Ezekiel 34:10

34:10 This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am against the shepherds, and I will demand my sheep from their hand. I will no longer let them be shepherds; ¹  the shepherds will not feed themselves anymore. I will rescue my sheep from their mouth, so that they will no longer be food for them.

Leviticus 26:13

26:13 I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves, ²  and I broke the bars of your yoke and caused you to walk upright. ³ 

Isaiah 9:4

9:4 For their oppressive yoke

and the club that strikes their shoulders,

the cudgel the oppressor uses on them, ⁴ 

you have shattered, as in the day of Midian’s defeat. ⁵ 

Isaiah 10:27

10:27 At that time ⁶ 

the Lord will remove their burden from your shoulders, ⁷ 

and their yoke from your neck;

the yoke will be taken off because your neck will be too large. ⁸ 

Isaiah 14:2-3

14:2 Nations will take them and bring them back to their own place. Then the family of Jacob will make foreigners their servants as they settle in the Lord’s land. ⁹  They will make their captors captives and rule over the ones who oppressed them. 14:3 When the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and anxiety, ¹⁰  and from the hard labor which you were made to perform,

Isaiah 52:2-3

52:2 Shake off the dirt! ¹¹ 

Get up, captive ¹²  Jerusalem!

Take off the iron chains around your neck,

O captive daughter Zion!

52:3 For this is what the Lord says:

“You were sold for nothing,

and you will not be redeemed for money.”

Jeremiah 2:20

The Lord Expresses His Exasperation at Judah’s Persistent Idolatry

2:20 “Indeed, ¹³  long ago you threw off my authority

and refused to be subject to me. ¹⁴ 

You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ ¹⁵ 

Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill

and under every green tree,

like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 30:8

30:8 When the time for them to be rescued comes,” ¹⁷ 

says the Lord who rules over all, ¹⁸ 

“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. ¹⁹ 

I will deliver you from captivity. ²⁰ 

Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.

[34:10]  ¹ tn Heb “I will cause them to cease from feeding sheep.”

[26:13]  ² tn Heb “from being to them slaves.”

[26:13]  ³ tn In other words, to walk as free people and not as slaves. Cf. NIV “with (+ your CEV, NLT) heads held high”; NCV “proudly.”

[9:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “for the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the scepter of the oppressor against him.” The singular pronouns are collective, referring to the people. The oppressed nation is compared to an ox weighed down by a heavy yoke and an animal that is prodded and beaten.

[9:4]  ⁵ sn This alludes to Gideon’s victory over Midian (Judg 7-8), when the Lord delivered Israel from an oppressive foreign invader.

[10:27]  ⁶ tn Or “in that day” (KJV). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[10:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “he [i.e., the Lord] will remove his [i.e, Assyria’s] burden from upon your shoulder.”

[10:27]  ⁸ tc The meaning of this line is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads literally, “and the yoke will be destroyed (or perhaps, “pulled down”) because of fatness.” Perhaps this is a bizarre picture of an ox growing so fat that it breaks the yoke around its neck or can no longer fit into its yoke. Fatness would symbolize the Lord’s restored blessings; the removal of the yoke would symbolize the cessation of Assyrian oppression. Because of the difficulty of the metaphor, many prefer to emend the text at this point. Some emend וְחֻבַּל (vÿkhubbal, “and it will be destroyed,” a perfect with prefixed vav), to יִחְבֹּל (yikhbol, “[it] will be destroyed,” an imperfect), and take the verb with what precedes, “and their yoke will be destroyed from your neck.” Proponents of this view (cf. NAB, NRSV) then emend עֹל (’ol, “yoke”) to עָלָה (’alah, “he came up”) and understand this verb as introducing the following description of the Assyrian invasion (vv. 28-32). מִפְּנֵי־שָׁמֶן (mippÿney-shamen, “because of fatness”) is then emended to read “from before Rimmon” (NAB, NRSV), “from before Samaria,” or “from before Jeshimon.” Although this line may present difficulties, it appears best to regard the line as a graphic depiction of God’s abundant blessings on his servant nation.

[14:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the house of Jacob will take possession of them [i.e., the nations], on the land of the Lord, as male servants and female servants.”

[14:3]  ¹⁰ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[52:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Shake yourself free from the dirt.”

[52:2]  ¹² tc The Hebrew text has שְּׂבִי (shÿvi), which some understand as a feminine singular imperative from יָשַׁב (yashav, “sit”). The LXX, Vulgate, Syriac, and the Targum support the MT reading (the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a does indirectly). Some interpret this to mean “take your throne”: The Lord exhorts Jerusalem to get up from the dirt and sit, probably with the idea of sitting in a place of honor (J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 2:361). However, the form is likely a corruption of שְׁבִיָּה (shÿviyyah, “captive”), which appears in the parallel line.

[2:20]  ¹³ tn Or “For.” The Hebrew particle (כִּי, ki) here introduces the evidence that they had no respect for him.

[2:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “you broke your yoke…tore off your yoke ropes.” The metaphor is that of a recalcitrant ox or heifer which has broken free from its master.

[2:20]  ¹⁵ tc The MT of this verse has two examples of the old second feminine singular perfect, שָׁבַרְתִּי (shavarti) and נִתַּקְתִּי (nittaqti), which the Masoretes mistook for first singulars leading to the proposal to read אֶעֱבוֹר (’e’evor, “I will not transgress”) for אֶעֱבֹד (’e’evod, “I will not serve”). The latter understanding of the forms is accepted in KJV but rejected by almost all modern English versions as being less appropriate to the context than the reading accepted in the translation given here.

[2:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you sprawled as a prostitute on….” The translation reflects the meaning of the metaphor.

[30:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “And it shall happen in that day.”

[30:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the title for God.

[30:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I will break his yoke from upon your neck.” For the explanation of the figure see the study note on 27:2. The shift from third person at the end of v. 7 to second person in v. 8c, d and back to third person in v. 8e is typical of Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms and in the prophetic books (cf., GKC 351 §114.p and compare usage in Deut 32:15; Isa 5:8 listed there). The present translation, like several other modern ones, has typically leveled them to the same person to avoid confusion for modern readers who are not accustomed to this poetic tradition.

[30:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I will tear off their bands.” The “bands” are the leather straps which held the yoke bars in place (cf. 27:2). The metaphor of the “yoke on the neck” is continued. The translation reflects the sense of the metaphor but not the specific referent.