8:9 You will be broken, 1 O nations;
you will be shattered! 2
Pay attention, all you distant lands of the earth!
Get ready for battle, and you will be shattered!
Get ready for battle, and you will be shattered! 3
42:22 But these people are looted and plundered;
all of them are trapped in pits 4
and held captive 5 in prisons.
They were carried away as loot with no one to rescue them;
they were carried away as plunder, and no one says, “Bring that back!” 6
49:9 You will say 7 to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’
and to those who are in dark dungeons, 8 ‘Emerge.’ 9
They will graze beside the roads;
on all the slopes they will find pasture.
56:7 I will bring them to my holy mountain;
I will make them happy in the temple where people pray to me. 10
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar,
for my temple will be known as a temple where all nations may pray.” 11
63:3 “I have stomped grapes in the winepress all by myself;
no one from the nations joined me.
I stomped on them 12 in my anger;
I trampled them down in my rage.
Their juice splashed on my garments,
and stained 13 all my clothes.
1 tn The verb רֹעוּ (ro’u) is a Qal imperative, masculine plural from רָעַע (ra’a’, “break”). Elsewhere both transitive (Job 34:24; Ps 2:9; Jer 15:12) and intransitive (Prov 25:19; Jer 11:16) senses are attested for the Qal of this verb. Because no object appears here, the form is likely intransitive: “be broken.” In this case the imperative is rhetorical (like “be shattered” later in the verse) and equivalent to a prediction, “you will be broken.” On the rhetorical use of the imperative in general, see IBHS 572 §34.4c; GKC 324 §110.c.
2 tn The imperatival form (Heb “be shattered”) is rhetorical and expresses the speaker’s firm conviction of the outcome of the nations’ attack. See the note on “be broken.”
3 tn The initial imperative (“get ready for battle”) acknowledges the reality of the nations’ hostility; the concluding imperative (Heb “be shattered”) is rhetorical and expresses the speakers’ firm conviction of the outcome of the nations’ attack. (See the note on “be broken.”) One could paraphrase, “Okay, go ahead and prepare for battle since that’s what you want to do, but your actions will backfire and you’ll be shattered.” This rhetorical use of the imperatives is comparable to saying to a child who is bent on climbing a high tree, “Okay, go ahead, climb the tree and break your arm!” What this really means is: “Okay, go ahead and climb the tree since that’s what you really want to do, but your actions will backfire and you’ll break your arm.” The repetition of the statement in the final two lines of the verse gives the challenge the flavor of a taunt (ancient Israelite “trash talking,” as it were).
4 tc The Hebrew text has בַּחוּרִים (bakhurim, “young men”), but the text should be emended to בְּהוֹרִים (bÿhorim, “in holes”).
5 tn Heb “and made to be hidden”; NAB, NASB, NIV, TEV “hidden away in prisons.”
6 tn Heb “they became loot and there was no one rescuing, plunder and there was no one saying, ‘Bring back’.”
7 tn Heb “to say.” In the Hebrew text the infinitive construct is subordinated to what precedes.
8 tn Heb “in darkness” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “the prisoners of darkness.”
9 tn Heb “show yourselves” (so ASV, NAB, NASB).
10 tn Heb “in the house of my prayer.”
11 tn Heb “for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”
12 sn Nations, headed by Edom, are the object of the Lord’s anger (see v. 6). He compares military slaughter to stomping on grapes in a vat.
13 tn Heb “and I stained.” For discussion of the difficult verb form, see HALOT 170 s.v. II גאל. Perhaps the form is mixed, combining the first person forms of the imperfect (note the alef prefix) and perfect (note the תי- ending).