Hosea 5:15

5:15 Then I will return again to my lair

until they have suffered their punishment. ¹ 

Then they will seek me; ² 

in their distress they will earnestly seek me.

Hosea 14:1

Prophetic Call to Genuine Repentance

14:1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,

for your sin has been your downfall! ³ 

Isaiah 2:3

2:3 many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain,

to the temple of the God of Jacob,

so ⁴  he can teach us his requirements, ⁵ 

and ⁶  we can follow his standards.” ⁷ 

For Zion will be the center for moral instruction; ⁸ 

the Lord will issue edicts from Jerusalem. ⁹ 

Isaiah 55:7

55:7 The wicked need to abandon their lifestyle ¹⁰ 

and sinful people their plans. ¹¹ 

They should return ¹²  to the Lord, and he will show mercy to them, ¹³ 

and to their God, for he will freely forgive them. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 3:22

3:22 Come back to me, you wayward people.

I want to cure your waywardness. ¹⁵ 

Say, ¹⁶  ‘Here we are. We come to you

because you are the Lord our God.

Jeremiah 50:4

50:4 “When that time comes,” says the Lord, ¹⁷ 

“the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together.

They will come back with tears of repentance

as they seek the Lord their God. ¹⁸ 

Lamentations 3:40-41

נ (Nun)

3:40 Let us carefully examine our ways, ¹⁹ 

and let us return to the Lord.

3:41 Let us lift up our hearts ²⁰  and our hands

to God in heaven:

Zephaniah 2:1

The Prophet Warns the People

2:1 Bunch yourselves together like straw, ²¹  you undesirable ²²  nation,

¹ tn The verb יֶאְשְׁמוּ (ye’shÿmu, Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural from אָשַׁם, ’asham, “to be guilty”) means “to bear their punishment” (Ps 34:22-23; Prov 30:10; Isa 24:6; Jer 2:3; Hos 5:15; 10:2; 14:1; Zech 11:5; Ezek 6:6; BDB 79 s.v. אָשַׁם 3). Many English versions translate this as “admit their guilt” (NIV, NLT) or “acknowledge their guilt” (NASB, NRSV), but cf. NAB “pay for their guilt” and TEV “have suffered enough for their sins.”

² tn Heb “seek my face” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “seek my presence.”

³ tn Heb “For you have stumbled in your iniquity”; NASB, NRSV “because of your iniquity.”

⁴ tn The prefixed verb form with simple vav (ו) introduces a purpose/result clause after the preceding prefixed verb form (probably to be taken as a cohortative; see IBHS 650 §39.2.2a).

⁵ tn Heb “his ways.” In this context God’s “ways” are the standards of moral conduct he decrees that people should live by.

⁶ tn The cohortative with vav (ו) after the prefixed verb form indicates the ultimate purpose/goal of their action.

⁷ tn Heb “walk in his ways.”

⁸ tn Heb “for out of Zion will go instruction.”

⁹ tn Heb “the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “Let the wicked one abandon his way.” The singular is collective.

¹¹ tn Heb “and the man of evil his thoughts.” The singular is collective.

¹² tn Heb “let him return.” The singular is collective, meaning “let them.”

¹³ tn The imperfect with vav (ו) conjunctive after the jussive indicates purpose/result.

¹⁴ sn The appeal and promise of vv. 6-7 echoes the language of Deut 4:25-31; 30:1-10; and 1 Kgs 8:46-53, all of which anticipate the exile and speak of the prerequisites for restoration.

¹⁵ tn Or “I will forgive your apostasies.” Heb “I will [or want to] heal your apostasies.” For the use of the verb “heal” (רָפָא, rafa’) to refer to spiritual healing and forgiveness see Hos 14:4.

¹⁶ tn Or “They say.” There is an obvious ellipsis of a verb of saying here since the preceding words are those of the Lord and the following are those of the people. However, there is debate about whether these are the response of the people to the Lord’s invitation, a response which is said to be inadequate according to the continuation in 4:1-4, or whether these are the Lord’s model for Israel’s confession of repentance to which he adds further instructions about the proper heart attitude that should accompany it in 4:1-4. The former implies a dialogue with an unmarked twofold shift in speaker between 3:22b-25 and 4:1-4:4 while the latter assumes the same main speaker throughout with an unmarked instruction only in 3:22b-25. This disrupts the flow of the passage less and appears more likely.

¹⁷ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “and the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together. They shall go, weeping as they go, and they will seek the Lord their God.” The concept of “seeking” the Lord often has to do with seeking the Lord in worship (by sacrifice [Hos 5:6; 2 Chr 11:16]; prayer [Zech 8:21, 22; 2 Sam 12:16; Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:4]). In Hos 7:10 it is in parallel with returning to the Lord. In Ps 69:6 it is in parallel with hoping in or trusting in the Lord. Perhaps the most helpful parallels here, however, are Hos 3:5 (in comparison with Jer 30:9) and 2 Chr 15:15 where it is in the context of a covenant commitment to be loyal to the Lord which is similar to the context here (see the next verse). The translation is admittedly paraphrastic but “seeking the Lord” does not mean here looking for God as though he were merely a person to be found.

¹⁹ tn Heb “Let us test our ways and examine.” The two verbs וְנַחְקֹרָה…נַחְפְּשָׂה (nakhpÿsah…vÿnakhqorah, “Let us test and let us examine”) form a verbal hendiadys in which the first functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal force: “Let us carefully examine our ways.”

²⁰ tc The MT reads the singular noun לְבָבֵנוּ (lÿvavenu, “our heart”) but the ancient versions (LXX, Aramaic Targum, Latin Vulgate) and many medieval Hebrew mss read the plural noun לְבָבֵינוּ (lÿvavenu, “our hearts”). Hebrew regularly places plural pronouns on singular nouns used as a collective (135 times on the singular “heart” and only twice on the plural “hearts”). The plural “hearts” in any Hebrew construction is actually rather rare. The LXX renders similar Hebrew constructions (singular “heart” plus a plural pronoun) with the plural “hearts” about 1/3 of the time, therefore it cannot be considered evidence for the reading. The Vulgate may have been influenced by the LXX. Although a distributive sense is appropriate for a much higher percentage of passages using the plural “hearts” in the LXX, no clear reason for the differentiation in the LXX has emerged. Likely the singular Hebrew form is original but the meaning is best represented in English with the plural.

²¹ tn The Hebrew text combines a Hitpolel imperative of קָשַׁשׁ (qashash) with a Qal imperative of the same root. Elsewhere this root appears in the polel stem with the meaning “gather stubble.” Zephaniah’s command is ironic, implying the people are like stubble or straw. As such, they are vulnerable to the Lord’s fiery judgment that will quickly consume them (see 1:18). See Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 96.

²² tn Some relate this word to an Aramaic cognate meaning “to be ashamed.” With the negative particle it would then mean “unashamed” (cf. NIV “shameful”; NRSV “shameless”). However, elsewhere in biblical Hebrew the verb means “to desire,” or with the negative particle “undesirable.” Cf. also NEB “unruly.”