Isaiah 48:1

The Lord Appeals to the Exiles

48:1 Listen to this, O family of Jacob, ¹ 

you who are called by the name ‘Israel,’

and are descended from Judah, ² 

who take oaths in the name of the Lord,

and invoke ³  the God of Israel –

but not in an honest and just manner. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 5:2

5:2 These people make promises in the name of the Lord. ⁵ 

But the fact is, ⁶  what they swear to is really a lie.” ⁷ 

Ezekiel 20:39

20:39 “‘As for you, O house of Israel, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Each of you go and serve your idols, ⁸  if you will not listen to me. ⁹  But my holy name will not be profaned ¹⁰  again by your sacrifices ¹¹  and your idols.

Amos 6:10

6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ¹²  pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “Be quiet! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!” ¹³ 

Amos 8:14

8:14 These are the ones who now take oaths ¹⁴  in the name of the sinful idol goddess ¹⁵  of Samaria.

They vow, ¹⁶  ‘As surely as your god ¹⁷  lives, O Dan,’ or ‘As surely as your beloved one ¹⁸  lives, O Beer Sheba!’

But they will fall down and not get up again.”

Zephaniah 1:5-6

1:5 I will remove ¹⁹  those who worship the stars in the sky from their rooftops, ²⁰ 

those who swear allegiance to the Lord ²¹  while taking oaths in the name of ²²  their ‘king,’ ²³ 

1:6 and those who turn their backs on ²⁴  the Lord

and do not want the Lord’s help or guidance.” ²⁵ 

[48:1]  ¹ tn Heb “house of Jacob”; TEV, CEV “people of Israel.”

[48:1]  ² tc The Hebrew text reads literally “and from the waters of Judah came out.” מִמֵּי (mimme) could be a corruption of מִמְּעֵי (mimmÿ’e, “from the inner parts of”; cf. NASB, NIV, NLT, NRSV) as suggested in the above translation. Some translations (ESV, NKJV) retain the MT reading because the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, which corrects a similar form to “from inner parts of” in 39:7, does not do it here.

[48:1]  ³ tn Heb “cause to remember”; KJV, ASV “make mention of.”

[48:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “not in truth and not in righteousness.”

[5:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “Though they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives.” The idea of “swear on oath” comes from the second line.

[5:2]  ⁶ tc The translation follows many Hebrew mss and the Syriac version in reading “surely” (אָכֵן, ’akhen) instead of “therefore” (לָכֵן, lakhen) in the MT.

[5:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “they swear falsely.”

[20:39]  ⁸ sn Compare the irony here to Amos 4:4 and Jer 44:25.

[20:39]  ⁹ tn Heb “and after, if you will not listen to me.” The translation leaves out “and after” for smoothness. The text is difficult. M. Greenberg (Ezekiel [AB], 1:374) suggests that it may mean “but afterwards, if you will not listen to me…” with an unspoken threat.

[20:39]  ¹⁰ sn A similar concept may be found in Lev 18:21; 20:3.

[20:39]  ¹¹ tn Or “gifts.”

[6:10]  ¹² tn The translation assumes that “their relatives” and “the ones who will burn the corpses” are in apposition. Another option is to take them as distinct individuals, in which case one could translate, “When their close relatives and the ones who will burn the corpses pick up…” The meaning of the form translated “the ones who burn the corpses” is uncertain. Another option is to translate, “the ones who prepare the corpses for burial” (NASB “undertaker”; cf. also CEV). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 215-16.

[6:10]  ¹³ tn This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. The Hebrew text literally reads, “And he will lift him up, his uncle, and the one burning him, to bring out bones from the house. And he will say to the one who is in the inner parts of the house, ‘Is there [anyone] still with you?’ And he will say, ‘Be quiet for not to invoke the name of the Lord.’” The translation assumes that the singular pronominal and verbal forms throughout the verse are collective or distributive. This last sentence has been interpreted in several ways: a command not to call on the name of the Lord out of fear that he might return again in judgment; the realization that it is not appropriate to seek a blessing in the Lord’s name upon the dead in the house since the judgment was deserved; an angry refusal to call on the Lord out of a sense that he has betrayed his people in allowing them to suffer.

[8:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “those who swear.”

[8:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the sin [or “guilt”] of Samaria.” This could be a derogatory reference to an idol-goddess popular in the northern kingdom, perhaps Asherah (cf. 2 Chr 24:18, where this worship is labeled “their guilt”), or to the golden calf at the national sanctuary in Bethel (Hos 8:6, 10:8). Some English versions (e.g., NEB, NRSV, CEV) repoint the word and read “Ashimah,” the name of a goddess worshiped in Hamath in Syria (see 2 Kgs 17:30).

[8:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “say.”

[8:14]  ¹⁷ sn Your god is not identified. It may refer to another patron deity who was not the God of Israel, a local manifestation of the Lord that was worshiped by the people there, or, more specifically, the golden calf image erected in Dan by Jeroboam I (see 1 Kgs 12:28-30).

[8:14]  ¹⁸ tc The MT reads, “As surely as the way [to] Beer Sheba lives,” or “As surely as the way lives, O Beer Sheba.” Perhaps the term דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “the way”) refers to the pilgrimage route to Beersheba (see S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 272) or it may be a title for a god. The notion of pilgrimage appears elsewhere in the book (cf. 4:4-5; 5:4-5; 8:12). The translation above assumes an emendation to דֹּדְךְ (dodÿkh, “your beloved” or “relative”; the term also is used in 6:10) and understands this as referring either to the Lord (since other kinship terms are used of him, such as “Father”) or to another deity that was particularly popular in Beer Sheba. Besides the commentaries, see S. M. Olyan, “The Oaths of Amos 8:14” Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel, 121-49.

[1:5]  ¹⁹ tn The words “I will remove” are repeated from v. 4b for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 4b-6 contain a long list of objects for the verb “I will remove” in v. 4b. In the present translation a new sentence was begun at the beginning of v. 5 in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences.

[1:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “those who worship on their roofs the host of heaven.” The “host of heaven” included the sun, moon, planets, and stars, all of which were deified in the ancient Near East.

[1:5]  ²¹ tc The MT reads, “those who worship, those who swear allegiance to the Lord.” The original form of the LXX omits the phrase “those who worship”; it may have been accidentally repeated from the preceding line. J. J. M. Roberts prefers to delete as secondary the phrase “those who swear allegiance” (J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 168).

[1:5]  ²² tn Heb “those who swear by.”

[1:5]  ²³ tn The referent of “their king” is unclear. It may refer sarcastically to a pagan god (perhaps Baal) worshiped by the people. Some English versions (cf. NEB, NASB, NRSV) prefer to emend the text to “Milcom,” the name of an Ammonite god (following some LXX mss, Syriac, and Vulgate) or “Molech,” a god to whom the Israelites offered their children (cf. NIV, NLT). For a discussion of the options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 75-77.

[1:6]  ²⁴ tn Heb “turn back from [following] after.”

[1:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “who do not seek the Lord and do not inquire of him.” The present translation assumes the first verb refers to praying for divine help and the second to seeking his revealed will through an oracle. Note the usage of the two verbs in 2 Chr 20:3-4.