4:10 Twist and strain, 1 Daughter Zion, as if you were in labor!
For you will leave the city
and live in the open field.
You will go to Babylon,
but there you will be rescued.
There the Lord will deliver 2 you
from the power 3 of your enemies.
6:15 You will plant crops, but will not harvest them;
you will squeeze oil from the olives, 4 but you will have no oil to rub on your bodies; 5
you will squeeze juice from the grapes, but you will have no wine to drink. 6
7:4 The best of them is like a thorn;
the most godly among them are more dangerous than a row of thorn bushes. 7
The day you try to avoid by posting watchmen –
your appointed time of punishment – is on the way, 8
and then you will experience confusion. 9
1 tn Or perhaps “scream”; NRSV, TEV, NLT “groan.”
2 tn Or “redeem” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
3 tn Heb “hand.” The Hebrew idiom is a metonymy for power or control.
4 tn Heb “you will tread olives.” Literally treading on olives with one’s feet could be harmful and would not supply the necessary pressure to release the oil. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 119. The Hebrew term דָּרַךְ (darakh) may have an idiomatic sense of “press” here, or perhaps the imagery of the following parallel line (referring to treading grapes) has dictated the word choice.
5 tn Heb “but you will not rub yourselves with oil.”
6 tn Heb “and juice, but you will not drink wine.” The verb תִדְרֹךְ (tidrokh, “you will tread”) must be supplied from the preceding line.
7 tn Heb “[the] godly from a row of thorn bushes.” The preposition מִן (min) is comparative and the comparative element (perhaps “sharper” is the idea) is omitted. See BDB 582 s.v. 6 and GKC 431 §133.e.
8 tn Heb “the day of your watchmen, your appointed [time], is coming.” The present translation takes “watchmen” to refer to actual sentries. However, the “watchmen” could refer figuratively to the prophets who had warned Judah of approaching judgment. In this case one could translate, “The day your prophets warned about – your appointed time of punishment – is on the way.”
9 tn Heb “and now will be their confusion.”