2:20 “Indeed, 1 long ago you threw off my authority
and refused to be subject to me. 2
You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ 3
Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill
and under every green tree,
like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers. 4
2:27 They say to a wooden idol, 5 ‘You are my father.’
They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ 6
Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. 7
Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’
15:19 Because of this, the Lord said, 8
“You must repent of such words and thoughts!
If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. 9
If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless,
I will again allow you to be my spokesman. 10
They must become as you have been.
You must not become like them. 11
1 tn Or “For.” The Hebrew particle (כִּי, ki) here introduces the evidence that they had no respect for him.
2 tn Heb “you broke your yoke…tore off your yoke ropes.” The metaphor is that of a recalcitrant ox or heifer which has broken free from its master.
3 tc The MT of this verse has two examples of the old second feminine singular perfect, שָׁבַרְתִּי (shavarti) and נִתַּקְתִּי (nittaqti), which the Masoretes mistook for first singulars leading to the proposal to read אֶעֱבוֹר (’e’evor, “I will not transgress”) for אֶעֱבֹד (’e’evod, “I will not serve”). The latter understanding of the forms is accepted in KJV but rejected by almost all modern English versions as being less appropriate to the context than the reading accepted in the translation given here.
4 tn Heb “you sprawled as a prostitute on….” The translation reflects the meaning of the metaphor.
5 tn Heb “wood…stone…”
6 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.”
7 tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”
8 tn Heb “So the
9 tn Heb “If you return [ = repent], I will restore [more literally, ‘cause you to return’] that you may stand before me.” For the idiom of “standing before” in the sense of serving see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 10:8; 12:8; 17:1; Deut 10:8.
10 tn Heb “you shall be as my mouth.”
sn For the classic statement of the prophet as God’s “mouth/mouthpiece,” = “spokesman,” see Exod 4:15-16; 7:1-2.
11 tn Heb “They must turn/return to you and you must not turn/return to them.”
sn Once again the root “return” (שׁוּב, shuv) is being played on as in 3:1–4:4. See the threefold call to repentance in 3:12, 14, 22. The verb is used here four times “repent,” “restore,” and “become” twice. He is to serve as a model of repentance, not an imitator of their apostasy. In accusing God of being unreliable he was coming dangerously close to their kind of behavior.