Discovery BoxIsaiah 1:7-8
Context1:7 Your land is devastated,
your cities burned with fire.
Right before your eyes your crops
are being destroyed by foreign invaders. 1
They leave behind devastation and destruction. 2
1:8 Daughter Zion 3 is left isolated,
like a hut in a vineyard,
or a shelter in a cucumber field;
she is a besieged city. 4
Isaiah 24:1
Context24:1 Look, the Lord is ready to devastate the earth
and leave it in ruins;
he will mar its surface
and scatter its inhabitants.
Isaiah 24:4-6
Context24:4 The earth 5 dries up 6 and withers,
the world shrivels up and withers;
the prominent people of the earth 7 fade away.
24:5 The earth is defiled by 8 its inhabitants, 9
for they have violated laws,
disregarded the regulation, 10
and broken the permanent treaty. 11
24:6 So a treaty curse 12 devours the earth;
its inhabitants pay for their guilt. 13
This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, 14
and are reduced to just a handful of people. 15
Isaiah 24:19-20
Context24:19 The earth is broken in pieces,
the earth is ripped to shreds,
the earth shakes violently. 16
24:20 The earth will stagger around 17 like a drunk;
it will sway back and forth like a hut in a windstorm. 18
Its sin will weigh it down,
and it will fall and never get up again.
Jeremiah 4:20-26
Context4:20 I see 19 one destruction after another taking place,
so that the whole land lies in ruins.
I see our 20 tents suddenly destroyed,
their 21 curtains torn down in a mere instant. 22
4:21 “How long must I see the enemy’s battle flags
and hear the military signals of their bugles?” 23
“This will happen 25 because my people are foolish.
They do not know me.
They are like children who have no sense. 26
They have no understanding.
They are skilled at doing evil.
They do not know how to do good.”
4:23 “I looked at the land and saw 27 that it was an empty wasteland. 28
I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.
4:24 I looked at the mountains and saw that they were shaking.
All the hills were swaying back and forth!
4:25 I looked and saw that there were no more people, 29
and that all the birds in the sky had flown away.
4:26 I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert
and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins.
The Lord had brought this all about
because of his blazing anger. 30
[1:7] 1 tn Heb “As for your land, before you foreigners are devouring it.”
[1:7] 2 tn Heb “and [there is] devastation like an overthrow by foreigners.” The comparative preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like, as”) has here the rhetorical nuance, “in every way like.” The point is that the land has all the earmarks of a destructive foreign invasion because that is what has indeed happened. One could paraphrase, “it is desolate as it can only be when foreigners destroy.” On this use of the preposition in general, see GKC 376 §118.x. Many also prefer to emend “foreigners” here to “Sodom,” though there is no external attestation for such a reading in the
[1:8] 3 tn Heb “daughter of Zion” (so KJV, NASB, NIV). The genitive is appositional, identifying precisely which daughter is in view. By picturing Zion as a daughter, the prophet emphasizes her helplessness and vulnerability before the enemy.
[1:8] 4 tn Heb “like a city besieged.” Unlike the preceding two comparisons, which are purely metaphorical, this third one identifies the reality of Israel’s condition. In this case the comparative preposition, as in v. 7b, has the force, “in every way like,” indicating that all the earmarks of a siege are visible because that is indeed what is taking place. The verb form in MT is Qal passive participle of נָצַר (natsar, “guard”), but since this verb is not often used of a siege (see BDB 666 s.v. I נָצַר), some prefer to repoint the form as a Niphal participle from II צוּר (tsur, “besiege”). However, the latter is not attested elsewhere in the Niphal (see BDB 848 s.v. II צוּר).
[24:4] 5 tn Some prefer to read “land” here, but the word pair אֶרֶץ/תֵּבֵל (erets/tevel [see the corresponding term in the parallel line]) elsewhere clearly designates the earth/world (see 1 Sam 2:8; 1 Chr 16:30; Job 37;12; Pss 19:4; 24:1; 33:8; 89:11; 90:2; 96:13; 98:9; Prov 8:26, 31; Isa 14:16-17; 34:1; Jer 10:12; 51:15; Lam 4:12). According to L. Stadelmann, תבל designates “the habitable part of the world” (The Hebrew Conception of the World [AnBib], 130).
[24:4] 6 tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists the homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism.
[24:4] 7 tn Heb “the height of the people of the earth.” The translation assumes an emendation of the singular form מְרוֹם (mÿrom, “height of”) to the plural construct מְרֹמֵי (mÿrome, “high ones of”; note the plural verb at the beginning of the line), and understands the latter as referring to the prominent people of human society.
[24:5] 8 tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”
[24:5] 9 sn Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34, which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.
[24:5] 10 tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”
[24:5] 11 tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”
[24:6] 12 sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.
[24:6] 13 tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).
[24:6] 14 tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).
[24:6] 15 tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”
[24:19] 16 tn Once more repetition is used to draw attention to a statement. In the Hebrew text each lines ends with אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”). Each line also uses a Hitpolel verb form from a geminate root preceded by an emphatic infinitive absolute.
[24:20] 17 tn Heb “staggering, staggers.” The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute before the finite verb for emphasis and sound play.
[24:20] 18 tn The words “in a windstorm” are supplied in the translation to clarify the metaphor.
[4:20] 19 tn The words, “I see” are not in the text here or at the beginning of the third line. They are supplied in the translation to show that this is Jeremiah’s vision of what will happen as a result of the invasion announced in 4:5-9, 11-17a.
[4:20] 20 tn Heb “my.” This is probably not a reference to Jeremiah’s own tents since he foresees the destruction of the whole land. Jeremiah so identifies with the plight of his people that he sees the destruction of their tents as though they were his very own. It would probably lead to confusion to translate literally and it is not uncommon in Hebrew laments for the community or its representative to speak of the community as an “I.” See for example the interchange between first singular and first plural pronouns in Ps 44:4-8.
[4:20] 22 tn It is not altogether clear what Jeremiah intends by the use of this metaphor. In all likelihood he means that the defenses of Israel’s cities and towns have offered no more resistance than nomads’ tents. However, in light of the fact that the word “tent” came to be used generically for a person’s home (cf. 1 Kgs 8:66; 12:16), it is possible that Jeremiah is here referring to the destruction of their homes and the resultant feeling of homelessness and loss of even elementary protection. Given the lack of certainty the present translation is rather literal here.
[4:21] 23 tn Heb “the sound of ram’s horns,” but the modern equivalent is “bugles” and is more readily understandable.
[4:22] 24 tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to show clearly the shift in speaker. Jeremiah has been speaking; now the
[4:22] 25 tn Heb “For….” This gives the explanation for the destruction envisaged in 4:20 to which Jeremiah responds in 4:19, 21.
[4:22] 26 tn Heb “They are senseless children.”
[4:23] 27 tn Heb “I looked at the land and behold...” This indicates the visionary character of Jeremiah’s description of the future condition of the land of Israel.
[4:23] 28 tn Heb “formless and empty.” This is a case of hendiadys (two nouns joined by “and” both describe the same thing): one noun retains its full nominal force, the other functions as an adjective. The words תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu vavohu) allude to Gen 1:2, hyperbolically picturing a reversal of creation and return to the original precreation chaos.
[4:25] 29 tn Heb “there was no man/human being.”
[4:26] 30 tn Heb “because of the
