2 Chronicles 12:2

12:2 Because they were unfaithful to the Lord, in King Rehoboam’s fifth year, King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 15:2

15:2 He met ¹  Asa and told him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin! The Lord is with you when you are loyal to him. ²  If you seek him, he will respond to you, ³  but if you reject him, he will reject you.

2 Chronicles 33:3-9

33:3 He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he set up altars for the Baals and made Asherah poles. He bowed down to all the stars in the sky ⁴  and worshiped ⁵  them. 33:4 He built altars in the Lord’s temple, about which the Lord had said, “Jerusalem will be my permanent home.” ⁶  33:5 In the two courtyards of the Lord’s temple he built altars for all the stars in the sky. 33:6 He passed his sons through the fire ⁷  in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom and practiced divination, omen reading, and sorcery. He set up a ritual pit to conjure up underworld spirits and appointed magicians to supervise it. ⁸  He did a great amount of evil in the sight of the Lord and angered him. ⁹  33:7 He put an idolatrous image he had made in God’s temple, about which God had said to David and to his son Solomon, “This temple in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will be my permanent home. ¹⁰  33:8 I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, ¹¹  provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law, the rules and regulations given to Moses.” 33:9 But Manasseh misled the people of ¹²  Judah and the residents of Jerusalem so that they sinned more than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed ahead of the Israelites.

2 Chronicles 33:2

33:2 He did evil in the sight of ¹³  the Lord and committed the same horrible sins practiced by the nations ¹⁴  whom the Lord drove out ahead of the Israelites.

2 Chronicles 24:3-4

24:3 Jehoiada chose two wives for him who gave him sons and daughters.

24:4 Joash was determined to repair the Lord’s temple. ¹⁵ 

Isaiah 2:8-9

2:8 Their land is full of worthless idols;

they worship ¹⁶  the product of their own hands,

what their own fingers have fashioned.

2:9 Men bow down to them in homage,

they lie flat on the ground in worship. ¹⁷ 

Don’t spare them! ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 15:1-4

15:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ¹⁹  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ²⁰  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ²¹  15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this:

“Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease.

Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war.

Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation.

Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ²² 

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ²³  15:4 I will make all the people in all the kingdoms of the world horrified at what has happened to them because of what Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” ²⁴ 

[15:2]  ¹ tn Heb “went out before.”

[15:2]  ² tn Heb “when you are with him.”

[15:2]  ³ tn Heb “he will allow himself to be found by you.”

[33:3]  ⁴ tn The phrase כָל צְבָא הֲַשָּׁמַיִם (khol tsÿva’ hashamayim), traditionally translated “all the host of heaven,” refers to the heavenly lights, including stars and planets. In 1 Kgs 22:19 these heavenly bodies are pictured as members of the Lord’s royal court or assembly, but many other texts view them as the illegitimate objects of pagan and Israelite worship.

[33:3]  ⁵ tn Or “served.”

[33:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “In Jerusalem my name will be permanently.”

[33:6]  ⁷ tn Or “he sacrificed his sons in the fire.” This may refer to child sacrifice, though some interpret it as a less drastic cultic practice (NEB, NASV “made his sons pass through the fire”; NIV “sacrificed his sons in the fire”; NRSV “made his sons pass through fire”). For discussion see M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 266-67.

[33:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “and he set up a ritual pit, along with a conjurer.” Hebrew אוֹב (’ov, “ritual pit”) refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. In 1 Sam 28:7 the witch of Endor is called a בַּעֲלַת אוֹב (ba’alat ’ov, “owner of a ritual pit”). See H. Hoffner, “Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’OñBù,” JBL 86 (1967): 385-401.

[33:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “and he multiplied doing what is evil in the eyes of the Lord, angering him.”

[33:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I chose from all the tribes of Israel, I will place my name permanently” (or perhaps “forever”).

[33:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I will not again make the feet of Israel wander from the land which I established for their fathers.”

[33:9]  ¹² tn Heb “misled Judah.” The words “the people of” are supplied in the translation for clarity. The Hebrew text uses the name “Judah” here by metonymy for the people of Judah.

[33:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[33:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “like the abominable practices of the nations.”

[24:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and it was, later, there was with the heart of Joash to repair the house of the Lord.”

[2:8]  ¹⁶ tn Or “bow down to” (NIV, NRSV).

[2:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “men bow down, men are low.” Since the verbs שָׁחָח (shakhakh) and שָׁפַל (shafal) are used later in this discourse to describe how God will humiliate proud men (see vv. 11, 17), some understand v. 9a as a prediction of judgment, “men will be brought down, men will be humiliated.” However, these prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) consecutive appear to carry on the description that precedes and are better taken with the accusation. They draw attention to the fact that human beings actually bow down and worship before the lifeless products of their own hands.

[2:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “don’t lift them up.” The idiom “lift up” (נָשָׂא with לְ, nasa’ with preposition lamed) can mean “spare, forgive” (see Gen 18:24, 26). Here the idiom plays on the preceding verbs. The idolaters are bowed low as they worship their false gods; the prophet asks God not to “lift them up.”

[15:1]  ¹⁹ tn The words “pleading for” have been supplied in the translation to explain the idiom (a metonymy). For parallel usage see BDB 763 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.a and compare usage in Gen 19:27, Deut 4:10.

[15:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “my soul would not be toward them.” For the usage of “soul” presupposed here see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 6 in the light of the complaints and petitions in Jeremiah’s prayer in 14:19, 21.

[15:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “Send them away from my presence and let them go away.”

[15:2]  ²² tn It is difficult to render the rhetorical force of this passage in meaningful English. The text answers the question “Where should we go?” with four brief staccato-like expressions with a play on the preposition “to”: Heb “Who to the death, to the death and who to the sword, to the sword and who to the starvation, to the starvation and who to the captivity, to the captivity.” The word “death” here is commonly understood to be a poetic substitute for “plague” because of the standard trio of sword, famine, and plague (see, e.g., 14:12 and the notes there). This is likely here and in 18:21. For further support see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:440. The nuance “starvation” rather than “famine” has been chosen in the translation because the referents here are all things that accompany war.

[15:3]  ²³ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[15:4]  ²⁴ tn The length of this sentence runs contrary to the normal policy followed in the translation of breaking up long sentences. However, there does not seem any way to break it up here without losing the connections.