Deuteronomy 32:4

32:4 As for the Rock, ¹  his work is perfect,

for all his ways are just.

He is a reliable God who is never unjust,

he is fair ²  and upright.

Deuteronomy 32:1

Invocation of Witnesses

32:1 Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;

hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

Deuteronomy 2:3

2:3 “You have circled around this mountain long enough; now turn north.

Psalms 10:11-13

10:11 He says to himself, ³ 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ⁴ 

10:12 Rise up, Lord! ⁵ 

O God, strike him down! ⁶ 

Do not forget the oppressed!

10:13 Why does the wicked man reject God? ⁷ 

He says to himself, ⁸  “You ⁹  will not hold me accountable.” ¹⁰ 

Ecclesiastes 8:11

8:11 When ¹¹  a sentence ¹²  is not executed ¹³  at once against a crime, ¹⁴ 

the human heart ¹⁵  is encouraged to do evil. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 5:18-19

5:18 Those who pull evil along using cords of emptiness are as good as dead, ¹⁷ 

who pull sin as with cart ropes. ¹⁸ 

5:19 They say, “Let him hurry, let him act quickly, ¹⁹ 

so we can see;

let the plan of the Holy One of Israel ²⁰  take shape ²¹  and come to pass,

then we will know it!”

Isaiah 30:18

The Lord Will Not Abandon His People

30:18 For this reason the Lord is ready to show you mercy;

he sits on his throne, ready to have compassion on you. ²² 

Indeed, the Lord is a just God;

all who wait for him in faith will be blessed. ²³ 

Ezekiel 8:12

8:12 He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ²⁴  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’”

Ezekiel 9:9

9:9 He said to me, “The sin of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of murder, and the city is full of corruption, ²⁵  for they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the land, and the Lord does not see!’ ²⁶ 

Zephaniah 1:12

1:12 At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps.

I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin, ²⁷ 

those who think to themselves, ²⁸ 

‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’ ²⁹ 

Zephaniah 1:2

The Lord’s Day of Judgment is Approaching

1:2 “I will destroy ³⁰  everything from the face of the earth,” says the Lord.

Zephaniah 3:3-4

3:3 Her princes ³¹  are as fierce as roaring lions; ³² 

her rulers ³³  are as hungry as wolves in the desert, ³⁴ 

who completely devour their prey by morning. ³⁵ 

3:4 Her prophets are proud; ³⁶ 

they are deceitful men.

Her priests defile what is holy; ³⁷ 

they break God’s laws. ³⁸ 

[32:4]  ¹ tc The LXX reads Θεός (qeos, “God”) for the MT’s “Rock.”

[32:4]  ² tn Or “just” (KJV, NAB, NRSV, NLT) or “righteous” (NASB).

[10:11]  ³ tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[10:12]  ⁵ sn Rise up, O Lord! The psalmist’s mood changes from lament to petition and confidence.

[10:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “lift up your hand.” Usually the expression “lifting the hand” refers to praying (Pss 28:2; 134:2) or making an oath (Ps 106:26), but here it probably refers to “striking a blow” (see 2 Sam 18:28; 20:21). Note v. 15, where the psalmist asks the Lord to “break the arm of the wicked.” A less likely option is that the psalmist is requesting that the Lord declare by oath his intention to intervene.

[10:13]  ⁷ tn The rhetorical question expresses the psalmist’s outrage that the wicked would have the audacity to disdain God.

[10:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “he says in his heart” (see vv. 6, 11). Another option is to understand an ellipsis of the interrogative particle here (cf. the preceding line), “Why does he say in his heart?”

[10:13]  ⁹ tn Here the wicked man addresses God directly.

[10:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you will not seek.” The verb דָרַשׁ (darash, “seek”) is used here in the sense of “seek an accounting.” One could understand the imperfect as generalizing about what is typical and translate, “you do not hold [people] accountable.”

[8:11]  ¹¹ tn The particle אֲשֶׁר (’asher) is used as a conjunction in a conditional/temporal clause to introduce the protasis (“when” or “if”), and עַל־כֵּן (’al-ken) introduces the apodosis (“then”); cf. BDB 83 s.v. אֲשֶׁר 8.d.

[8:11]  ¹² tn The noun פִתְגָם (fitgam, “decision; announcement; edict; decree”) is a loanword from Persian patigama (HALOT 984 s.v. פִּתְגָם; BDB 834 s.v. פִּתְגָם). The Hebrew noun occurs twice in the OT (Eccl 8:11; Esth 1:20), twice in the Apocrypha (Sir 5:11; 8:9), and five times in Qumran (11QtgJob 9:2; 29:4; 30:1; 34:3; 1QapGen 22:27). The English versions consistently nuance this as a judicial sentence against a crime: “sentence” (KJV, NEB, NAB, ASV, NASB, RSV, NRSV, MLB, YLT), “sentence for a crime” (NIV), “sentence imposed” (NJPS), “sentence on a crime” (Moffatt).

[8:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “is not done.” The verb עָשַׂה (’asah, “to do”) refers to a judicial sentence being carried out (HALOT 892 s.v. 2). The Niphal can denote “be executed; be carried out” of a sentence (Eccl 8:11) or royal decree (Esth 9:1; BDB 795 s.v. 1.a). Similarly, the Qal can denote “to execute” vengeance (Judg 11:36) or judgment (1 Sam 28:18; Isa 48:14; Ezek 25:11; 28:26; Ps 149:7, 9; BDB 794 s.v.).

[8:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the evil.”

[8:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the heart of the sons of man.” The singular noun לֵב (lev, “heart”) is used collectively. The term לֵב is often used figuratively (metonymy) in reference to inclinations and determinations of the will (BDB 525 s.v. 4), moral character (BDB 525 s.v. 6), and as a synecdoche for the man himself (BDB 525 s.v. 7).

[8:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “is full to do evil.” The verb מָלֵא (male’, “to fill”) is used figuratively (metonymy): the lack of swift judicial punishment only emboldens the wicked to commit more crimes without fear of retribution. Most English versions translate the term literally: “are filled” (NIV, MLB, YLT), “is fully set” (KJV, ASV, RSV, NRSV). However, several versions nuance it figuratively: “emboldened” (ASV, NJPS) and “boldly” (NEB). Moffatt renders the line, “Because sentence on a crime is not executed at once, the mind of man is prone to evil practices.”

[5:18]  ¹⁷ sn See the note at v. 8.

[5:18]  ¹⁸ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “Woe to those who pull evil with the ropes of emptiness, and, as [with] ropes of a cart, sin.” Though several textual details are unclear, the basic idea is apparent. The sinners are so attached to their sinful ways (compared here to a heavy load) that they strain to drag them along behind them. If שָׁוְא (shavÿ’, “emptiness”) is retained, it makes a further comment on their lifestyle, denouncing it as one that is devoid of what is right and destined to lead to nothing but destruction. Because “emptiness” does not form a very tight parallel with “cart” in the next line, some emend שָׁוְא to שֶׂה (she, “sheep”) and עֲגָלָה (’agalah, “cart”) to עֵגֶל (’egel, “calf”): “Those who pull evil along with a sheep halter are as good as dead who pull sin with a calf rope” (following the lead of the LXX and improving the internal parallelism of the verse). In this case, the verse pictures the sinners pulling sin along behind them as one pulls an animal with a halter. For a discussion of this view, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:163, n. 1. Nevertheless, this emendation is unnecessary. The above translation emphasizes the folly of the Israelites who hold on to their sin (and its punishment) even while they hope for divine intervention.

[5:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “let his work hurry, let it hasten.” The pronoun “his” refers to God, as the parallel line makes clear. The reference to his “work” alludes back to v. 12, which refers to his ‘work” of judgment. With these words the people challenged the prophet’s warning of approaching judgment. They were in essence saying that they saw no evidence that God was about to work in such a way.

[5:19]  ²⁰ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[5:19]  ²¹ tn Heb “draw near” (so NASB); NRSV “hasten to fulfillment.”

[30:18]  ²² tn Heb “Therefore the Lord waits to show you mercy, and therefore he is exalted to have compassion on you.” The logical connection between this verse and what precedes is problematic. The point seems to be that Judah’s impending doom does not bring God joy. Rather the prospect of their suffering stirs within him a willingness to show mercy and compassion, if they are willing to seek him on his terms.

[30:18]  ²³ tn Heb “Blessed are all who wait for him.”

[8:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the room of his images.” The adjective “idolatrous” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:9]  ²⁵ tn Or “lawlessness” (NAB); “perversity” (NRSV). The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT, and its meaning is uncertain. The similar phrase in 7:23 has a common word for “violence.”

[9:9]  ²⁶ sn The saying is virtually identical to that of the elders in Ezek 8:12.

[1:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “who thicken on their sediment.” The imagery comes from wine making, where the wine, if allowed to remain on the sediment too long, will thicken into syrup. The image suggests that the people described here were complacent in their sinful behavior and interpreted the delay in judgment as divine apathy.

[1:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “who say in their hearts.”

[1:12]  ²⁹ tn Heb “The Lord does not do good nor does he do evil.”

[1:2]  ³⁰ tn The Hebrew text combines the infinitive absolute of אָסַף (’asaf, “gather up, sweep away”) with a Hiphil prefixed first person form of סוּף (suf, “come to an end”; see Jer 8:13 for the same combination). This can be translated literally, “Sweeping away, I will bring to an end.” Some prefer to emend the text so that the infinitive and finite form of the verb are from the same root (“I will certainly sweep away,” if from אָסַף [cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV]; “I will certainly bring to an end,” if from סוּף). For a discussion of proposals see J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 167, 169.

[3:3]  ³¹ tn Or “officials.”

[3:3]  ³² tn Heb “her princes in her midst are roaring lions.” The metaphor has been translated as a simile (“as fierce as”) for clarity.

[3:3]  ³³ tn Traditionally “judges.”

[3:3]  ³⁴ tn Heb “her judges [are] wolves of the evening,” that is, wolves that prowl at night. The translation assumes an emendation to עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “desert”). For a discussion of this and other options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 128. The metaphor has been translated as a simile (“as hungry as”) for clarity.

[3:3]  ³⁵ tn Heb “they do not gnaw [a bone] at morning.” The precise meaning of the line is unclear. The statement may mean these wolves devour their prey so completely that not even a bone is left to gnaw by the time morning arrives. For a discussion of this and other options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 129.

[3:4]  ³⁶ sn Applied to prophets, the word פֹּחֲזִים (pokhazim, “proud”) probably refers to their audacity in passing off their own words as genuine prophecies from the Lord (see Jer 23:32).

[3:4]  ³⁷ tn Or “defile the temple.”

[3:4]  ³⁸ tn Heb “they treat violently [the] law.”