9:1 After Solomon finished building the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all the other construction projects he had planned, 6
83:10 They were destroyed at Endor; 7
their corpses were like manure 8 on the ground.
9:22 Tell your daughters and neighbors, ‘The Lord says,
“The dead bodies of people will lie scattered everywhere
like manure scattered on a field.
They will lie scattered on the ground
like grain that has been cut down but has not been gathered.”’” 14
15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. 15
1:17 I will bring distress on the people 16
and they will stumble 17 like blind men,
for they have sinned against the Lord.
Their blood will be poured out like dirt;
their flesh 18 will be scattered 19 like manure.
1 tn The Hebrew text has “belonging to Jeroboam” here.
2 tn Heb “the ones belonging to Baasha.”
3 tn “Dogs will eat the ones who belonging to Ahab who die in the city.”
4 tn Heb “if it is good in your eyes.”
5 tc The Old Greek translation includes the following words: “And it will be mine as a garden of herbs.”
6 tn Heb “and all the desire of Solomon which he wanted to do.”
7 sn Endor is not mentioned in the accounts of Gideon’s or Barak’s victories, but both battles took place in the general vicinity of the town. (See Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-Yonah, The Macmillan Bible Atlas, 46, 54.) Because Sisera and Jabin are mentioned in v. 9b, many understand them to be the subject of the verbs in v. 10, though they relate v. 10 to Gideon’s victory, which is referred to in v. 9a, 11. (See, for example, Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 263.)
8 tn Heb “they were manure.” In addition to this passage, corpses are compared to manure in 2 Kgs 9:37; Jer 8:2; 9:21; 16:4; 25:33.
9 tc MT, 4QJera and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJerc reads “the sun and all the stars.”
10 tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”
11 tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.
12 tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.
13 tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”
14 tn Or “‘Death has climbed…city squares. And the dead bodies of people lie scattered…They lie scattered…but has not been gathered.’ The
15 tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the
16 tn “The people” refers to mankind in general (see vv. 2-3) or more specifically to the residents of Judah (see vv. 4-13).
17 tn Heb “walk.”
18 tn Some take the referent of “flesh” to be more specific here; cf. NEB (“bowels”), NAB (“brains”), NIV (“entrails”).
19 tn The words “will be scattered” are supplied in the translation for clarity based on the parallelism with “will be poured out” in the previous line.