6:16 You implement the regulations of Omri,
and all the practices of Ahab’s dynasty; 5
you follow their policies. 6
Therefore I will make you an appalling sight, 7
the city’s 8 inhabitants will be taunted derisively, 9
and nations will mock all of you.” 10
2:15 This is how the once-proud city will end up 11 –
the city that was so secure. 12
She thought to herself, 13 “I am unique! No one can compare to me!” 14
What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live!
Everyone who passes by her taunts her 15 and shakes his fist. 16
1 tn Heb “and this house will be high [or elevated].” The statement makes little sense in this context, which predicts the desolation that judgment will bring. Some treat the clause as concessive, “Even though this temple is lofty [now].” Others, following the lead of several ancient versions, emend the text to, “this temple will become a heap of ruins.”
2 tn Heb “hiss,” or perhaps “whistle.” This refers to a derisive sound one would make when taunting an object of ridicule.
3 sn See 18:16 and the study note there.
4 tn Heb “all its smitings.” This word has been used several times for the metaphorical “wounds” that Israel has suffered as a result of the blows from its enemies. See, e.g., 14:17. It is used in the Hebrew Bible of scourging, both literally and metaphorically (cf. Deut 25:3; Isa 10:26), and of slaughter and defeat (1 Sam 4:10; Josh 10:20). Here it refers to the results of the crushing blows at the hands of her enemies which has made her the object of scorn.
5 tn Heb “the edicts of Omri are kept, and all the deeds of the house of Ahab.”
6 tn Heb “and you walk in their plans.”
7 tn The Hebrew term שַׁמָּה (shammah) can refer to “destruction; ruin,” or to the reaction it produces in those who witness the destruction.
8 tn Heb “her”; the referent (the city) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
9 tn Heb “[an object] of hissing,” which was a way of taunting someone.
10 tc The translation assumes an emendation of the MT’s עַמִּי (’ammi, “my people”) to עַמִּים (’ammim, “nations”).
7 tn Heb “this is the proud city.”
8 tn Heb “the one that lived securely.”
9 tn Heb “the one who says in her heart.”
10 tn Heb “I [am], and besides me there is no other.”
11 tn Heb “hisses”; or “whistles.”
12 sn Hissing (or whistling) and shaking the fist were apparently ways of taunting a defeated foe or an object of derision in the culture of the time.