12:7 The businessmen love to cheat; 4
they use dishonest scales. 5
1 tn Heb “over which my name is called.” For this nuance of this idiom cf. BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph.2.d(4) and see the usage in 2 Sam 12:28.
2 tn Heb “Is this house…a den/cave of robbers in your eyes?”
3 tn Heb “Behold!”
4 tn Heb “the merchant…loves to cheat.” The Hebrew has singular forms (noun and verb) which are used generically to refer to all Israelite merchants and traders in general. The singular noun II כְּנַעַן (kÿna’an, “a merchant; a trader”; BDB 488 s.v. II כְּנַעַן) is used in a generic sense to refer to the merchant class of Israel as a whole (e.g., Ezek 16:29; 17:4; Zeph 1:11).
5 tn Heb “The merchant – in his hand are scales of deceit – loves to cheat.” The present translation rearranges the Hebrew line division to produce a smoother English rendering.
6 tn Or (perhaps) “Stop making.”
7 tn Or “a house of merchants” (an allusion to Zech 14:21).