Ezekiel 24:21

24:21 Say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Realize I am about to desecrate my sanctuary – the source of your confident pride, ¹  the object in which your eyes delight, ²  and your life’s passion. ³  Your very own sons and daughters whom you have left behind will die ⁴  by the sword.

Psalms 48:2

48:2 It is lofty and pleasing to look at, ⁵ 

a source of joy to the whole earth. ⁶ 

Mount Zion resembles the peaks of Zaphon; ⁷ 

it is the city of the great king.

Psalms 50:2

50:2 From Zion, the most beautiful of all places, ⁸ 

God comes in splendor. ⁹ 

Psalms 122:1-9

Psalm 122 ¹⁰ 

A song of ascents, ¹¹  by David.

122:1 I was glad because ¹²  they said to me,

“We will go to the Lord’s temple.”

122:2 Our feet are ¹³  standing

inside your gates, O Jerusalem.

122:3 Jerusalem ¹⁴  is a city designed

to accommodate an assembly. ¹⁵ 

122:4 The tribes go up ¹⁶  there, ¹⁷ 

the tribes of the Lord,

where it is required that Israel

give thanks to the name of the Lord. ¹⁸ 

122:5 Indeed, ¹⁹  the leaders sit ²⁰  there on thrones and make legal decisions,

on the thrones of the house of David. ²¹ 

122:6 Pray ²²  for the peace of Jerusalem!

May those who love her prosper! ²³ 

122:7 May there be peace inside your defenses,

and prosperity ²⁴  inside your fortresses! ²⁵ 

122:8 For the sake of my brothers and my neighbors

I will say, “May there be peace in you!”

122:9 For the sake of the temple of the Lord our God

I will pray for you to prosper. ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 7:4

7:4 Stop putting your confidence in the false belief that says, ²⁷  “We are safe! ²⁸  The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here!” ²⁹ 

[24:21]  ¹ tn Heb “the pride of your strength” means “your strong pride.”

[24:21]  ² sn Heb “the delight of your eyes.” Just as Ezekiel was deprived of his beloved wife (v. 16, the “desire” of his “eyes”) so the Lord would be forced to remove the object of his devotion, the temple, which symbolized his close relationship to his covenant people.

[24:21]  ³ tn Heb “the object of compassion of your soul.” The accentuation in the traditional Hebrew text indicates that the descriptive phrases (“the source of your confident pride, the object in which your eyes delight, and your life’s passion”) modify the preceding “my sanctuary.”

[24:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “fall.”

[48:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “beautiful of height.” The Hebrew term נוֹף (nof, “height”) is a genitive of specification after the qualitative noun “beautiful.” The idea seems to be that Mount Zion, because of its lofty appearance, is pleasing to the sight.

[48:2]  ⁶ sn A source of joy to the whole earth. The language is hyperbolic. Zion, as the dwelling place of the universal king, is pictured as the world’s capital. The prophets anticipated this idealized picture becoming a reality in the eschaton (see Isa 2:1-4).

[48:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “Mount Zion, the peaks of Zaphon.” Like all the preceding phrases in v. 2, both phrases are appositional to “city of our God, his holy hill” in v. 1, suggesting an identification in the poet’s mind between Mount Zion and Zaphon. “Zaphon” usually refers to the “north” in a general sense (see Pss 89:12; 107:3), but here, where it is collocated with “peaks,” it refers specifically to Mount Zaphon, located in the vicinity of ancient Ugarit and viewed as the mountain where the gods assembled (see Isa 14:13). By alluding to West Semitic mythology in this way, the psalm affirms that Mount Zion is the real divine mountain, for it is here that the Lord God of Israel lives and rules over the nations. See P. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 353, and T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 103.

[50:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “the perfection of beauty.”

[50:2]  ⁹ tn Or “shines forth.”

[122:1]  ¹⁰ sn Psalm 122. The psalmist expresses his love for Jerusalem and promises to pray for the city’s security.

[122:1]  ¹¹ sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[122:1]  ¹² tn Heb “in the ones saying to me.” After the verb שָׂמַח (samakh), the preposition בְּ (bet) usually introduces the reason for joy.

[122:2]  ¹³ tn Or “were.”

[122:3]  ¹⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[122:3]  ¹⁵ tc Heb “Jerusalem, which is built like a city which is joined to her together.” The meaning of the Hebrew text is unclear. Many regard this as a description of the compact way in which the city was designed or constructed. The translation assumes an emendation of the verb חֻבְּרָה (khubbÿrah, “is joined”) to a noun חֶבְרָה (khevrah, “association; company”). The text then reads literally, “Jerusalem, which is built like a city which has a company together.” This in turn can be taken as a reference to Jerusalem’s role as a city where people congregated for religious festivals and other civic occasions (see vv. 4-5).

[122:4]  ¹⁶ tn Or “went up.”

[122:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “which is where the tribes go up.”

[122:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “[it is] a statute for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord.”

[122:5]  ¹⁹ tn Or “for.”

[122:5]  ²⁰ tn Or “sat.”

[122:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “Indeed, there they sit [on] thrones for judgment, [on] thrones [belonging] to the house of David.”

[122:6]  ²² tn Heb “ask [for].”

[122:6]  ²³ tn Or “be secure.”

[122:7]  ²⁴ tn or “security.”

[122:7]  ²⁵ tn The psalmist uses second feminine singular pronominal forms to address personified Jerusalem.

[122:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “I will seek good for you.” The psalmist will seek Jerusalem’s “good” through prayer.

[7:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Stop trusting in lying words which say.”

[7:4]  ²⁸ tn The words “We are safe!” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:4]  ²⁹ tn Heb “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these (i.e., these buildings).” Elsewhere triple repetition seems to mark a kind of emphasis (cf. Isa 6:3; Jer 22:29; Ezek 21:27 [32 HT]). The triple repetition that follows seems to be Jeremiah’s way of mocking the (false) sense of security that people had in the invincibility of Jerusalem because God dwelt in the temple. They appeared to be treating the temple as some kind of magical charm. A similar feeling had grown up around the ark in the time of the judges (cf. 1 Sam 3:3) and the temple and city of Jerusalem in Micah’s day (cf. Mic 3:11). It is reflected also in some of the Psalms (cf., e.g., Ps 46, especially v. 5).