2:20 At that time 1 men will throw
their silver and gold idols,
which they made for themselves to worship, 2
into the caves where rodents and bats live, 3
10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, 6
a cudgel with which I angrily punish. 7
17:9 At that time 9 their fortified cities will be
like the abandoned summits of the Amorites, 10
which they abandoned because of the Israelites;
there will be desolation.
32:13 Mourn 11 over the land of my people,
which is overgrown with thorns and briers,
and over all the once-happy houses 12
in the city filled with revelry. 13
44:9 All who form idols are nothing;
the things in which they delight are worthless.
Their witnesses cannot see;
they recognize nothing, so they are put to shame.
47:12 Persist 17 in trusting 18 your amulets
and your many incantations,
which you have faithfully recited 19 since your youth!
Maybe you will be successful 20 –
maybe you will scare away disaster. 21
1 tn Or “in that day” (KJV).
2 tn Or “bow down to.”
3 tn Heb “to the shrews and to the bats.” On the meaning of חֲפַרְפָּרָה (khafarparah, “shrew”), see HALOT 341 s.v. חֲפַרְפָּרָה. The BHS text as it stands (לַחְפֹּר פֵּרוֹת, perot lakhpor), makes no sense. Based on Theodotion’s transliteration and a similar reading in the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa, most scholars suggest that the MT mistakenly divided a noun (a hapax legomenon) that should be translated “moles,” “shrews,” or “rodents.”
4 tn Or, perhaps “cream,” frequently, “curds” (NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); KJV, ASV “butter”; CEV “yogurt.”
5 tn Heb “for his knowing.” Traditionally the preposition has been translated in a temporal sense, “when he knows.” However, though the preposition לְ (lamed) can sometimes have a temporal force, it never carries such a nuance in any of the 40 other passages where it is used with the infinitive construct of יָדַע (yada’, “to know”). Most often the construction indicates purpose/result. This sense is preferable here. The following context indicates that sour milk and honey will epitomize the devastation that God’s judgment will bring upon the land. Cultivated crops will be gone and the people will be forced to live off the milk produced by their goats and the honey they find in the thickets. As the child is forced to eat a steady diet of this sour milk and honey, he will be reminded of the consequences of sin and motivated to make correct moral decisions in order to avoid further outbreaks of divine discipline.
6 tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
7 tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”
8 tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.
9 tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).
10 tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “like the abandonment of the wooded height and the top one.” The following relative clause appears to allude back to the Israelite conquest of the land, so it seems preferable to emend הַחֹרֶשׁ וְהָאָמִיר (hakhoresh vÿha’amir, “the wooded height and the top one”) to חֹרֵשֵׁי הָאֱמֹרִי (khoreshe ha’emori, “[like the abandonment] of the wooded heights of the Amorites”).
11 tn “Mourn” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 12-13 are one long sentence.
12 tn Heb “indeed, over all the houses of joy.” It is not certain if this refers to individual homes or to places where parties and celebrations were held.
13 sn This same phrase is used in 22:2.
14 tn Heb “good” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “favorable.”
15 tn Heb “and he said.” The verb אָמַר (’amar, “say”) is sometimes used of what one thinks (that is, says to oneself).
16 tn Or “surely”; cf. CEV “At least.”
17 tn Heb “stand” (so KJV, ASV); NASB, NRSV “Stand fast.”
18 tn The word “trusting” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See v. 9.
19 tn Heb “in that which you have toiled.”
20 tn Heb “maybe you will be able to profit.”
21 tn Heb “maybe you will cause to tremble.” The object “disaster” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See the note at v. 9.