1:9 For Samaria’s 1 disease 2 is incurable.
It has infected 3 Judah;
it has spread to 4 the leadership 5 of my people
and has even contaminated Jerusalem! 6
1:12 Indeed, the residents of Maroth 7 hope for something good to happen, 8
though the Lord has sent disaster against the city of Jerusalem. 9
4:8 As for you, watchtower for the flock, 10
fortress of Daughter Zion 11 –
your former dominion will be restored, 12
the sovereignty that belongs to Daughter Jerusalem.
1 tn Heb “her”; the referent (Samaria) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tc The MT reads the plural “wounds”; the singular is read by the LXX, Syriac, and Vg.
tn Or “wound.”
3 tn Heb “come to.”
4 tn Or “reached.”
5 tn Heb “the gate.” Kings and civic leaders typically conducted important business at the city gate (see 1 Kgs 22:10 for an example), and the term is understood here to refer by metonymy to the leadership who would be present at the gate.
6 tn Heb “to Jerusalem.” The expression “it has contaminated” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied to fill out the parallelism with the preceding line.
map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
7 sn The place name Maroth sounds like the Hebrew word for “bitter.”
8 tc The translation assumes an emendation of חָלָה (khalah; from חִיל, khil, “to writhe”) to יִחֲלָה (yikhalah; from יָחַל, yakhal, “to wait”).
tn Heb “[the residents of Maroth] writhe [= “anxiously long for”?] good.”
9 tn Heb “though disaster has come down from the
10 tn Heb “Migdal-eder.” Some English versions transliterate this phrase, apparently because they view it as a place name (cf. NAB).
11 sn The city of David, located within Jerusalem, is addressed as Daughter Zion. As the home of the Davidic king, who was Israel’s shepherd (Ps 78:70-72), the royal citadel could be viewed metaphorically as the watchtower of the flock.
12 tn Heb “to you it will come, the former dominion will arrive.”