3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. 1
You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. 2
You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. 3
You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. 4
3:21 “A noise is heard on the hilltops.
It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods.
Indeed they have followed sinful ways; 5
they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. 6
1 tn Heb “and see.”
2 tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.
3 tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”
4 tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.
5 tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods which is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2 and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance; cf. BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.
6 tn Heb “have forgotten the