2:34 Even your clothes are stained with
the lifeblood of the poor who had not done anything wrong;
you did not catch them breaking into your homes. 1
Yet, in spite of all these things you have done, 2
3:3 That is why the rains have been withheld,
and the spring rains have not come.
Yet in spite of this you are obstinate as a prostitute. 3
You refuse to be ashamed of what you have done.
16:14 Yet 6 I, the Lord, say: 7 “A new time will certainly come. 8 People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’
18:20 Should good be paid back with evil?
Yet they are virtually digging a pit to kill me. 9
Just remember how I stood before you
pleading on their behalf 10
to keep you from venting your anger on them. 11
23:18 Yet which of them has ever stood in the Lord’s inner circle 12
so they 13 could see and hear what he has to say? 14
Which of them have ever paid attention or listened to what he has said?
1 tn The words “for example” are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarification. This is only one example of why their death was not legitimate.
sn Killing a thief caught in the act of breaking and entering into a person’s home was pardonable under the law of Moses, cf. Exod 22:2.
2 tn KJV and ASV read this line with 2:34. The ASV makes little sense and the KJV again erroneously reads the archaic second person feminine singular perfect as first person common singular. All the modern English versions and commentaries take this line with 2:35.
3 tn Heb “you have the forehead of a prostitute.”
4 tn Or “I said to her, ‘Come back to me!’” The verb אָמַר (’amar) usually means “to say,” but here it means “to think,” of an assumption that turns out to be wrong (so HALOT 66.4 s.v. אמר); cf. Gen 44:28; Jer 3:19; Pss 82:6; 139:11; Job 29:18; Ruth 4:4; Lam 3:18.
sn Open theists suggest that passages such as this indicate God has limited foreknowledge; however, more traditional theologians view this passage as an extended metaphor in which God presents himself as a deserted husband, hoping against hope that his adulterous wife might return to him. The point of the metaphor is not to make an assertion about God’s foreknowledge, but to develop the theme of God’s heartbreak due to Israel’s unrepentance.
5 tn The words “what she did” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarification.
6 tn The particle translated here “Yet” (לָכֵן, lakhen) is regularly translated “So” or “Therefore” and introduces a consequence. However, in a few cases it introduces a contrasting set of conditions. Compare its use in Judg 11:8; Jer 48:12; 49:2; 51:52; and Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT).
7 tn Heb “Oracle of the
8 tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”
9 tn Or “They are plotting to kill me”; Heb “They have dug a pit for my soul.” This is a common metaphor for plotting against someone. See BDB 500 s.v. כָּרָה Qal and for an example see Pss 7:16 (7:15 HT) in its context.
10 tn Heb “to speak good concerning them” going back to the concept of “good” being paid back with evil.
11 tn Heb “to turn back your anger from them.”
sn See Jer 14:7-9, 19-21 and 15:1-4 for the idea.
12 tn Or “has been the
sn The
13 tn The form here is a jussive with a vav of subordination introducing a purpose after a question (cf. GKC 322 §109.f).
14 tc Heb “his word.” In the second instance (“what he has said” at the end of the verse) the translation follows the suggestion of the Masoretes (Qere) and many Hebrew
15 tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.
16 tn Heb “And you, Lord Yahweh, have said to me, ‘Buy the field for…’ even though the city will be given into the hands of the Babylonians.” The sentence has been broken up and the order reversed for English stylistic purposes. For the rendering “is sure to fall into the hands of” see the translator’s note on the preceding verse.
17 tn Heb “Lord
18 tn Heb “call in witnesses to witness.”