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”).
11 tn Heb “this is the proud city.”
12 tn Heb “the one that lived securely.”
13 tn Heb “the one who says in her heart.”
14 tn Heb “I [am], and besides me there is no other.”
15 tn Heb “hisses”; or “whistles.”
16 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.