Isaiah 36:7

36:7 Perhaps you will tell me, ‘We are trusting in the Lord our God.’ But Hezekiah is the one who eliminated his high places and altars and then told the people of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship at this altar.’

Isaiah 36:10

36:10 Furthermore it was by the command of the Lord that I marched up against this land to destroy it. The Lord told me, ‘March up against this land and destroy it!’”’” ¹ 

Isaiah 36:15

36:15 Don’t let Hezekiah talk you into trusting in the Lord by saying, “The Lord will certainly rescue us; this city will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

Isaiah 37:10

37:10 “Tell King Hezekiah of Judah this: ‘Don’t let your God in whom you trust mislead you when he says, “Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.”

Psalms 12:4

12:4 They say, ²  “We speak persuasively; ³ 

we know how to flatter and boast. ⁴ 

Who is our master?” ⁵ 

Psalms 92:5-7

92:5 How great are your works, O Lord!

Your plans are very intricate! ⁶ 

92:6 The spiritually insensitive do not recognize this;

the fool does not understand this. ⁷ 

92:7 When the wicked sprout up like grass,

and all the evildoers glisten, ⁸ 

it is so that they may be annihilated. ⁹ 

¹ sn In v. 10 the chief adviser develops further the argument begun in v. 7. He claims that Hezekiah has offended the Lord and that the Lord has commissioned Assyria as his instrument of discipline and judgment.

² tn Heb “which say.” The plural verb after the relative pronoun indicates a plural antecedent for the pronoun, probably “lips” in v. 3.

³ tn Heb “to our tongue we make strong.” The Hiphil of גָבַר (gavar) occurs only here and in Dan 9:27, where it refers to making strong, or confirming, a covenant. Here in Ps 12 the evildoers “make their tongue strong” in the sense that they use their tongue to produce flattering and arrogant words to accomplish their purposes. The preposition -לְ (l) prefixed to “our tongue” may be dittographic.

⁴ tn Heb “our lips [are] with us.” This odd expression probably means, “our lips are in our power,” in the sense that they say what they want, whether it be flattery or boasting. For other cases where אֵת (’et, “with”) has the sense “in the power of,” see Ps 38:10 and other texts listed by BDB 86 s.v. 3.a.

⁵ sn The rhetorical question expresses the arrogant attitude of these people. As far as they are concerned, they are answerable to no one for how they speak.

⁶ tn Heb “very deep [are] your thoughts.” God’s “thoughts” refer here to his moral design of the world, as outlined in vv. 6-15.

⁷ tn Heb “the brutish man does not know, and the fool does not understand this.” The adjective בַּעַר (ba’ar, “brutish”) refers to spiritual insensitivity, not mere lack of intelligence or reasoning ability (see Pss 49:10; 73:22; Prov 12:1; 30:2, as well as the use of the related verb in Ps 94:8).

⁸ tn Or “flourish.”

⁹ tn Heb “in order that they might be destroyed permanently.”