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
5:3 So the Lord 7 will hand the people of Israel 8 over to their enemies 9
until the time when the woman in labor 10 gives birth. 11
Then the rest of the king’s 12 countrymen will return
to be reunited with the people of Israel. 13
7:16 Nations will see this and be disappointed by 14 all their strength,
they will put their hands over their mouths,
and act as if they were deaf. 15
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 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the
8 tn Heb “them”; the referent (the people of Israel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
9 tn The words “to their enemies” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
10 sn The woman in labor. Personified, suffering Jerusalem is the referent. See 4:9-10.
11 sn Gives birth. The point of the figurative language is that Jerusalem finally finds relief from her suffering. See 4:10.
12 tn Heb “his”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
13 tn Heb “to the sons of Israel.” The words “be reunited with” are supplied in the translation for clarity.
sn The rest of the king’s brothers are the coming king’s fellow Judahites, while the sons of Israel are the northern tribes. The verse pictures the reunification of the nation under the Davidic king. See Isa 11:12-13; Jer 31:2-6, 15-20; Ezek 37; Hos 1:11; 3:5.
14 tn Or “be ashamed of.”
15 tn Heb “and their ears will be deaf.” Apparently this means the opposing nations will be left dumbfounded by the