2:9 Men bow down to them in homage,
they lie flat on the ground in worship. 1
Don’t spare them! 2
28:24 Does a farmer just keep on plowing at planting time? 3
Does he keep breaking up and harrowing his ground?
63:6 I trampled nations in my anger,
I made them drunk 4 in my rage,
I splashed their blood on the ground.” 5
1 tn Heb “men bow down, men are low.” Since the verbs שָׁחָח (shakhakh) and שָׁפַל (shafal) are used later in this discourse to describe how God will humiliate proud men (see vv. 11, 17), some understand v. 9a as a prediction of judgment, “men will be brought down, men will be humiliated.” However, these prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive appear to carry on the description that precedes and are better taken with the accusation. They draw attention to the fact that human beings actually bow down and worship before the lifeless products of their own hands.
2 tn Heb “don’t lift them up.” The idiom “lift up” (נָשָׂא with לְ, nasa’ with preposition lamed) can mean “spare, forgive” (see Gen 18:24, 26). Here the idiom plays on the preceding verbs. The idolaters are bowed low as they worship their false gods; the prophet asks God not to “lift them up.”
3 tn Heb “All the day does the plowman plow in order to plant?” The phrase “all the day” here has the sense of “continually, always.” See BDB 400 s.v. יוֹם.
4 sn See Isa 49:26 and 51:23 for similar imagery.
5 tn Heb “and I brought down to the ground their juice.” “Juice” refers to their blood (see v. 3).