3:6 You sold Judeans and Jerusalemites to the Greeks,
removing them far from their own country. 13
2:6 This is what the Lord says:
“Because Israel has committed three covenant transgressions 14 –
make that four! 15 – I will not revoke my decree of judgment. 16
They sold the innocent 17 for silver,
the needy for a pair of sandals. 18
1 tn Heb “let not our hand be upon him.”
2 tn Heb “listened.”
3 sn On the close relationship between Ishmaelites (v. 25) and Midianites, see Judg 8:24.
4 tn Heb “they drew and they lifted up.” The referent (Joseph’s brothers) has been specified in the translation for clarity; otherwise the reader might assume the Midianites had pulled Joseph from the cistern (but cf. NAB).
5 tn Heb “Joseph” (both here and in the following clause); the proper name has been replaced both times by the pronoun “him” in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Ishmaelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “Now you are cursed and a servant will not be cut off from you, woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God.”
8 tn Heb “according to the flesh of our brothers is our flesh.”
9 tn Heb “like their children, our children.”
10 tn Heb “to become slaves” (also later in this verse).
11 tn Heb “there is not power for our hand.” The Hebrew expression used here is rather difficult.
12 sn The poor among the returned exiles were being exploited by their rich countrymen. Moneylenders were loaning large amounts of money, and not only collecting interest on loans which was illegal (Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:19-20), but also seizing pledges as collateral (Neh 5:3) which was allowed (Deut 24:10). When the debtors missed a payment, the moneylenders would seize their collateral: their fields, vineyards and homes. With no other means of income, the debtors were forced to sell their children into slavery, a common practice at this time (Neh 5:5). Nehemiah himself was one of the moneylenders (Neh 5:10), but he insisted that seizure of collateral from fellow Jewish countrymen was ethically wrong (Neh 5:9).
13 tn Heb “border.”
14 tn For this translation see the note at 2:4.
15 tn Heb “Because of three violations of Israel, even because of four.”
16 tn Heb “I will not bring it [or “him”] back.” The translation understands the pronominal object to refer to the decree of judgment that follows; the referent (the decree) has been specified in the translation for clarity. For another option see the note on the word “judgment” in 1:3.
17 tn Or “honest” (CEV, NLT). The Hebrew word sometimes has a moral-ethical connotation, “righteous, godly,” but the parallelism (note “poor”) suggests a socio-economic or legal sense here. The practice of selling debtors as slaves is in view (Exod 21:2-11; Lev 25:35-55; Deut 15:12-18) See the note at Exod 21:8 and G. C. Chirichigno, Debt-Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East (JSOTSup). Probably the only “crime” the victim had committed was being unable to pay back a loan or an exorbitant interest rate on a loan. Some have suggested that this verse refers to bribery in legal proceedings: The innocent are “sold” in the sense that those in power pay off the elders or judges for favorable decisions (5:12; cf. Exod 23:6-7).
18 tn Perhaps the expression “for a pair of sandals” indicates a relatively small price or debt. Some suggest that the sandals may have been an outward token of a more substantial purchase price. Others relate the sandals to a ritual attached to the transfer of property, signifying here that the poor would be losing their inherited family lands because of debt (Ruth 4:7; cf. Deut 25:8-10). Still others emend the Hebrew form slightly to נֶעְלָם (ne’lam, “hidden thing”; from the root עָלַם, ’alam, “to hide”) and understand this as referring to a bribe.