24:8 “I, the Lord, also solemnly assert: ‘King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the people who remain in Jerusalem 1 or who have gone to live in Egypt are like those bad figs. I consider them to be just like those bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. 2
1 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
2 tn Heb “Like the bad figs which cannot be eaten from badness [= because they are so bad] surely [emphatic כִּי, ki] so I regard Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his officials and the remnant of Jerusalem which remains in this land and those who are living in Egypt.” The sentence has been restructured in the translation to conform more to contemporary English style. For the use of נָתַן (natan) meaning “regard” or “treat like” see BDB 681 s.v. נָתַן 3.c and compare the usage in Ezek 28:6;Gen 42:30.
3 tn Heb “I swear by myself.” See 22:5 and the study note there.
4 sn Bozrah appears to have been the chief city in Edom, its capital city (see its parallelism with Edom in Isa 34:6; 63:1; Jer 49:22). The reference to “its towns” (translated here “all the towns around it”) could then be a reference to all the towns in Edom. It was located about twenty-five miles southeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea apparently in the district of Teman (see the parallelism in Amos 1:12).
5 tn See the study note on 24:9 for the rendering of this term.