Discovery BoxIsaiah 47:12-14
Context47:12 Persist 1 in trusting 2 your amulets
and your many incantations,
which you have faithfully recited 3 since your youth!
Maybe you will be successful 4 –
maybe you will scare away disaster. 5
47:13 You are tired out from listening to so much advice. 6
Let them take their stand –
the ones who see omens in the sky,
who gaze at the stars,
who make monthly predictions –
let them rescue you from the disaster that is about to overtake you! 7
47:14 Look, they are like straw,
which the fire burns up;
they cannot rescue themselves
from the heat 8 of the flames.
There are no coals to warm them,
no firelight to enjoy. 9
Isaiah 47:1
Context47:1 “Fall down! Sit in the dirt,
O virgin 10 daughter Babylon!
Sit on the ground, not on a throne,
O daughter of the Babylonians!
Indeed, 11 you will no longer be called delicate and pampered.
Isaiah 22:11-12
Context22:11 You made a reservoir between the two walls
for the water of the old pool –
but you did not trust in 12 the one who made it; 13
you did not depend on 14 the one who formed it long ago!
22:12 At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning,
for shaved heads and sackcloth. 15
Isaiah 22:22-25
Context22:22 I will place the key 16 to the house of David on his shoulder. When he opens the door, no one can close it; when he closes the door, no one can open it. 22:23 I will fasten him like a peg into a solid place; 17 he will bring honor and respect to his father’s family. 18 22:24 His father’s family will gain increasing prominence because of him, 19 including the offspring and the offshoots. 20 All the small containers, including the bowls and all the jars will hang from this peg.’ 21
22:25 “At that time,” 22 says the Lord who commands armies, “the peg fastened into a solid place will come loose. It will be cut off and fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut off.” 23 Indeed, 24 the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 22:1-2
Context22:1 Here is a message about the Valley of Vision: 25
What is the reason 26
that all of you go up to the rooftops?
22:2 The noisy city is full of raucous sounds;
the town is filled with revelry. 27
Your slain were not cut down by the sword;
they did not die in battle. 28
Isaiah 18:1
Context18:1 The land of buzzing wings is as good as dead, 29
the one beyond the rivers of Cush,
Isaiah 18:1
Context18:1 The land of buzzing wings is as good as dead, 30
the one beyond the rivers of Cush,
Jeremiah 27:9-10
Context27:9 So do not listen to your prophets or to those who claim to predict the future by divination, 31 by dreams, by consulting the dead, 32 or by practicing magic. They keep telling you, ‘You do not need to be 33 subject to the king of Babylon.’ 27:10 Do not listen to them, 34 because their prophecies are lies. 35 Listening to them will only cause you 36 to be taken far away from your native land. I will drive you out of your country and you will die in exile. 37
Jeremiah 28:9-17
Context28:9 So if a prophet prophesied 38 peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”
28:10 The prophet Hananiah then took the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck and broke it. 28:11 Then he spoke up in the presence of all the people. “The Lord says, ‘In the same way I will break the yoke of servitude of all the nations to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon 39 before two years are over.’” After he heard this, the prophet Jeremiah departed and went on his way. 40
28:12 But shortly after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. 28:13 “Go and tell Hananiah that the Lord says, 41 ‘You have indeed broken the wooden yoke. But you have 42 only succeeded in replacing it with an iron one! 43 28:14 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all 44 says, “I have put an irresistible yoke of servitude on all these nations 45 so they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And they will indeed serve him. I have even given him control over the wild animals.”’” 46 28:15 Then the prophet Jeremiah told the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you! You are making these people trust in a lie! 47 28:16 So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove 48 you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” 49
28:17 In the seventh month of that very same year 50 the prophet Hananiah died.
Jeremiah 50:36
Context50:36 Destructive forces will come against her false prophets; 51
they will be shown to be fools! 52
Destructive forces will come against her soldiers;
they will be filled with terror! 53
[47:12] 1 tn Heb “stand” (so KJV, ASV); NASB, NRSV “Stand fast.”
[47:12] 2 tn The word “trusting” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See v. 9.
[47:12] 3 tn Heb “in that which you have toiled.”
[47:12] 4 tn Heb “maybe you will be able to profit.”
[47:12] 5 tn Heb “maybe you will cause to tremble.” The object “disaster” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See the note at v. 9.
[47:13] 6 tn Heb “you are tired because of the abundance of your advice.”
[47:13] 7 tn Heb “let them stand and rescue you – the ones who see omens in the sky, who gaze at the stars, who make known by months – from those things which are coming upon you.”
[47:14] 8 tn Heb “hand,” here a metaphor for the strength or power of the flames.
[47:14] 9 tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “there is no coal [for?] their food, light to sit before it.” Some emend לַחְמָם (lakhmam, “their food”) to לְחֻמָּם (lÿkhummam, “to warm them”; see HALOT 328 s.v. חמם). This statement may allude to Isa 44:16, where idolaters are depicted warming themselves over a fire made from wood, part of which was used to form idols. The fire of divine judgment will be no such campfire; its flames will devour and destroy.
[47:1] 10 tn בְּתוּלַה (bÿtulah) often refers to a virgin, but the phrase “virgin daughter” is apparently stylized (see also 23:12; 37:22). In the extended metaphor of this chapter, where Babylon is personified as a queen (vv. 5, 7), she is depicted as being both a wife and mother (vv. 8-9).
[47:1] 11 tn Or “For” (NASB, NRSV).
[22:11] 12 tn Heb “look at”; NAB, NRSV “did not look to.”
[22:11] 13 tn The antecedent of the third feminine singular suffix here and in the next line is unclear. The closest feminine noun is “pool” in the first half of the verse. Perhaps this “old pool” symbolizes the entire city, which had prospered because of God’s provision and protection through the years.
[22:11] 14 tn Heb “did not see.”
[22:12] 15 tn Heb “for baldness and the wearing of sackcloth.” See the note at 15:2.
[22:22] 16 sn This may refer to a literal insignia worn by the chief administrator. Even so, it would still symbolize the administrator’s authority to grant or exclude access to the king. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:422.
[22:23] 17 sn The metaphor depicts how secure his position will be.
[22:23] 18 tn Heb “and he will become a glorious throne for the house of his father.”
[22:24] 19 tn Heb “and all the glory of the house of his father they will hang on him.” The Lord returns to the peg metaphor of v. 23a. Eliakim’s secure position of honor will bring benefits and jobs to many others in the family.
[22:24] 20 tn The precise meaning and derivation of this word are uncertain. Cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “the issue”; CEV “relatives.”
[22:24] 21 tn Heb “all the small vessels, from the vessels that are bowls to all the vessels that are jars.” The picture is that of a single peg holding the weight of all kinds of containers hung from it.
[22:25] 22 tn Or “In that day” (KJV).
[22:25] 23 sn Eliakim’s authority, though seemingly secure, will eventually be removed, and with it his family’s prominence.
[22:25] 24 tn Or “for” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).
[22:1] 25 sn The following message pertains to Jerusalem. The significance of referring to the city as the Valley of Vision is uncertain. Perhaps the Hinnom Valley is in view, but why it is associated with a prophetic revelatory “vision” is not entirely clear. Maybe the Hinnom Valley is called this because the destruction that will take place there is the focal point of this prophetic message (see v. 5).
[22:1] 26 tn Heb “What to you, then?”
[22:2] 27 tn Heb “the boisterous town.” The phrase is parallel to “the noisy city” in the preceding line.
[22:2] 28 sn Apparently they died from starvation during the siege that preceded the final conquest of the city. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:409.
[18:1] 29 tn Heb “Woe [to] the land of buzzing wings.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
[18:1] 30 tn Heb “Woe [to] the land of buzzing wings.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
[27:9] 31 sn Various means of divination are alluded to in the OT. For example, Ezek 21:26-27 alludes to throwing down arrows to see which way they fall and consulting the shape of the liver of slaughtered animals. Gen 44:5 alludes to reading the future through pouring liquid in a cup. The means alluded to in this verse were all classified as pagan and prohibited as illegitimate in Deut 18:10-14. The
[27:9] 32 sn An example of this is seen in 1 Sam 28.
[27:9] 33 tn The verb in this context is best taken as a negative obligatory imperfect. See IBHS 508-9 §31.4g for discussion and examples. See Exod 4:15 as an example of positive obligation.
[27:10] 34 tn The words “Don’t listen to them” have been repeated from v. 9a to pick up the causal connection between v. 9a and v. 10 that is formally introduced by a causal particle in v. 10 in the original text.
[27:10] 35 tn Heb “they are prophesying a lie.”
[27:10] 36 tn Heb “lies will result in your being taken far…” (לְמַעַן [lÿma’an] + infinitive). This is a rather clear case of the particle לְמַעַן introducing result (contra BDB 775 s.v. מַעַן note 1. There is no irony in this statement; it is a bold prediction).
[27:10] 37 tn The words “out of your country” are not in the text but are implicit in the meaning of the verb. The words “in exile” are also not in the text but are implicit in the context. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.
[28:9] 38 tn The verbs in this verse are to be interpreted as iterative imperfects in past time rather than as futures because of the explicit contrast that is drawn in the two verses by the emphatic syntactical construction of the two verses. Both verses begin with a casus pendens construction to throw the two verses into contrast: Heb “The prophets who were before me and you from ancient times, they prophesied…The prophet who prophesied peace, when the word of that prophet came true, that prophet was known that the
[28:11] 39 tn Heb “I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from upon the necks of all the nations.”
[28:11] 40 tn Heb “Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.”
[28:13] 41 tn Heb “Hananiah, ‘Thus says the
[28:13] 42 tn The Greek version reads “I have made/put” rather than “you have made/put.” This is the easier reading and is therefore rejected.
[28:13] 43 tn Heb “the yoke bars of wood you have broken, but you have made in its stead yoke bars of iron.”
[28:14] 44 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for this title.
[28:14] 45 tn Heb “An iron yoke I have put on the necks of all these nations.”
[28:14] 46 sn The emphasis is on the absoluteness of Nebuchadnezzar’s control. The statement is once again rhetorical and not to be taken literally. See the study note on 27:6.
[28:15] 47 tn Or “You are giving these people false assurances.”
[28:16] 48 sn There is a play on words here in Hebrew between “did not send you” and “will…remove you.” The two verbs are from the same root word in Hebrew. The first is the simple active and the second is the intensive.
[28:16] 49 sn In giving people false assurances of restoration when the
[28:17] 50 sn Comparison with Jer 28:1 shows that this whole incident took place in the space of two months. Hananiah had prophesied that the captivity would be over before two years had past. However, before two months were past, Hananiah himself died in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of his death. His death was a validation of Jeremiah as a true prophet. The subsequent events of 588
[50:36] 51 tn The meaning and the derivation of the word translated “false prophets” is uncertain. The same word appears in conjunction with the word for “diviners” in Isa 44:25 and probably also in Hos 11:6 in conjunction with the sword consuming them “because of their counsel.” BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד b sees this as a substitution of “empty talk” for “empty talkers” (the figure of metonymy) and refer to them as false prophets. KBL 108 s.v. II בַּד emends the form in both places to read בָּרִים (barim) in place of בַּדִּים (baddim) and defines the word on the basis of Akkadian to mean “soothsayer” (KBL 146 s.v. V בָּר). HALOT 105 s.v. V בַּד retains the pointing, derives it from an Amorite word found in the Mari letters, and defines it as “oracle priest.” However, G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 368) call this identification into question because the word only occurs in one letter from Mari and its meaning is uncertain there. It is hazardous to emend the text in two places, perhaps even three, in light of no textual evidence in any of the passages and to define the word on the basis of an uncertain parallel. Hence the present translation opts here for the derivation and extended definition given in BDB.
[50:36] 52 tn This translation follows the suggestion of BDB 383 s.v. I יָאַל Niph.2. Compare the usage in Isa 19:13 and Jer 5:4.
[50:36] 53 tn The verb here (חָתַת, khatat) could also be rendered “be destroyed” (cf. BDB 369 s.v. חָתַת Qal.1 and compare the usage in Jer 48:20, 39). However, the parallelism with “shown to be fools” argues for the more dominant usage of “be dismayed” or “be filled with terror.” The verb is found in parallelism with both בּוֹשׁ (bosh, “be ashamed, dismayed”) and יָרֵא (yare’, “be afraid”) and can refer to either emotion. Here it is more likely that they are filled with terror because of the approaching armies.
