Isaiah 46:8-9

46:8 Remember this, so you can be brave! ¹ 

Think about it, you rebels! ² 

46:9 Remember what I accomplished in antiquity! ³ 

Truly I am God, I have no peer; ⁴ 

I am God, and there is none like me,

Deuteronomy 32:29

32:29 I wish that they were wise and could understand this,

and that they could comprehend what will happen to them.”

Jeremiah 5:31

5:31 The prophets prophesy lies.

The priests exercise power by their own authority. ⁵ 

And my people love to have it this way.

But they will not be able to help you when the time of judgment comes! ⁶ 

Ezekiel 7:3-9

7:3 The end is now upon you, and I will release my anger against you; I will judge ⁷  you according to your behavior, ⁸  I will hold you accountable for ⁹  all your abominable practices. 7:4 My eye will not pity you; I will not spare ¹⁰  you. ¹¹  For I will hold you responsible for your behavior, ¹²  and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. ¹³  Then you will know that I am the Lord!

7:5 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: A disaster ¹⁴  – a one-of-a-kind ¹⁵  disaster – is coming! 7:6 An end comes ¹⁶  – the end comes! ¹⁷  It has awakened against you ¹⁸  – the end is upon you! Look, it is coming! ¹⁹  7:7 Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day ²⁰  is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains. ²¹  7:8 Soon now I will pour out my rage ²²  on you; I will fully vent my anger against you. I will judge you according to your behavior. I will hold you accountable for all your abominable practices. 7:9 My eye will not pity you; I will not spare ²³  you. For your behavior I will hold you accountable, ²⁴  and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. Then you will know that it is I, the Lord, who is striking you. ²⁵ 

[46:8]  ¹ tn The meaning of the verb אָשַׁשׁ (’ashash, which appears here in the Hitpolel stem) is uncertain. BDB 84 s.v. אשׁשׁ relates it to a root meaning “found, establish” in Arabic; HALOT 100 s.v. II אשׁשׁ gives the meaning “pluck up courage.” The imperative with vav (ו) may indicate purpose following the preceding imperative.

[46:8]  ² tn Heb “return [it], rebels, to heart”; NRSV “recall it to mind, you transgressors.”

[46:9]  ³ tn Heb “remember the former things, from antiquity”; KJV, ASV “the former things of old.”

[46:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “and there is no other” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[5:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “they shall rule at their hands.” Since the word “hand” can be used figuratively for authority or mean “side” and the pronoun “them” can refer to the priests themselves or the prophets, the following translations have also been suggested: “the priests rule under their [the prophets’] directions,” or “the priests rule in league with them [the prophets].” From the rest of the book it would appear that the prophets did not exercise authority over the priests nor did they exercise the same authority over the people that the priests did. Hence it probably mean “by their own hand/power/authority.”

[5:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “But what will you do at its end?” The rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “Nothing!”

[7:3]  ⁷ tn Or “punish” (cf. BDB 1047 s.v. שָׁפַט 3.c).

[7:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “ways.”

[7:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will place on you.”

[7:4]  ¹⁰ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[7:4]  ¹¹ tn The pronoun “you” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.

[7:4]  ¹² tn “I will set your behavior on your head.”

[7:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “and your abominable practices will be among you.”

[7:5]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew term often refers to moral evil (see Ezek 6:10; 14:22), but in many contexts it refers to calamity or disaster, sometimes as punishment for evil behavior.

[7:5]  ¹⁵ tc So most Hebrew mss; many Hebrew mss read “disaster after disaster” (cf. NAB, NCV, NRSV, NLT).

[7:6]  ¹⁶ tn Or “has come.”

[7:6]  ¹⁷ tn Or “has come.”

[7:6]  ¹⁸ tc With different vowels the verb rendered “it has awakened” would be the noun “the end,” as in “the end is upon you.” The verb would represent a phonetic wordplay. The noun by virtue of repetition would continue to reinforce the idea of the end. Whether verb or noun, this is the only instance to occur with this preposition.

[7:6]  ¹⁹ tc For this entire verse, the LXX has only “the end is come.”

[7:7]  ²⁰ sn The day refers to the day of the Lord, a concept which, beginning in Amos 5:18-20, became a common theme in the OT prophetic books. It refers to a time when the Lord intervenes in human affairs as warrior and judge.

[7:7]  ²¹ tc The LXX reads “neither tumult nor birth pains.” The LXX varies at many points from the MT in this chapter. The context suggests that one or both of these would be present on a day of judgment, thus favoring the MT. Perhaps more significant is the absence of “the mountains” in the LXX. If the ר (resh) in הָרִים (harim, “the mountains” not “on the mountains”) were a ד (dalet), which is a common letter confusion, then it could be from the same root as the previous word, הֵד (hed), meaning “the day is near – with destruction, not joyful shouting.”

[7:8]  ²² tn The expression “to pour out rage” also occurs in Ezek 9:8; 14:19; 20:8, 13, 21; 22:31; 30:15; 36:18.

[7:9]  ²³ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[7:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “According to your behavior I will place on you.”

[7:9]  ²⁵ tn The MT lacks “you.” It has been added for clarification.