5:9 I will surely punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord.
“I will surely bring retribution on such a nation as this!” 1
5:29 I will certainly punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord.
“I will certainly bring retribution on such a nation as this! 2
9:7 The time of judgment 15 is about to arrive! 16
The time of retribution 17 is imminent! 18
Let Israel know! 19
The prophet is considered a fool 20 –
the inspired man 21 is viewed as a madman 22 –
because of the multitude of your sins
and your intense 23 animosity.
7:4 The best of them is like a thorn;
the most godly among them are more dangerous than a row of thorn bushes. 24
The day you try to avoid by posting watchmen –
your appointed time of punishment – is on the way, 25
and then you will experience confusion. 26
1 tn Heb “Should I not punish them…? Should I not bring retribution…?” The rhetorical questions have the force of strong declarations.
2 tn Heb “Should I not punish…? Should I not bring retribution…?” The rhetorical questions function as emphatic declarations.
3 tn Heb “behold, look.” Moses should take this fact into consideration.
4 sn The Law said that God would not clear the guilty. But here the punishment is postponed to some future date when he would revisit this matter. Others have taken the line to mean that whenever a reckoning was considered necessary, then this sin would be included (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 957). The repetition of the verb traditionally rendered “visit” in both clauses puts emphasis on the certainty – so “indeed.”
5 tn Or “has come.”
6 tn Or “has come.”
7 tc With different vowels the verb rendered “it has awakened” would be the noun “the end,” as in “the end is upon you.” The verb would represent a phonetic wordplay. The noun by virtue of repetition would continue to reinforce the idea of the end. Whether verb or noun, this is the only instance to occur with this preposition.
8 tc For this entire verse, the LXX has only “the end is come.”
9 sn The day refers to the day of the Lord, a concept which, beginning in Amos 5:18-20, became a common theme in the OT prophetic books. It refers to a time when the Lord intervenes in human affairs as warrior and judge.
10 tc The LXX reads “neither tumult nor birth pains.” The LXX varies at many points from the MT in this chapter. The context suggests that one or both of these would be present on a day of judgment, thus favoring the MT. Perhaps more significant is the absence of “the mountains” in the LXX. If the ר (resh) in הָרִים (harim, “the mountains” not “on the mountains”) were a ד (dalet), which is a common letter confusion, then it could be from the same root as the previous word, הֵד (hed), meaning “the day is near – with destruction, not joyful shouting.”
11 tn The expression “to pour out rage” also occurs in Ezek 9:8; 14:19; 20:8, 13, 21; 22:31; 30:15; 36:18.
12 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.
13 tn Heb “According to your behavior I will place on you.”
14 tn The MT lacks “you.” It has been added for clarification.
15 tn Heb “the days of the visitation”; NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “the days of punishment.”
16 tn Heb “has come” (בָּאוּ, ba’u). The two perfect tense (suffix-conjugation) verbs בָּאוּ (Qal perfect 3rd person common plural from בּוֹא, bo’, “to come”) repeated in this verse are both examples of the so-called “prophetic perfect”: the perfect, which connotes completed or factual action, is used in reference to future events to emphasize the certainty of the announced event taking place.
17 tn Heb “the days of the retribution”; NIV “of reckoning”; NRSV “of recompense.”
18 tn Heb “has come”; NIV “are at hand”; NLT “is almost here.”
19 tc The Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex (the MT
20 tn Or “is distraught”; cf. CEV, NLT “are crazy.”
21 tn Heb “the man of the Spirit”; NAB, NRSV “spirit.”
22 tn Or “is driven to despair.” The term מְשֻׁגָּע (mÿshugga’, Pual participle masculine singular from שָׁגַע, shaga’, “to be mad”) may be understood in two senses: (1) It could be a predicate adjective which is a figure of speech: “to be maddened,” to be driven to despair (Deut 28:34); or (2) it could be a substantive: “a madman,” referring to prophets who attempted to enter into a prophetic state through whipping themselves into a frenzy (1 Sam 21:16; 2 Kgs 9:11; Jer 29:26; see BDB 993 s.v. שָׁגַע). The prophetic context of 9:7 favors the latter option (which is followed by most English versions). Apparently, the general populace viewed these mantics with suspicion and questioned the legitimacy of their claim to be true prophets (e.g., 2 Kgs 9:11; Jer 29:26).
23 tn Heb “great.”
24 tn Heb “[the] godly from a row of thorn bushes.” The preposition מִן (min) is comparative and the comparative element (perhaps “sharper” is the idea) is omitted. See BDB 582 s.v. 6 and GKC 431 §133.e.
25 tn Heb “the day of your watchmen, your appointed [time], is coming.” The present translation takes “watchmen” to refer to actual sentries. However, the “watchmen” could refer figuratively to the prophets who had warned Judah of approaching judgment. In this case one could translate, “The day your prophets warned about – your appointed time of punishment – is on the way.”
26 tn Heb “and now will be their confusion.”