2:17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” Because you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the Lord’s opinion, 7 and he delights in them,” or “Where is the God of justice?”
1 sn Offerings of animals that were lame or sick were strictly forbidden by the Mosaic law (see Deut 15:21).
2 tn Heb “it” (so NAB, NASB). Contemporary English more naturally uses a plural pronoun to agree with “the lame and sick” in the previous question (cf. NIV, NCV).
3 tc The LXX and Vulgate read “with it” (which in Hebrew would be הֲיִרְצֵהוּ, hayirtsehu, a reading followed by NAB) rather than “with you” of the MT (הֲיִרְצְךָ, hayirtsÿkha). The MT (followed here by most English versions) is to be preferred because of the parallel with the following phrase פָנֶיךָ (fanekha, “receive you,” which the present translation renders as “show you favor”).
4 tn Heb “and not one has done, and a remnant of the spirit to him.” The very elliptical nature of the statement suggests it is proverbial. The present translation represents an attempt to clarify the meaning of the statement (cf. NASB).
5 tn Heb “the one.” This is an oblique reference to Abraham who sought to obtain God’s blessing by circumventing God’s own plan for him by taking Hagar as wife (Gen 16:1-6). The result of this kind of intermarriage was, of course, disastrous (Gen 16:11-12).
6 sn The wife he took in his youth probably refers to the first wife one married (cf. NCV “the wife you married when you were young”).
7 tn Heb “in the eyes of the