9:10 When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness.
I viewed your ancestors 1 like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season.
Then they came to Baal-Peor and they dedicated themselves to shame –
they became as detestable as what they loved.
“O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift my face to you, my God! For our iniquities have climbed higher than our heads, and our guilt extends to the heavens. 9:7 From the days of our fathers until this very day our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities we, along with our kings and 3 priests, have been delivered over by the local kings 4 to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment – right up to the present time.
2:26 Just as a thief has to suffer dishonor when he is caught,
so the people of Israel 5 will suffer dishonor for what they have done. 6
So will their kings and officials,
their priests and their prophets.
2:27 They say to a wooden idol, 7 ‘You are my father.’
They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ 8
Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. 9
Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’
9:7 “You are righteous, 16 O Lord, but we are humiliated this day 17 – the people 18 of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far away in all the countries in which you have scattered them, because they have behaved unfaithfully toward you. 9:8 O LORD, we have been humiliated 19 – our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors – because we have sinned against you.
1 tn Heb “fathers”; a number of more recent English versions use the more general “ancestors” here.
2 tn Heb “I said.”
3 tc The MT lacks “and” here, but see the LXX and Vulgate.
4 tn Heb “the kings of the lands.”
5 tn Heb “house of Israel.”
6 tn The words “for what they have done” are implicit in the comparison and are supplied in the translation for clarification.
7 tn Heb “wood…stone…”
8 sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”
9 tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”
10 tn This is again an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) contextually. The nuance is a little hard to establish due to the nature of the rhetoric of the passage which utilizes the figure of apostrophe where the
11 sn Cf. Jer 2:28.
12 tn Heb “For [or Indeed] the number of your [sing.] cities are your [sing.] gods, Judah, and the number of the streets of Jerusalem [or perhaps (your) streets, Jerusalem] you [plur.] have set up altars to the shameful thing, altars to sacrifice to Baal.” This passage involves a figure of speech where the speaker turns from describing something about someone to addressing him/her directly (a figure called apostrophe). This figure is not common in contemporary English literature or conversation and translating literally would lead to confusion on the part of some readers. Hence, the translation retains the third person in keeping with the rest of the context. The shift from singular “your cities” to plural “you have set up” is interpreted contextually to refer to a shift in addressing Judah to addressing the citizens of Jerusalem whose streets are being talked about. The appositional clause, “altars to sacrifice to Baal” has been collapsed with the preceding clause to better identify what the shameful thing is and to eliminate a complex construction. The length of this sentence runs contrary to the usual practice of breaking up long complex sentences in Hebrew into shorter equivalent ones in English. However, breaking up this sentence and possibly losing the connecting link with the preceding used to introduce it might lead to misunderstanding.
13 tn Heb “in your name.” Another option is to translate, “as your representatives.”
14 tn Heb “our fathers” (also in vv. 8, 16). The Hebrew term translated “father” can refer to more distant relationships such as grandfathers or ancestors.
15 tn Heb “people.”
16 tn Heb “to you (belongs) righteousness.”
17 tn Heb “and to us (belongs) shame of face like this day.”
18 tn Heb “men.”
19 tn Heb “to us (belongs) shame of face.”