5:22 “But you, his son 8 Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, 9 although you knew all this. 5:23 Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You brought before you the vessels from his temple, and you and your nobles, together with your wives and concubines, drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone – gods 10 that cannot see or hear or comprehend! But you have not glorified the God who has in his control 11 your very breath and all your ways!
36:5 O Lord, your loyal love reaches to the sky; 21
your faithfulness to the clouds. 22
108:4 For your loyal love extends beyond the sky, 23
and your faithfulness reaches the clouds.
1 tn Or “royal greatness and majestic honor,” if the four terms are understood as a double hendiadys.
2 tn Aram “were trembling and fearing.” This can be treated as a hendiadys, “were trembling with fear.”
3 tn Aram “let live.” This Aramaic form is the aphel participle of חַיָה(khayah, “to live”). Theodotion and the Vulgate mistakenly take the form to be from מְחָא (mÿkha’, “to smite”).
4 tn Aram “heart.”
5 sn The point of describing Nebuchadnezzar as arrogant is that he had usurped divine prerogatives, and because of his immense arrogance God had dealt decisively with him.
6 tn Aram “heart.”
7 tn Aram “his dwelling.”
8 tn Or “descendant”; or “successor.”
9 tn Aram “your heart.”
10 tn Aram “which.”
11 tn Aram “in whose hand [are].”
12 tn A translation of “heavens” for שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) fits this context because the Babylonian ziggurats had temples at the top, suggesting they reached to the heavens, the dwelling place of the gods.
13 tn The form וְנַעֲשֶׂה (vÿna’aseh, from the verb עשׂה, “do, make”) could be either the imperfect or the cohortative with a vav (ו) conjunction (“and let us make…”). Coming after the previous cohortative, this form expresses purpose.
14 tn The Hebrew particle פֶּן (pen) expresses a negative purpose; it means “that we be not scattered.”
15 sn The Hebrew verb פָּוָץ (pavats, translated “scatter”) is a key term in this passage. The focal point of the account is the dispersion (“scattering”) of the nations rather than the Tower of Babel. But the passage also forms a polemic against Babylon, the pride of the east and a cosmopolitan center with a huge ziggurat. To the Hebrews it was a monument to the judgment of God on pride.
16 tn Heb “and dreamed.”
17 tn Heb “and look.” The scene which Jacob witnessed is described in three clauses introduced with הִנֵּה (hinneh). In this way the narrator invites the reader to witness the scene through Jacob’s eyes. J. P. Fokkelman points out that the particle goes with a lifted arm and an open mouth: “There, a ladder! Oh, angels! and look, the
18 tn The Hebrew noun סֻלָּם (sullam, “ladder, stairway”) occurs only here in the OT, but there appears to be an Akkadian cognate simmiltu (with metathesis of the second and third consonants and a feminine ending) which has a specialized meaning of “stairway, ramp.” See H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (SBLDS), 34. For further discussion see C. Houtman, “What Did Jacob See in His Dream at Bethel? Some Remarks on Genesis 28:10-22,” VT 27 (1977): 337-52; J. G. Griffiths, “The Celestial Ladder and the Gate of Heaven,” ExpTim 76 (1964/65): 229-30; and A. R. Millard, “The Celestial Ladder and the Gate of Heaven,” ExpTim 78 (1966/67): 86-87.
19 tn Heb “Arise! Go!” The first of the two imperatives is adverbial and stresses the immediacy of the departure.
20 tn Heb “took for a wife.”
21 tn Heb “[is] in the heavens.”
22 sn The Lord’s loyal love/faithfulness is almost limitless. He is loyal and faithful to his creation and blesses mankind and the animal kingdom with physical life and sustenance (vv. 6-9).
23 tn Heb “for great upon the sky [or “heavens”] [is] your loyal love.”
24 tn Heb “have given…into the hand of.”
25 sn See the study note on 25:9 for the significance of the application of this term to Nebuchadnezzar.
26 tn Heb “I have given…to him to serve him.” The verb “give” in this syntactical situation is functioning like the Hiphil stem, i.e., as a causative. See Dan 1:9 for parallel usage. For the usage of “serve” meaning “be subject to” compare 2 Sam 22:44 and BDB 713 s.v. עָבַד 3.
27 sn This is a figure that emphasizes that they will serve for a long time but not for an unlimited duration. The kingdom of Babylon lasted a relatively short time by ancient standards. It lasted from 605
28 tn Heb “until the time of his land, even his, comes.” The independent pronoun is placed here for emphasis on the possessive pronoun. The word “time” is used by substitution for the things that are done in it (compare in the NT John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20 “his hour had not yet come”).
29 tn Heb “him.” This is a good example of the figure of substitution where the person is put for his descendants or the nation or subject he rules. (See Gen 28:13-14 for another good example and Acts 22:7 in the NT.)
30 tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.
31 tn Heb “oracle of the
32 tn Heb “The nation and/or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylon, by sword, starvation, and disease I will punish [or more literally, “visit upon”] that nation, oracle of the
33 tn Heb “with/by the sword.”
34 tc The verb translated “destroy” (תָּמַם, tamam) is usually intransitive in the stem of the verb used here. It is found in a transitive sense elsewhere only in Ps 64:7. BDB 1070 s.v. תָּמַם 7 emends both texts. In this case they recommend תִּתִּי (titi): “until I give them into his hand.” That reading is suggested by the texts of the Syriac and Targumic translations (see BHS fn c). The Greek translation supports reading the verb “destroy” but treats it as though it were intransitive “until they are destroyed by his hand” (reading תֻּמָּם [tummam]). The MT here is accepted as the more difficult reading and support is seen in the transitive use of the verb in Ps 64:7.
35 tn On ἐκολλήθησαν (ekollhqhsan) BDAG 556 s.v. κολλάω 2.a.β states, “fig. cling to = come in close contact with (cp. Ps 21:16; 43:26 ἐκολλήθη εἰς γῆν ἡ γαστὴρ ἡμῶν. The act.=‘bring into contact’ PGM 5, 457 κολλήσας τ. λίθον τῷ ὠτίῳ) ἐκολλήθησαν αἱ ἁμαρτίαι ἄχρι τ. οὐρανοῦ the sins have touched the heaven = reached the sky (two exprs. are telescoped) Rv 18:5.”
36 tn Or “up to the sky” (the same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky”).
37 tn That is, remembered her sins to execute judgment on them.
38 tn Or “her sins.”