Hosea 9:9

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

9:9 They have sunk deep into corruption ¹ 

as in the days of Gibeah.

He will remember their wrongdoing.

He will repay them for their sins.

Exodus 20:3

20:3 “You shall have no ²  other gods before me. ³ 

Exodus 32:34

32:34 So now go, lead the people to the place I have spoken to you about. See, ⁴  my angel will go before you. But on the day that I punish, I will indeed punish them for their sin.” ⁵ 

Amos 8:7

8:7 The Lord confirms this oath ⁶  by the arrogance of Jacob: ⁷ 

“I swear ⁸  I will never forget all you have done! ⁹ 

Revelation 16:19

16:19 The ¹⁰  great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations ¹¹  collapsed. ¹²  So ¹³  Babylon the great was remembered before God, and was given the cup ¹⁴  filled with the wine made of God’s furious wrath. ¹⁵ 

[9:9]  ¹ tn Or more literally, “they are deeply corrupted.” The two verbs הֶעְמִיקוּ־שִׁחֵתוּ (he’miqu-shikhetu; literally, “they have made deep, they act corruptly”) are coordinated without a conjunction vav to form a verbal hendiadys: the second verb represents the main idea, while the first functions adverbially (GKC 386-87 §120.g). Here Gesenius suggests “they are deeply/radically corrupted.” Several translations mirror the syntax of this hendiadys: “They have deeply corrupted themselves” (KJV, ASV, NRSV), “They have been grievously corrupt” (NJPS), and “They are hopelessly evil” (TEV). Others reverse the syntax for the sake of a more graphic English idiom: “They have gone deep in depravity” (NASB) and “They have sunk deep into corruption” (NIV). Some translations fail to represent the hendiadys at all: “You are brutal and corrupt” (CEV). The translation “They are deeply corrupted” mirrors the Hebrew syntax, but “They have sunk deep into corruption” is a more graphic English idiom and is preferred here (cf. NAB “They have sunk to the depths of corruption”).

[20:3]  ² tn The possession is expressed here by the use of the lamed (ל) preposition and the verb “to be”: לֹא־יִהְיֶה לְךָ (lo’ yihyeh lÿkha, “there will not be to you”). The negative with the imperfect expresses the emphatic prohibition; it is best reflected with “you will not” and has the strongest expectation of obedience (see GKC 317 §107.o). As an additional way of looking at this line, U. Cassuto suggests that the verb is in the singular in order to say that they could not have even one other god, and the word “gods” is plural to include any gods (Exodus, 241).

[20:3]  ³ tn The expression עַל־פָּנָי (’al-panay) has several possible interpretations. S. R. Driver suggests “in front of me,” meaning obliging me to behold them, and also giving a prominence above me (Exodus, 193-94). W. F. Albright rendered it “You shall not prefer other gods to me” (From the Stone Age to Christianity, 297, n. 29). B. Jacob (Exodus, 546) illustrates it with marriage: the wife could belong to only one man while every other man was “another man.” They continued to exist but were not available to her. The point is clear from the Law, regardless of the specific way the prepositional phrase is rendered. God demands absolute allegiance, to the exclusion of all other deities. The preposition may imply some antagonism, for false gods would be opposed to Yahweh. U. Cassuto adds that God was in effect saying that anytime Israel turned to a false god they had to know that the Lord was there – it is always in his presence, or before him (Exodus, 241).

[32:34]  ⁴ tn Heb “behold, look.” Moses should take this fact into consideration.

[32:34]  ⁵ sn The Law said that God would not clear the guilty. But here the punishment is postponed to some future date when he would revisit this matter. Others have taken the line to mean that whenever a reckoning was considered necessary, then this sin would be included (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 957). The repetition of the verb traditionally rendered “visit” in both clauses puts emphasis on the certainty – so “indeed.”

[8:7]  ⁶ tn Or “swears.”

[8:7]  ⁷ sn In an oath one appeals to something permanent to emphasize one’s commitment to the promise. Here the Lord sarcastically swears by the arrogance of Jacob, which he earlier had condemned (6:8), something just as enduring as the Lord’s own life (see 6:8) or unchanging character (see 4:2). Other suggestions include that the Lord is swearing by the land, his most valuable possession (cf. Isa 4:2; Ps 47:4 [47:5 HT]); that this is a divine epithet analogous to “the Glory of Israel” (1 Sam 15:29); or that an ellipsis should be understood here, in which case the meaning is the same as that of 6:8 (“The Lord has sworn [by himself] against the arrogance of Jacob”).

[8:7]  ⁸ tn The words “I swear” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation because a self-imprecation is assumed in oaths of this type.

[8:7]  ⁹ tn Or “I will never forget all your deeds.”

[16:19]  ¹⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[16:19]  ¹¹ tn Or “of the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[16:19]  ¹² tn Grk “fell.”

[16:19]  ¹³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of Babylon’s misdeeds (see Rev 14:8).

[16:19]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “the cup of the wine of the anger of the wrath of him.” The concatenation of four genitives has been rendered somewhat differently by various translations (see the note on the word “wrath”).

[16:19]  ¹⁵ tn Following BDAG 461 s.v. θυμός 2, the combination of the genitives of θυμός (qumo") and ὀργή (orgh) in Rev 16:19 and 19:15 are taken to be a strengthening of the thought as in the OT and Qumran literature (Exod 32:12; Jer 32:37; Lam 2:3; CD 10:9). Thus in Rev 14:8 (to which the present passage alludes) and 18:3 there is irony: The wine of immoral behavior with which Babylon makes the nations drunk becomes the wine of God’s wrath for her.