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
4:28 Because of this the land will mourn
and the sky above will grow black. 3
For I have made my purpose known 4
and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” 5
49:18 Edom will be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah
and the towns that were around them.
No one will live there.
No human being will settle in it,”
says the Lord.
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 sn The earth and the heavens are personified here and depicted in the act of mourning and wearing black clothes because of the destruction of the land of Israel.
4 tn Heb “has spoken and purposed.” This is an example of hendiadys where two verbs are joined by “and” but one is meant to serve as a modifier of the other.
5 tn Heb “will not turn back from it.”
6 tn Heb “eighteen cubits.” A “cubit” was a unit of measure, approximately equivalent to a foot and a half.
7 tn Heb “twelve cubits.” A “cubit” was a unit of measure, approximately equivalent to a foot and a half.
8 tn Heb “four fingers.”