² tn Or “conscripted”; or “pressed into service.”

² tn Or “conscripted”; or “pressed into service.”

¹ tn Heb “counted,” perhaps “conscripted” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

¹ sn The work crews. This Hebrew word מַס (mas) refers to a group of laborers conscripted for royal or public service.

² sn Work crews. This Hebrew word (מַס, mas) refers to a group of laborers conscripted for royal or public service.

³ sn The work crews. This Hebrew word (מַס, mas) refers to a group of laborers conscripted for royal or public service.

⁴ tn The term מַס (mas) refers to forced or conscripted labor and is sometimes translated as “slave labor” (NIV, cf. NLT “slave”) but it is far from clear that it means slavery (see NIDOTTE 984 s.v.). The term certainly describes imposed work requirements. For Israelites within Israel it is elsewhere used only in connection to conscription to work on royal building projects making it like a form of taxation (forced labor has often been used in world history as taxation instead of money). The precise use of the term here is unclear because of general lack of information, but perhaps the lazy person will not earn enough money to meet obligations and be required to pay via forced labor.

¹¹ tn The noun מַס (mas) means “forced labor, corveé slave, conscripted worker.” It refers to a subjugated population, subject to forced labor and/or heavy taxes (Gen 49:15; Exod 1:11; Deut 20:11; Josh 16:10; 17:13; Judg 1:28, 30, 33, 35; 1 Kgs 5:14 [5:28 HT]; 9:15, 21; 12:18; 2 Chr 10:18; Isa 31:8; Lam 1:1).

² sn Jesus was beaten severely with a whip before this (the prelude to crucifixion, known to the Romans as verberatio, mentioned in Matt 27:26; Mark 15:15; John 19:1), so he would have been weak from trauma and loss of blood. Apparently he was unable to bear the cross himself, so Simon was conscripted to help. Cyrene was located in North Africa where Tripoli is today. Nothing more is known about this Simon. Mark 15:21 names him as father of two people apparently known to Mark’s audience.

³ sn Jesus was beaten severely with a whip before this (the prelude to crucifixion, known to the Romans as verberatio, mentioned in Matt 27:26; Mark 15:15; John 19:1), so he would have been weak from trauma and loss of blood. Apparently he was unable to bear the cross himself, so Simon was conscripted to help (in all probability this was only the crossbeam, called in Latin the patibulum, since the upright beam usually remained in the ground at the place of execution). Cyrene was located in North Africa where Tripoli is today. Nothing more is known about this Simon.

² sn The yoke is a common biblical symbol of political servitude (see, e.g., Deut 28:48; 1 Kgs 12:4, 9, 10). From the context of 1 Kgs 12 it is clear that it applied to taxation and the provision of conscript labor. In international political contexts it involved the payment of heavy tribute, which was often conscripted from the citizens (see, e.g., 2 Kgs 15:19-20; 23:34-35), and the furnishing of military contingents for the sovereign’s armies (see, e.g., 2 Kgs 24:2). Jeremiah’s message here combines both a symbolic action (the wearing of a yoke) and words of explanation, as in Jer 19:1-13. (See Isa 20:1-6 for an example outside of Jeremiah.) The casting off of the yoke has been used earlier in Jer 2:20 and 5:5 to refer to Israel’s failure to remain spiritually “subject,” i.e., faithful, to God.

³ sn Jesus was beaten severely with a whip before this (the prelude to crucifixion, known to the Romans as verberatio, mentioned in Matt 27:26; Mark 15:15; John 19:1), so he would have been weak from trauma and loss of blood. Apparently he was unable to bear the cross himself, so Simon was conscripted to help (in all probability this was only the crossbeam, called in Latin the patibulum, since the upright beam usually remained in the ground at the place of execution). Cyrene was located in North Africa where Tripoli is today. Nothing more is known about this Simon. Mark 15:21 names him as father of two people apparently known to Mark’s audience.

⁶ sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth-century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.