5:8 Those who accumulate houses are as good as dead, 1
those who also accumulate landed property 2
until there is no land left, 3
and you are the only landowners remaining within the land. 4
5:14 So Death 5 will open up its throat,
and open wide its mouth; 6
Zion’s dignitaries and masses will descend into it,
including those who revel and celebrate within her. 7
26:9 I 10 look for 11 you during the night,
my spirit within me seeks you at dawn,
for when your judgments come upon the earth,
those who live in the world learn about justice. 12
49:20 Yet the children born during your time of bereavement
will say within your hearing,
‘This place is too cramped for us, 13
make room for us so we can live here.’ 14
56:5 I will set up within my temple and my walls a monument 15
that will be better than sons and daughters.
I will set up a permanent monument 16 for them that will remain.
60:18 Sounds of violence 17 will no longer be heard in your land,
or the sounds of 18 destruction and devastation within your borders.
You will name your walls, ‘Deliverance,’
and your gates, ‘Praise.’
1 tn Heb “Woe [to] those who make a house touch a house.” The exclamation הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) was used in funeral laments (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5) and carries the connotation of death.
2 tn Heb “[who] bring a field near a field.”
sn This verse does not condemn real estate endeavors per se, but refers to the way in which the rich bureaucrats of Judah accumulated property by exploiting the poor, in violation of the covenantal principle that the land belonged to God and that every family was to have its own portion of land. See the note at 1:23.
3 tn Heb “until the end of the place”; NASB “until there is no more room.”
4 tn Heb “and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.”
5 tn Heb “Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV); the underworld, the land of the dead, according to the OT world view. Cf. NAB “the nether world”; TEV, CEV “the world of the dead”; NLT “the grave.”
6 tn Heb “so Sheol will make wide its throat, and open its mouth without limit.”
sn Death is portrayed in both the OT (Prov 1:12; Hab 2:5) and Canaanite myth as voraciously swallowing up its prey. In the myths Death is portrayed as having “a lip to the earth, a lip to the heavens … and a tongue to the stars.” (G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 69, text 5 ii 2-3.) Death describes his own appetite as follows: “But my appetite is the appetite of lions in the waste…If it is in very truth my desire to consume ‘clay’ [a reference to his human victims], then in truth by the handfuls I must eat it, whether my seven portions [indicating fullness and completeness] are already in the bowl or whether Nahar [the god of the river responsible for ferrying victims from the land of the living to the land of the dead] has to mix the cup.” (Driver, 68-69, text 5 i 14-22).
7 tn Heb “and her splendor and her masses will go down, and her tumult and the one who exults in her.” The antecedent of the four feminine singular pronominal suffixes used in v. 14b is unclear. The likely referent is personified Zion/Jerusalem (see 3:25-26; 4:4-5).
8 tn Heb “in three years, like the years of a hired worker.” The three years must be reckoned exactly, just as a hired worker would carefully keep track of the time he had agreed to work for an employer in exchange for a predetermined wage.
9 tn Heb “and the splendor of Moab will be disgraced with all the great multitude, and a small little remnant will not be strong.”
10 tn Heb “with my soul I.” This is a figure for the speaker himself (“I”).
11 tn Or “long for, desire.” The speaker acknowledges that he is eager to see God come in judgment (see vv. 8, 9b).
12 tn The translation understands צֶדֶק (tsedeq) in the sense of “justice,” but it is possible that it carries the nuance “righteousness,” in which case one might translate, “those who live in the world learn to live in a righteous manner” (cf. NCV).
13 tn Heb “me.” The singular is collective.
14 tn Heb “draw near to me so I can dwell.”
15 tn Heb “a hand and a name.” For other examples where יָד (yad) refers to a monument, see HALOT 388 s.v.
16 tn Heb “name” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV).
17 tn The words “sounds of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
18 tn The words “sounds of” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.