7:8 For Syria’s leader is Damascus,
and the leader of Damascus is Rezin.
Within sixty-five years Ephraim will no longer exist as a nation. 1
26:20 Go, my people! Enter your inner rooms!
Close your doors behind you!
Hide for a little while,
until his angry judgment is over! 2
32:14 For the fortress is neglected;
the once-crowded 3 city is abandoned.
Hill 4 and watchtower
are permanently uninhabited. 5
Wild donkeys love to go there,
and flocks graze there. 6
1 tn Heb “Ephraim will be too shattered to be a nation”; NIV “to be a people.”
2 tn Heb “until anger passes by.”
3 tn Or “noisy” (NAB, NIV, NCV).
4 tn Hebrew עֹפֶל (’ofel), probably refers here to a specific area within the city of Jerusalem. See HALOT 861 s.v. II עֹפֶל.
5 tn The Hebrew text has בְעַד מְעָרוֹת (vÿ’ad mÿ’arot). The force of בְעַד, which usually means “behind, through, round about,” or “for the benefit of,” is uncertain here. HALOT 616 s.v. *מְעָרָה takes מְעָרוֹת (mÿ’arot) as a homonym of “cave” and define it here as “cleared field.” Despite these lexical problems, the general point of the statement seems clear – the city will be uninhabited.
6 tn Heb “the joy of wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks.”