75:3 When the earth and all its inhabitants dissolve in fear, 7
I make its pillars secure.” 8 (Selah)
14:31 Wail, O city gate!
Cry out, O city!
Melt with fear, 9 all you Philistines!
For out of the north comes a cloud of smoke,
and there are no stragglers in its ranks. 10
24:19 The earth is broken in pieces,
the earth is ripped to shreds,
the earth shakes violently. 11
34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, 12
the sky will roll up like a scroll;
all its stars will wither,
like a leaf withers and falls from a vine
or a fig withers and falls from a tree. 13
1 tn Or possibly, “striving for,” but the meaning “hasten” for σπουδάζω (spoudazw) is normative in Jewish apocalyptic literature (in which the coming of the Messiah/the end is anticipated). Such a hastening is not an arm-twisting of the divine volition, but a response by believers that has been decreed by God.
2 sn The coming of the day of God. Peter elsewhere describes the coming or parousia as the coming of Christ (cf. 2 Pet 1:16; 3:4). The almost casual exchange between “God” and “Christ” in this little book, and elsewhere in the NT, argues strongly for the deity of Christ (see esp. 1:1).
3 tn Grk “on account of which” (a subordinate relative clause in Greek).
4 tn Grk “being burned up, will dissolve.”
5 tn See note in v. 10 on “celestial bodies.”
6 tn Grk “being burned up” (see v. 10).
7 tn Heb “melt.”
8 tn The statement is understood in a generalizing sense; God typically prevents the world from being overrun by chaos. One could take this as referring to an anticipated event, “I will make its pillars secure.”
9 tn Or “despair” (see HALOT 555 s.v. מוג). The form נָמוֹג (namog) should be taken here as an infinitive absolute functioning as an imperative. See GKC 199-200 §72.v.
10 tn Heb “and there is no one going alone in his appointed places.” The meaning of this line is uncertain. בּוֹדֵד (boded) appears to be a participle from בָּדַד (badad, “be separate”; see BDB 94 s.v. בָּדַד). מוֹעָד (mo’ad) may mean “assembly” or, by extension, “multitude” (see HALOT 558 s.v. *מוֹעָד), but the referent of the third masculine pronominal suffix attached to the noun is unclear. It probably refers to the “nation” mentioned in the next line.
11 tn Once more repetition is used to draw attention to a statement. In the Hebrew text each lines ends with אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”). Each line also uses a Hitpolel verb form from a geminate root preceded by an emphatic infinitive absolute.
12 tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”
13 tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”