48:2 People will not praise Moab any more.
The enemy will capture Heshbon 10 and plot 11 how to destroy Moab, 12
saying, ‘Come, let’s put an end to that nation!’
City of Madmen, you will also be destroyed. 13
A destructive army will march against you. 14
50:9 For I will rouse into action and bring against Babylon
a host of mighty nations 15 from the land of the north.
They will set up their battle lines against her.
They will come from the north and capture her. 16
Their arrows will be like a skilled soldier 17
who does not return from the battle empty-handed. 18
1 tn Heb “Zedekiah king of Judah.”
2 tn The translation represents an attempt to break up a very long Hebrew sentence with several levels of subordination and embedded quotations and also an attempt to capture the rhetorical force of the question “Why…” which is probably an example of what E. W. Bullinger (Figures of Speech, 953-54) calls a rhetorical question of expostulation or remonstrance (cf. the note on 26:9 and compare also the question in 36:29. In all three of these cases NJPS translates “How dare you…” which captures the force nicely). The Hebrew text reads, “For Zedekiah king of Judah had confined him, saying, ‘Why are you prophesying, saying, “Thus says the
3 tn Heb “Siege ramps have come up to the city to capture it.”
4 tn Heb “sword.”
5 tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.
6 tn Heb “And the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it because of the sword, starvation, and disease.” The verb “has been given” is one of those perfects that view the action as good as done (the perfect of certainty or prophetic perfect).
7 tn The word “
8 tn Heb “And what you said has happened and behold you see it.”
9 tn Heb “Oracle of the
10 sn Heshbon was originally a Moabite city but was captured by Sihon king of Og and made his capital (Num 21:26-30). It was captured from Sihon and originally assigned to the tribe of Reuben (Num 32:37; Josh 13:17). Later it was made a Levitical city and was assigned to the tribe of Gad (Josh 21:39). It formed the northern limits of Moab. It was located about eighteen miles east of the northern tip of the Dead Sea.
11 sn There is a wordplay in Hebrew on the word “Heshbon” and the word “plot” (חָשְׁבוּ, khoshvu).
12 tn Heb “In Heshbon they plot evil against her [i.e., Moab].” The “they” is undefined, but it would scarcely be Moabites living in Heshbon. Hence TEV and CEV are probably correct in seeing a reference to the enemy which would imply the conquest of this city which lay on the northern border of Moab.
13 tn The meaning of this line is somewhat uncertain. The translation here follows all the modern English versions and commentaries in reading the place name “Madmen” even though the place is otherwise unknown and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin version all read this word as an emphasizing infinitive absolute of the following verb “will be destroyed,” i.e. דָּמוֹם יִדֹּמּוּ (damom yiddommu). Some see this word as a variant of the name Dimon in Isa 15:9 which in turn is a playful variant of the place name Dibon. There is once again a wordplay on the word “Madmen” and “will be destroyed”: מַדְמֵן (madmen) and יִדֹּמּוּ (yiddommu). For the meaning of the verb = “perish” or “be destroyed” see Jer 8:14; Ps 31:18.
14 tn Heb “A sword will follow after you.” The sword is again figurative of destructive forces, here the army of the Babylonians.
15 sn Some of these are named in Jer 51:27-28.
16 tn Heb “She will be captured from there (i.e., from the north).”
17 tc Read Heb ַָמשְׂכִּיל (moskil) with a number of Hebrew
18 tn Or more freely, “Their arrows will be as successful at hitting their mark // as a skilled soldier always returns from battle with plunder.”
sn I.e., none of the arrows misses its mark.