5:11 Those who get up early to drink beer are as good as dead, 1
those who keep drinking long after dark
until they are intoxicated with wine. 2
24:22 They will be imprisoned in a pit, 3
locked up in a prison,
and after staying there for a long time, 4 they will be punished. 5
34:10 Night and day it will burn; 6
its smoke will ascend continually.
Generation after generation it will be a wasteland
and no one will ever pass through it again.
“The virgin daughter Zion 8
despises you – she makes fun of you;
daughter Jerusalem
shakes her head after you. 9
62:12 They will be called, “The Holy People,
the Ones Protected 10 by the Lord.”
You will be called, “Sought After,
City Not Abandoned.”
1 tn Heb “Woe [to] those who arise early in the morning, [who] chase beer.”
2 tn Heb “[who] delay until dark, [until] wine enflames them.”
sn This verse does not condemn drinking per se, but refers to the carousing lifestyle of the rich bureaucrats, made possible by wealth taken from the poor. Their carousing is not the fundamental problem, but a disgusting symptom of the real disease – their social injustice.
3 tn Heb “they will be gathered [in] a gathering [as] a prisoner in a cistern.” It is tempting to eliminate אֲסֵפָה (’asefah, “a gathering”) as dittographic or as a gloss, but sound repetition is one of the main characteristics of the style of this section of the chapter.
4 tn Heb “and after a multitude of days.”
5 tn Heb “visited” (so KJV, ASV). This verse can mean to visit for good or for evil. The translation assumes the latter, based on v. 21a. However, BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד B.Niph.2 suggests the meaning “visit graciously” here, in which case one might translate “they will be released.”
6 tn Heb “it will not be extinguished.”
7 tn Heb “this is the word which the Lord has spoken about him.”
8 sn Zion (Jerusalem) is pictured here as a young, vulnerable daughter whose purity is being threatened by the would-be Assyrian rapist. The personification hints at the reality which the young girls of the city would face if the Assyrians conquer it.
9 sn Shaking the head was a mocking gesture of derision.
10 tn Or “the redeemed of the Lord” (KJV, NAB).