Isaiah 2:18-20

2:18 The worthless idols will be completely eliminated. ¹ 

2:19 They ²  will go into caves in the rocky cliffs

and into holes in the ground, ³ 

trying to escape the dreadful judgment of the Lord ⁴ 

and his royal splendor,

when he rises up to terrify the earth. ⁵ 

2:20 At that time ⁶  men will throw

their silver and gold idols,

which they made for themselves to worship, ⁷ 

into the caves where rodents and bats live, ⁸ 

Isaiah 17:7-8

17:7 At that time ⁹  men will trust in their creator; ¹⁰ 

they will depend on ¹¹  the Holy One of Israel. ¹² 

17:8 They will no longer trust in ¹³  the altars their hands made,

or depend on the Asherah poles and incense altars their fingers made. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 3:22-23

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.

3:23 We know our noisy worship of false gods

on the hills and mountains did not help us. ¹⁷ 

We know that the Lord our God

is the only one who can deliver Israel. ¹⁸ 

Hosea 14:3

14:3 Assyria cannot save us;

we will not ride warhorses.

We will never again say, ‘Our gods’

to what our own hands have made.

For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!” ¹⁹ 

Hosea 14:8

14:8 O Ephraim, I do not want to have anything to do ²⁰  with idols anymore!

I will answer him and care for him.

I am like ²¹  a luxuriant cypress tree; ²² 

your fruitfulness comes from me! ²³ 

Zechariah 13:2

13:2 And also on that day,” says the Lord who rules over all, “I will remove ²⁴  the names of the idols from the land and they will never again be remembered. Moreover, I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land.

¹ tc The verb “pass away” is singular in the Hebrew text, despite the plural subject (“worthless idols”) that precedes. The verb should be emended to a plural; the final vav (ו) has been accidentally omitted by haplography (note the vav at the beginning of the immediately following form).

² tn The identity of the grammatical subject is unclear. The “idols” could be the subject; they will “go” into the caves and holes when the idolaters throw them there in their haste to escape God’s judgment (see vv. 20-21). The picture of the idols, which represent the foreign deities worshiped by the people, fleeing from the Lord would be highly polemical and fit the overall mood of the chapter. However it seems more likely that the idolaters themselves are the subject, for v. 10 uses similar language in sarcastically urging them to run from judgment.

³ tn Heb “dust”; ASV “into the holes of the earth.”

⁴ tn Heb “from the dread of the Lord,” that is, from the dread that he produces in the objects of his judgment.” The words “trying to escape” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁵ tn Or “land.” It is not certain if these verses are describing the judgment of Judah (see vv. 6-9) or a more universal judgment on all proud men.

⁶ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

⁷ tn Or “bow down to.”

⁸ tn Heb “to the shrews and to the bats.” On the meaning of חֲפַרְפָּרָה (khafarparah, “shrew”), see HALOT 341 s.v. חֲפַרְפָּרָה. The BHS text as it stands (לַחְפֹּר פֵּרוֹת, perot lakhpor), makes no sense. Based on Theodotion’s transliteration and a similar reading in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, most scholars suggest that the MT mistakenly divided a noun (a hapax legomenon) that should be translated “moles,” “shrews,” or “rodents.”

⁹ tn Heb “in that day” (so ASV, NASB, NIV); KJV “At that day.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “man will gaze toward his maker.”

¹¹ tn Heb “his eyes will look toward.”

¹² sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

¹³ tn Heb “he will not gaze toward.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “and that which his fingers made he will not see, the Asherah poles and the incense altars.”

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 “Truly in vain from the hills the noise/commotion [and from] the mountains.” The syntax of the Hebrew sentence is very elliptical here.

¹⁸ tn Heb “Truly in the Lord our God is deliverance for Israel.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “For the orphan is shown compassion by you.” The present translation takes “orphan” as a figurative reference to Israel, which is specified in the translation for clarity.

²⁰ tn The Hebrew expression מַה־לִּי עוֹד (mah-li ’od) is a formula of repudiation/emphatic denial that God has anything in common with idols: “I want to have nothing to do with […] any more!” Cf., e.g., Judg 11:12; 2 Sam 16:10; 19:23; 1 Kgs 17:18; 2 Kgs 3:13; 2 Chr 35:21; Jer 2:18; Ps 50:16; BDB 553 s.v. מָה 1.d.(c).

²¹ tn The term “like” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for clarity, as in the majority of English versions (including KJV).

²² tn Cf. KJV “a green fir tree”; NIV, NCV “a green pine tree”; NRSV “an evergreen cypress.”

²³ tn Heb “your fruit is found in me”; NRSV “your faithfulness comes from me.”

²⁴ tn Heb “cut off” (so NRSV); NAB “destroy”; NIV “banish.”