2:27 They say to a wooden idol, 1 ‘You are my father.’
They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ 2
Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. 3
Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’
8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there 4 at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, 5 were about twenty-five 6 men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, 7 facing east – they were worshiping the sun 8 toward the east!
1 tn Heb “wood…stone…”
2 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.”
3 tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”
4 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.
5 sn The priests prayed to God between the porch and the altar on fast days (Joel 2:17). This is the location where Zechariah was murdered (Matt 23:35).
6 tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.
7 sn The temple faced east.
8 tn Or “the sun god.”