ט (Tet)
2:9 Her city gates have fallen 1 to the ground;
he smashed to bits 2 the bars that lock her gates. 3
Her king and princes were taken into exile; 4
there is no more guidance available. 5
As for her prophets,
they no longer receive 6 a vision from the Lord.
9:11 The Lord said, 7
“I will make Jerusalem 8 a heap of ruins.
Jackals will make their home there. 9
I will destroy the towns of Judah
so that no one will be able to live in them.”
10:22 Listen! News is coming even now. 10
The rumble of a great army is heard approaching 11 from a land in the north. 12
It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble,
places where only jackals live.
33:10 “I, the Lord, say: 13 ‘You and your people are saying 14 about this place, “It lies in ruins. There are no people or animals in it.” That is true. The towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem 15 will soon be desolate, uninhabited either by people or by animals. But happy sounds will again be heard in these places. 33:11 Once again there will be sounds 16 of joy and gladness and the glad celebrations of brides and grooms. 17 Once again people will bring their thank offerings to the temple of the Lord and will say, “Give thanks to the Lord who rules over all. For the Lord is good and his unfailing love lasts forever.” 18 For I, the Lord, affirm 19 that I will restore the land to what it was 20 in days of old.’ 21
33:12 “I, the Lord who rules over all, say: 22 ‘This place will indeed lie in ruins. There will be no people or animals in it. But there will again be in it and in its towns sheepfolds where shepherds can rest their sheep.
1 tn Heb “have sunk down.” This expression, “her gates have sunk down into the ground,” is a personification, picturing the city gates descending into the earth, as if going down into the grave or the netherworld. Most English versions render it literally (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, NJPS); however, a few paraphrases have captured the equivalent sense quite well: “Zion’s gates have fallen facedown on the ground” (CEV) and “the gates are buried in rubble” (TEV).
2 tn Heb “he has destroyed and smashed her bars.” The two verbs אִבַּד וְשִׁבַּר (’ibbad vÿshibbar) form a verbal hendiadys that emphasizes the forcefulness of the destruction of the locking bars on the gates. The first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense: “he has smashed to pieces.” Several English versions render this expression literally and miss the rhetorical point: “he has ruined and broken” (RSV, NRSV), “he has destroyed and broken” (KJV, NASB), “he has broken and destroyed” (NIV). The hendiadys has been correctly noted by others: “smashed to pieces” (TEV, CEV) and “smashed to bits” (NJPS).
3 tn Heb “her bars.” Since the literal “bars” could be misunderstood as referring to saloons, the phrase “the bars that lock her gates” has been used in the present translation.
4 tn Heb “are among the nations.”
5 tn Heb “there is no torah” or “there is no Torah” (אֵין תּוֹרָה, ’en torah). Depending on whether תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction, law”) is used in parallelism with the preceding or following line, it refers to (1) political guidance that the now-exiled king had formerly provided or (2) prophetic instruction that the now-ineffective prophets had formerly provided (BDB 434 s.v. תּוֹרָה 1.b). It is possible that the three lines are arranged in an ABA chiastic structure, exploiting the semantic ambiguity of the term תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction”). Possibly it is an oblique reference to the priests’ duties of teaching, thus introducing a third group of the countries leaders. It is possible to hear in this a lament in reference to the destruction of Torah scrolls that may have been at the temple when it was destroyed.
6 tn Heb “they cannot find.”
7 tn The words “the
8 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
9 tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.”
10 tn Heb “The sound of a report, behold, it is coming.”
11 tn Heb “ coming, even a great quaking.”
12 sn Compare Jer 6:22.
13 tn Heb “Thus says the
14 tn Heb “You.” However, the pronoun is plural as in 32:36, 43. See the translator’s note on 32:36.
15 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
16 tn Heb “33:10 Thus says the
17 sn What is predicted here is a reversal of the decimation caused by the Babylonian conquest that had been threatened in 7:34; 16:9; 25:10.
18 sn This is a common hymnic introduction to both individual songs of thanksgiving (e.g., Ps 118:1) and communal songs of thanksgiving (e.g., Ps 136 where it is a liturgical refrain accompanying a recital of Israel’s early history and of the
19 tn Heb “Oracle of the
20 tn Or “I will restore the fortunes of the land.”
21 tn This phrase simply means “as formerly” (BDB 911 s.v. רִאשׁוֹן 3.a). The reference to the “as formerly” must be established from the context. See the usage in Judg 20:32; 1 Kgs 13:6; Isa 1:26.
22 tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For the explanation for the first person introduction see the translator’s notes on 33:2, 10. Verses 4, 10, 12 introduce three oracles, all under the answer to the