6:12 and the Lord has sent the people off to a distant place,
and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned. 1
32:11 Tremble, you complacent ones!
Shake with fear, you carefree ones!
Strip off your clothes and expose yourselves –
put sackcloth on your waist! 2
47:15 They will disappoint you, 3
those you have so faithfully dealt with since your youth. 4
Each strays off in his own direction, 5
leaving no one to rescue you.”
48:19 Your descendants would have been as numerous as sand, 6
and your children 7 like its granules.
Their name would not have been cut off
and eliminated from my presence. 8
59:14 Justice is driven back;
godliness 9 stands far off.
Indeed, 10 honesty stumbles in the city square
and morality is not even able to enter.
1 tn Heb “and great is the abandonment in the midst of the land.”
2 tn The imperatival forms in v. 11 are problematic. The first (חִרְדוּ, khirdu, “tremble”) is masculine plural in form, though spoken to a feminine plural addressee (שַׁאֲנַנּוֹת, sha’anannot, “complacent ones”). The four imperatival forms that follow (רְגָזָה, rÿgazah, “shake with fear”; פְּשֹׁטָה, pÿshotah, “strip off your clothes”; עֹרָה, ’orah, “expose yourselves”; and חֲגוֹרָה, khagorah, “put on”) all appear to be lengthened (so-called “emphatic”) masculine singular forms, even though they too appear to be spoken to a feminine plural addressee. GKC 131-32 §48.i suggests emending חִרְדוּ (khirdu) to חֲרָדָה (kharadah) and understanding all five imperatives as feminine plural “aramaized” forms.
3 tn Heb “So they will be to you”; NIV “That is all they can do for you.”
4 tn Heb “that for which you toiled, your traders from your youth.” The omen readers and star gazers are likened to merchants with whom Babylon has had an ongoing economic relationship.
5 tn Heb “each to his own side, they err.”
6 tn Heb “like sand”; NCV “as many as the grains of sand.”
7 tn Heb “and the issue from your inner parts.”
8 tn Heb “and his name would not be cut off and would not be destroyed from before me.”
9 tn Or “righteousness” (ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NAB “justice.”
10 tn Or “for” (KJV, NRSV).