Ezekiel 3:6

3:6 not to many peoples of unintelligible speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand ¹  – surely if ²  I had sent you to them, they would listen to you!

Psalms 81:5

81:5 He decreed it as a regulation in Joseph,

when he attacked the land of Egypt. ³ 

I heard a voice I did not recognize. ⁴ 

Isaiah 33:19

33:19 You will no longer see a defiant ⁵  people

whose language you do not comprehend, ⁶ 

whose derisive speech you do not understand. ⁷ 

[3:6]  ¹ tn Heb “hear.”

[3:6]  ² tc The MT reads “if not” but most ancient versions translate only “if.” The expression occurs with this sense in Isa 5:9; 14:24. See also Ezek 34:8; 36:5; 38:19.

[81:5]  ³ tn Heb “in his going out against the land of Egypt.” This apparently refers to the general time period of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. The LXX reads, “from Egypt,” in which case “Joseph” (see the preceding line) would be the subject of the verb, “when he [Joseph = Israel] left Egypt.”

[81:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “a lip I did not know, I heard.” Here the term “lip” probably stands for speech or a voice. Apparently the psalmist speaks here and refers to God’s voice, whose speech is recorded in the following verses.

[33:19]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew form נוֹעָז (no’az) is a Niphal participle derived from יָעַז (ya’az, an otherwise unattested verb) or from עָזָז (’azaz, “be strong,” unattested elsewhere in the Niphal). Some prefer to emend the form to לוֹעֵז (lo’ez) which occurs in Ps 114:1 with the meaning “speak a foreign language.” See HALOT 809 s.v. עזז, 533 s.v. לעז. In this case, one might translate “people who speak a foreign language.”

[33:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “a people too deep of lip to hear.” The phrase “deep of lip” must be an idiom meaning “lips that speak words that are unfathomable [i.e., incomprehensible].”

[33:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “derision of tongue there is no understanding.” The Niphal of לָעַג (la’ag) occurs only here. In the Qal and Hiphil the verb means “to deride, mock.” A related noun is used in 28:11.