73:6 Arrogance is their necklace, 1
and violence their clothing. 2
73:8 They mock 3 and say evil things; 4
they proudly threaten violence. 5
1 sn Arrogance is their necklace. The metaphor suggests that their arrogance is something the wicked “wear” proudly. It draws attention to them, just as a beautiful necklace does to its owner.
2 tn Heb “a garment of violence covers them.” The metaphor suggests that violence is habitual for the wicked. They “wear” it like clothing; when one looks at them, violence is what one sees.
3 tn The verb מוּק (muq, “mock”) occurs only here in the OT.
4 tn Heb “and speak with evil.”
5 tn Heb “oppression from an elevated place they speak.” The traditional accentuation of the MT places “oppression” with the preceding line. In this case, one might translate, “they mock and speak with evil [of] oppression, from an elevated place [i.e., “proudly”] they speak.” By placing “oppression” with what follows, one achieves better poetic balance in the parallelism.