Isaiah 1:5

1:5 ¹ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ² 

Your head has a massive wound, ³ 

your whole body is weak. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 2:30

2:30 “It did no good for me to punish your people.

They did not respond to such correction.

You slaughtered your prophets

like a voracious lion.” ⁵ 

Jeremiah 5:3

5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ⁶ 

But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ⁷ 

Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.

They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ⁸ 

They refuse to change their ways. ⁹ 

Ezekiel 24:13

24:13 You mix uncleanness with obscene conduct. ¹⁰ 

I tried to cleanse you, ¹¹  but you are not clean.

You will not be cleansed from your uncleanness ¹² 

until I have exhausted my anger on you.

[1:5]  ¹ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ³ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[2:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “Your sword devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.” However, the reference to the sword in this and many similar idioms is merely idiomatic for death by violent means.

[5:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “O Lord, are your eyes not to faithfulness?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[5:3]  ⁷ tn Commentaries and lexicons debate the meaning of the verb here. The MT is pointed as though from a verb meaning “to writhe in anguish or contrition” (חוּל [khul]; see, e.g., BDB 297 s.v. חוּל 2.c), but some commentaries and lexicons repoint the text as though from a verb meaning “to be sick,” thus “to feel pain” (חָלָה [khalah]; see, e.g., HALOT 304 s.v. חָלָה 3). The former appears more appropriate to the context.

[5:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”

[5:3]  ⁹ tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”

[24:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in your uncleanness (is) obscene conduct.”

[24:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “because I cleansed you.” In this context (see especially the very next statement), the statement must refer to divine intention and purpose. Despite God’s efforts to cleanse his people, they resisted him and remained morally impure.

[24:13]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text adds the word “again.”