5:23 Take away from me your 1 noisy songs;
I don’t want to hear the music of your stringed instruments. 2
8:3 The women singing in the temple 3 will wail in that day.”
The sovereign Lord is speaking.
“There will be many corpses littered everywhere! 4 Be quiet!”
8:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw 5 a basket of summer fruit. 6
1:5 I will break the bar 7 on the gate of Damascus.
I will remove 8 the ruler 9 from Wicked Valley, 10
the one who holds the royal scepter from Beth Eden. 11
The people of Aram will be deported to Kir.” 12
The Lord has spoken!
1 tn In this verse the second person suffixes are singular and not plural like they are in vv. 21-22 and vv. 25-27. Some have suggested that perhaps a specific individual or group within the nation is in view.
2 tn The Hebrew word probably refers to “harps” (NASB, NIV, NRSV) or “lutes” (NEB).
3 tn Or “palace” (NASB, NCV, TEV).
4 tn Heb “Many corpses in every place he will throw out.” The subject of the verb is probably impersonal, though many emend the active (Hiphil) form to a passive (Hophal): “Many corpses in every place will be thrown out.”
5 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
6 sn The basket of summer fruit (also in the following verse) probably refers to figs from the summer crop, which ripens in August-September. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 115.
7 sn The bar on the city gate symbolizes the city’s defenses and security.
8 tn Heb “cut off.”
9 tn Heb “the one who sits.” Some English versions take the Hebrew term in a collective sense as “inhabitants” (e.g., KJV, NKJV, NASB, NRSV). The context and the parallel in the next clause (“the one who holds the royal scepter”), however, suggest that the royal house is in view. For this term (יוֹשֵׁב, yoshev), see N. K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh, 512-30.
10 tn Heb “valley of wickedness.” Though many English versions take the Hebrew phrase בִקְעַת־אָוֶן (biq’-at ’aven) as a literal geographical place name (“Valley of Aven,” so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), it appears to be a derogatory epithet for Damascus and the kingdom of Aram.
11 tn Many associate the name “Beth Eden” with Bit Adini, an Aramean state located near the Euphrates River, but it may be a sarcastic epithet meaning “house of pleasure.”
12 sn According to Amos 9:7, the Arameans originally came from Kir. The