2:11 Has a nation ever changed its gods
(even though they are not really gods at all)?
But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, 1
for a god that cannot help them at all! 2
2:27 They say to a wooden idol, 3 ‘You are my father.’
They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ 4
Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. 5
Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’
2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves?
Let them save you when you are in trouble.
The sad fact is that 6 you have as many gods
as you have towns, Judah.
1 tn Heb “have exchanged their glory [i.e., the God in whom they glory].” This is a case of a figure of speech where the attribute of a person or thing is put for the person or thing. Compare the common phrase in Isaiah, the Holy One of Israel, obviously referring to the
2 tn Heb “what cannot profit.” The verb is singular and the allusion is likely to Baal. See the translator’s note on 2:8 for the likely pun or wordplay.
3 tn Heb “wood…stone…”
4 sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”
5 tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”
6 tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki, “for, indeed”) contextually.