become like an altar hearth 1 before me.
45:2 “I will go before you
and level mountains. 2
Bronze doors I will shatter
and iron bars 3 I will hack through.
64:1 (63:19b) 4 If only you would tear apart the sky 5 and come down!
The mountains would tremble 6 before you!
64:3 When you performed awesome deeds that took us by surprise, 7
you came down, and the mountains trembled 8 before you.
1 tn The term אֲרִיאֵל (’ari’el, “Ariel”) is the word translated “altar hearth” here. The point of the simile is not entirely clear. Perhaps the image likens Jerusalem’s coming crisis to a sacrificial fire.
2 tc The form הֲדוּרִים (hadurim) makes little, if any, sense here. It is probably a corruption of an original הָרָרִים (hararim, “mountains”), the reduplicated form of הָר (har, “mountain”).
3 tn That is, on the gates. Cf. CEV “break the iron bars on bronze gates.”
4 sn In BHS the chapter division occurs in a different place from the English Bible: 64:1 ET (63:19b HT) and 64:2-12 (64:1-11 HT). Beginning with 65:1 the verse numbers in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible are again the same.
5 tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.
6 tn Or “quake.” נָזֹלּוּ (nazollu) is from the verbal root זָלַל (zalal, “quake”; see HALOT 272 s.v. II זלל). Perhaps there is a verbal allusion to Judg 5:5, the only other passage where this verb occurs. In that passage the poet tells how the Lord’s appearance to do battle caused the mountains to shake.
7 tn Heb “[for which] we were not waiting.”
8 tn See the note at v. 1.