2:35 you say, ‘I have not done anything wrong,
so the Lord cannot really be angry with me any more.’
But, watch out! 1 I will bring down judgment on you
because you say, ‘I have not committed any sin.’
13:22 You will probably ask yourself, 2
‘Why have these things happened to me?
Why have I been treated like a disgraced adulteress
whose skirt has been torn off and her limbs exposed?’ 3
It is because you have sinned so much. 4
16:10 “When you tell these people about all this, 5 they will undoubtedly ask you, ‘Why has the Lord threatened us with such great disaster? What wrong have we done? What sin have we done to offend the Lord our God?’
22:8 “‘People from other nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?” 22:9 The answer will come back, “It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods.”
29:1 (28:69) 9 These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. 10
1 tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle often translated “behold” (הִנֵּה, hinneh) in a meaningful way in this context. See further the translator’s note on the word “really” in 1:6.
2 tn Heb “say in your heart.”
3 tn Heb “Your skirt has been uncovered and your heels have been treated with violence.” This is the generally accepted interpretation of these phrases. See, e.g., BDB 784 s.v. עָקֵב a and HALOT 329 s.v. I חָמַס Nif. The significance of the actions here are part of the metaphor (i.e., personification) of Jerusalem as an adulteress having left her husband and have been explained in the translation for the sake of readers unfamiliar with the metaphor.
4 tn The translation has been restructured to break up a long sentence involving a conditional clause and an elliptical consequential clause. It has also been restructured to define more clearly what “these things” are. The Hebrew text reads: “And if you say, ‘Why have these things happened to me?’ Because of the greatness of your iniquity your skirts [= what your skirt covers] have been uncovered and your heels have been treated with violence.”
5 tn Heb “all these words/things.”
6 tn Heb “this great burning of anger”; KJV “the heat of this great anger.”
7 tn Heb “did not assign to them”; NASB, NRSV “had not allotted to them.”
8 tn Heb “the entire curse.”
9 sn Beginning with 29:1, the verse numbers through 29:29 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 29:1 ET = 28:69 HT, 29:2 ET = 29:1 HT, 29:3 ET = 29:2 HT, etc., through 29:29 ET = 29:28 HT. With 30:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.
10 sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (which some English versions substitute here for clarity, cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).
11 tn Heb “in the mountain.” The demonstrative pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.
12 sn Anakites. See note on this term in Deut 1:28.
13 tn Heb “great and tall.” Many English versions understand this to refer to physical size or strength rather than numbers (cf. “strong,” NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT).
14 tn Heb “the