Isaiah 1:29

1:29 Indeed, they ¹  will be ashamed of the sacred trees

you ²  find so desirable;

you will be embarrassed because of the sacred orchards ³ 

where you choose to worship.

Isaiah 44:11

44:11 Look, all his associates ⁴  will be put to shame;

the craftsmen are mere humans. ⁵ 

Let them all assemble and take their stand!

They will panic and be put to shame.

Isaiah 45:16-17

45:16 They will all be ashamed and embarrassed;

those who fashion idols will all be humiliated. ⁶ 

45:17 Israel will be delivered once and for all by the Lord; ⁷ 

you will never again be ashamed or humiliated. ⁸ 

Psalms 97:7

97:7 All who worship idols are ashamed,

those who boast about worthless idols.

All the gods bow down before him. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 2:26-27

2:26 Just as a thief has to suffer dishonor when he is caught,

so the people of Israel ¹⁰  will suffer dishonor for what they have done. ¹¹ 

So will their kings and officials,

their priests and their prophets.

2:27 They say to a wooden idol, ¹²  ‘You are my father.’

They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ¹³ 

Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ¹⁴ 

Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

Habakkuk 2:18-20

2:18 What good ¹⁵  is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? ¹⁶ 

What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? ¹⁷ 

Why would its creator place his trust in it ¹⁸ 

and make ¹⁹  such mute, worthless things?

2:19 The one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’ is as good as dead ²⁰  –

he who says ²¹  to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’

Can it give reliable guidance? ²² 

It is overlaid with gold and silver;

it has no life’s breath inside it.

2:20 But the Lord is in his majestic palace. ²³ 

The whole earth is speechless in his presence!” ²⁴ 

[1:29]  ¹ tc The Hebrew text (and the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a) has the third person here, though a few Hebrew mss (and Targums) read the second person, which is certainly more consistent with the following context. The third person form is the more difficult reading and probably original. This disagreement in person has caused some to emend the first verb (3rd plural) to a 2nd plural form (followed by most English translations). The BHS textual apparatus suggests that the 2nd plural form be read even though there is only sparse textual evidence. LXX, Syriac, and the Vulgate change all the 2nd person verbs in 1:29-31 to 3rd person verbs. It is likely that the change to a 2nd person form represents an attempt at syntactical harmonization (J. de Waard, Isaiah, 10). The abrupt change from 3rd person to 2nd person may have been intentional for rhetorical impact (GKC 462 §144.p). The rapid change from exclamation (they did!) to reproach (you desired!) might be regarded as a rhetorical figure focusing attention on the addressees and their conditions (de Waard, 10; E. König, Stilistik, Rhetorik, Poetik, 239). This use of the 3rd person could also be understood as an impersonal third person: “one will be ashamed” (de Waard, 10). In v. 29 the prophet continues his description of the sinners (v. 28), but then suddenly makes a transition to direct address (switching from 3^rd to 2^nd person) in the middle of his sentence.

[1:29]  ² tn The second person pronouns in vv. 29-30 are masculine plural, indicating that the rebellious sinners (v. 28) are addressed.

[1:29]  ³ tn Or “gardens” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “groves.”

[44:11]  ⁴ tn The pronoun “his” probably refers to the one who forms/casts an idol (v. 10), in which case it refers to the craftsman’s associates in the idol-manufacturing guild.

[44:11]  ⁵ sn The point seems to be this: If the idols are the mere products of human hands, then those who trust in them will be disappointed, for man-made gods are incapable of helping their “creators.”

[45:16]  ⁶ tn “together they will walk in humiliation, the makers of images.”

[45:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “Israel will be delivered by the Lord [with] a permanent deliverance.”

[45:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “you will not be ashamed and you will not be humiliated for ages of future time.”

[97:7]  ⁹ tn The translation assumes that the prefixed verbal form in the first line is an imperfect (“are ashamed”) and that the ambiguous form in the third line is a perfect (“bow down”) because the psalmist appears to be describing the effect of the Lord’s mighty theophany on those who witness it (see vv. 5, 8). Another option is to take the prefixed form in the first line as a jussive (“let all who worship idols be ashamed”) and the ambiguous form in the third line as an imperative (“All you gods, bow down before him!”; cf. NIV).

[2:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[2:26]  ¹¹ tn The words “for what they have done” are implicit in the comparison and are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[2:27]  ¹² tn Heb “wood…stone…”

[2:27]  ¹³ sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”

[2:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”

[2:18]  ¹⁵ tn Or “of what value.”

[2:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.

[2:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 126.

[2:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.

[2:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “to make.”

[2:19]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who says.” On the term הוֹי (hoy) see the note on the word “dead” in v. 6.

[2:19]  ²¹ tn The words “he who says” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line.

[2:19]  ²² tn Though the Hebrew text has no formal interrogative marker here, the context indicates that the statement should be taken as a rhetorical question anticipating the answer, “Of course not!” (so also NIV, NRSV).

[2:20]  ²³ tn Or “holy temple.” The Lord’s heavenly palace, rather than the earthly temple, is probably in view here (see Ps 11:4; Mic 1:2-3). The Hebrew word ֹקדֶשׁ (qodesh, “holy”) here refers to the sovereign transcendence associated with his palace.

[2:20]  ²⁴ tn Or “Be quiet before him, all the earth!”