Deuteronomy 31:17-18

31:17 At that time ¹  my anger will erupt against them ²  and I will abandon them and hide my face from them until they are devoured. Many disasters and distresses will overcome ³  them ⁴  so that they ⁵  will say at that time, ‘Have not these disasters ⁶  overcome us ⁷  because our ⁸  God is not among us ⁹ ?’ 31:18 But I will certainly ¹⁰  hide myself at that time because of all the wickedness they ¹¹  will have done by turning to other gods.

Deuteronomy 32:19-20

A Word of Judgment

32:19 But the Lord took note and despised them

because his sons and daughters enraged him.

32:20 He said, “I will reject them, ¹² 

I will see what will happen to them;

for they are a perverse generation,

children ¹³  who show no loyalty.

Isaiah 59:1-15

Injustice Brings Alienation from God

59:1 Look, the Lord’s hand is not too weak ¹⁴  to deliver you;

his ear is not too deaf to hear you. ¹⁵ 

59:2 But your sinful acts have alienated you from your God;

your sins have caused him to reject you and not listen to your prayers. ¹⁶ 

59:3 For your hands are stained with blood

and your fingers with sin;

your lips speak lies,

your tongue utters malicious words.

59:4 No one is concerned about justice; ¹⁷ 

no one sets forth his case truthfully.

They depend on false words ¹⁸  and tell lies;

they conceive of oppression ¹⁹ 

and give birth to sin.

59:5 They hatch the eggs of a poisonous snake

and spin a spider’s web.

Whoever eats their eggs will die,

a poisonous snake is hatched. ²⁰ 

59:6 Their webs cannot be used for clothing;

they cannot cover themselves with what they make.

Their deeds are sinful;

they commit violent crimes. ²¹ 

59:7 They are eager to do evil, ²² 

quick to shed innocent blood. ²³ 

Their thoughts are sinful;

they crush and destroy. ²⁴ 

59:8 They are unfamiliar with peace;

their deeds are unjust. ²⁵ 

They use deceitful methods,

and whoever deals with them is unfamiliar with peace. ²⁶ 

Israel Confesses its Sin

59:9 For this reason deliverance ²⁷  is far from us ²⁸ 

and salvation does not reach us.

We wait for light, ²⁹  but see only darkness; ³⁰ 

we wait for ³¹  a bright light, ³²  but live ³³  in deep darkness. ³⁴ 

59:10 We grope along the wall like the blind,

we grope like those who cannot see; ³⁵ 

we stumble at noontime as if it were evening.

Though others are strong, we are like dead men. ³⁶ 

59:11 We all growl like bears,

we coo mournfully like doves;

we wait for deliverance, ³⁷  but there is none,

for salvation, but it is far from us.

59:12 For you are aware of our many rebellious deeds, ³⁸ 

and our sins testify against us;

indeed, we are aware of our rebellious deeds;

we know our sins all too well. ³⁹ 

59:13 We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord;

we turned back from following our God.

We stir up ⁴⁰  oppression and rebellion;

we tell lies we concocted in our minds. ⁴¹ 

59:14 Justice is driven back;

godliness ⁴²  stands far off.

Indeed, ⁴³  honesty stumbles in the city square

and morality is not even able to enter.

59:15 Honesty has disappeared;

the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed.

The Lord watches and is displeased, ⁴⁴ 

for there is no justice.

Jeremiah 33:5

33:5 ‘The defenders of the city will go out and fight with the Babylonians. ⁴⁵  But they will only fill those houses and buildings with the dead bodies of the people that I will kill in my anger and my wrath. ⁴⁶  That will happen because I have decided to turn my back on ⁴⁷  this city on account of the wicked things they have done. ⁴⁸ 

[31:17]  ¹ tn Heb “on that day.” This same expression also appears later in the verse and in v. 18.

[31:17]  ² tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:17]  ³ tn Heb “find,” “encounter.”

[31:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “evils.”

[31:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.

[31:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “my.”

[31:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.

[31:18]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “certainly.”

[31:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[32:20]  ¹² tn Heb “I will hide my face from them.”

[32:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “sons” (so NAB, NASB); TEV “unfaithful people.”

[59:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “short” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[59:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “or his ear too heavy [i.e., “dull”] to hear.”

[59:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and your sins have caused [his] face to be hidden from you so as not to hear.”

[59:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “no one pleads with justice.”

[59:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “nothing”; NAB “emptiness.”

[59:4]  ¹⁹ tn Or “trouble” (NIV), or “harm.”

[59:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “that which is pressed in hatches [as] a snake.”

[59:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “their deeds are deeds of sin, and the work of violence [is] in their hands.”

[59:7]  ²² tn Heb “their feet run to evil.”

[59:7]  ²³ tn Heb “they quickly pour out innocent blood.”

[59:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “their thoughts are thoughts of sin, destruction and crushing [are] in their roadways.”

[59:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “a way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their pathways.”

[59:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “their paths they make crooked, everyone who walks in it does not know peace.”

[59:9]  ²⁷ tn מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), which refers to “justice” in the earlier verses, here refers to “justice from God,” or “vindication.” Because the people are unjust, God refuses to vindicate them before their enemies. See v. 11.

[59:9]  ²⁸ sn The prophet speaks on behalf of the sinful nation and confesses its sins.

[59:9]  ²⁹ sn Light here symbolizes prosperity and blessing.

[59:9]  ³⁰ tn Heb “but, look, darkness”; NIV “but all is darkness.”

[59:9]  ³¹ tn The words “we wait for” are supplied in the translation; the verb is understood by ellipsis (note the preceding line).

[59:9]  ³² tn The plural noun form may indicate degree here.

[59:9]  ³³ tn Or “walk about”; NCV “all we have is darkness.”

[59:9]  ³⁴ tn The plural noun form may indicate degree here.

[59:10]  ³⁵ tn Heb “like there are no eyes.”

[59:10]  ³⁶ tn Heb among the strong, like dead men.”

[59:11]  ³⁷ tn See the note at v. 9.

[59:12]  ³⁸ tn Heb “for many are our rebellious deeds before you.”

[59:12]  ³⁹ tn Heb “indeed [or “for”] our rebellious deeds (are) with us, and our sins, we know them.”

[59:13]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “speaking.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[59:13]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.”

[59:14]  ⁴² tn Or “righteousness” (ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NAB “justice.”

[59:14]  ⁴³ tn Or “for” (KJV, NRSV).

[59:15]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “and it is displeasing in his eyes.”

[33:5]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[33:5]  ⁴⁶ sn This refers to the tearing down of buildings within the city to strengthen the wall or to fill gaps in it which had been broken down by the Babylonian battering rams. For a parallel to this during the siege of Sennacherib in the time of Hezekiah see Isa 22:10; 2 Chr 32:5. These torn-down buildings were also used as burial mounds for those who died in the fighting or through starvation and disease during the siege. The siege prohibited them from taking the bodies outside the city for burial and leaving them in their houses or in the streets would have defiled them.

[33:5]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “Because I have hidden my face from.” The modern equivalent for this gesture of rejection is “to turn the back on.” See Ps 13:1 for comparable usage. The perfect is to be interpreted as a perfect of resolve (cf. IBHS 488-89 §30.5.1d and compare the usage in Ruth 4:3).

[33:5]  ⁴⁸ tn The translation and meaning of vv. 4-5 are somewhat uncertain. The translation and precise meaning of vv. 4-5 are uncertain at a number of points due to some difficult syntactical constructions and some debate about the text and meaning of several words. The text reads more literally, “33:4 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah which have been torn down on account the siege ramps and the sword 33:5 going to fight the Chaldeans and to fill them with the dead bodies of the men whom I have killed in my anger and in my wrath and on account of all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city.” There are two difficult syntactical forms (1) the participle at the beginning of v. 5 “going [or those going] to fight” (בָּאִים, ba’im) and (2) the infinitive plus suffix that introduces the next clause “and to fill them” (וּלְמַלְאָם, ulÿmal’am). The translation has interpreted the former as a verbal use of the participle with an indefinite subject “they” (= the defenders of Jerusalem who have torn down the buildings; cf. GKC 460-61 §144.i for this point of grammar). The conjunction plus preposition plus infinitive construct has been interpreted as equivalent to a finite verb (cf. IBHS 611 §36.3.2a, i.e., “and they will fill them [the houses and buildings of v. 4]”). Adopting the Greek text of these two verses would produce a smoother reading. It reads “For thus says the Lord concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah which have been pulled down for mounds and fortifications to fight against the Chaldeans and to fill it [should be “them”] with the corpses of men whom I smote in my anger and my wrath and I turned away my face from them [rather than from “this city” of the Hebrew text] for all their wickedness: Behold I will…” The Greek does not have the problem with the participle because it has seen it as part of a word meaning fortification. This also eliminates the problem with the infinitive because it is interpreted as parallel with “to fight.” I.e., the defenders used these torn-down buildings for defensive fortifications and for burial places. It would be tempting to follow this reading. However, there is no graphically close form for “fortification” that would explain how the more difficult בָּאִים הֶחָרֶב (hekharev ba’im) of the Hebrew text arose and there is doubt whether סֹלְלוֹת (solÿlot) can refer to a defense mound. W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:221, 225) has suggested reading הַחֲרַכִּים (hakharakim) in place of הֶחָרֶב (hekharev) in the technical sense of “crenels,” the gaps between the raised portion on top of the wall (which raised portion he calls “merlons” and equates with סֹלְלוֹת, solÿlot). He does not, however, further suggest seeing בָּאִים (ba’im) as part of this corrupted form, choosing to see it rather as a gloss. His emendation and interpretation, however, have been justly criticized as violating the usage of both סֹלְלוֹת which is elsewhere “siege mound” and חֲרַכִּים (kharakim) which elsewhere refers only to the latticed opening of a window (Song 2:9). Until a more acceptable explanation of how the difficult Hebrew text could have arisen from the Greek, the Hebrew should be retained, though it is admittedly awkward. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 166, 172) have perhaps the best discussion of the issues and the options involved here.