28:17 In the seventh month of that very same year 6 the prophet Hananiah died.
5:25 “This is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, 7 TEQEL, and PHARSIN. 8 5:26 This is the interpretation of the words: 9 As for mene 10 – God has numbered your kingdom’s days and brought it to an end. 5:27 As for teqel – you are weighed on the balances and found to be lacking. 5:28 As for peres 11 – your kingdom is divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”
5:5 When Ananias heard these words he collapsed and died, and great fear gripped 12 all who heard about it.
1 tn הִנְנִי מַמְטִיר (hinÿni mamtir) is the futur instans construction, giving an imminent future translation: “Here – I am about to cause it to rain.”
2 tn Heb “which not was like it in Egypt.” The pronoun suffix serves as the resumptive pronoun for the relative particle: “which…like it” becomes “the like of which has not been.” The word “hail” is added in the translation to make clear the referent of the relative particle.
3 tn The form הִוָּסְדָה (hivvasdah) is perhaps a rare Niphal perfect and not an infinitive (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 117).
4 sn There is a play on words here in Hebrew between “did not send you” and “will…remove you.” The two verbs are from the same root word in Hebrew. The first is the simple active and the second is the intensive.
5 sn In giving people false assurances of restoration when the
6 sn Comparison with Jer 28:1 shows that this whole incident took place in the space of two months. Hananiah had prophesied that the captivity would be over before two years had past. However, before two months were past, Hananiah himself died in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of his death. His death was a validation of Jeremiah as a true prophet. The subsequent events of 588
7 tc The Greek version of Theodotion lacks the repetition of מְנֵא (mÿne’, cf. NAB).
8 tc The Aramaic word is plural. Theodotion has the singular (cf. NAB “
9 tn Or “word” or “event.” See HALOT 1915 s.v. מִלָּה.
10 tn The Aramaic term מְנֵא (mÿne’) is a noun referring to a measure of weight. The linkage here to the verb “to number” (Aram. מְנָה, mÿnah) is a case of paronomasia rather than strict etymology. So also with תְּקֵל (tÿqel) and פַרְסִין (farsin). In the latter case there is an obvious wordplay with the name “Persian.”
11 sn Peres (פְּרֵס) is the singular form of פַרְסִין (pharsin) in v. 25.
12 tn Or “fear came on,” “fear seized”; Grk “fear happened to.”
13 tn Grk “And at once.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.