Jeremiah 30:13-15

30:13 There is no one to plead your cause.

There are no remedies for your wounds. ¹ 

There is no healing for you.

30:14 All your allies have abandoned you. ² 

They no longer have any concern for you.

For I have attacked you like an enemy would.

I have chastened you cruelly.

For your wickedness is so great

and your sin is so much. ³ 

30:15 Why do you complain about your injuries,

that your pain is incurable?

I have done all this to you

because your wickedness is so great

and your sin is so much.

Jeremiah 46:11

46:11 Go up to Gilead and get medicinal ointment, ⁴ 

you dear poor people of Egypt. ⁵ 

But it will prove useless no matter how much medicine you use; ⁶ 

there will be no healing for you.

Ezekiel 30:21-22

30:21 “Son of man, I have broken the arm ⁷  of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁸  Look, it has not been bandaged for healing or set with a dressing so that it might become strong enough to grasp a sword. 30:22 Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, ⁹  I am against ¹⁰  Pharaoh king of Egypt, and I will break his arms, the strong arm and the broken one, and I will make the sword drop from his hand.

Micah 1:9

1:9 For Samaria’s ¹¹  disease ¹²  is incurable.

It has infected ¹³  Judah;

it has spread to ¹⁴  the leadership ¹⁵  of my people

and has even contaminated Jerusalem! ¹⁶ 

Zephaniah 2:13-15

2:13 The Lord ¹⁷  will attack the north ¹⁸ 

and destroy Assyria.

He will make Nineveh a heap of ruins;

it will be as barren ¹⁹  as the desert.

2:14 Flocks and herds ²⁰  will lie down in the middle of it,

as well as every kind of wild animal. ²¹ 

Owls ²²  will sleep in the tops of its support pillars;

they will hoot through the windows. ²³ 

Rubble will cover the thresholds; ²⁴ 

even the cedar work ²⁵  will be exposed to the elements. ²⁶ 

2:15 This is how the once-proud city will end up ²⁷  –

the city that was so secure. ²⁸ 

She thought to herself, ²⁹  “I am unique! No one can compare to me!” ³⁰ 

What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live!

Everyone who passes by her taunts her ³¹  and shakes his fist. ³² 

[30:13]  ¹ tc The translation of these first two lines follows the redivision of the lines suggested in NIV and NRSV rather than that of the Masoretes who read, “There is no one who pleads your cause with reference to [your] wound.”

[30:14]  ² tn Heb “forgotten you.”

[30:14]  ³ tn Heb “attacked you like…with the chastening of a cruel one because of the greatness of your iniquity [and because] your sins are many.” The sentence has been broken down to conform to contemporary English style and better poetic scansion.

[46:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “balm.” See 8:22 and the notes on this phrase there.

[46:11]  ⁵ sn Heb “Virgin Daughter of Egypt.” See the study note on Jer 14:17 for the significance of the use of this figure. The use of the figure here perhaps refers to the fact that Egypt’s geographical isolation allowed her safety and protection that a virgin living at home would enjoy under her father’s protection (so F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 379). By her involvement in the politics of Palestine she had forfeited that safety and protection and was now suffering for it.

[46:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “In vain you multiply [= make use of many] medicines.”

[30:21]  ⁷ sn The expression “breaking the arm” indicates the removal of power (Ps 10:15; 37:17; Job 38:15; Jer 48:25).

[30:21]  ⁸ sn This may refer to the event recorded in Jer 37:5.

[30:22]  ⁹ tn The word h!nn@h indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.

[30:22]  ¹⁰ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[1:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Samaria) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ¹² tc The MT reads the plural “wounds”; the singular is read by the LXX, Syriac, and Vg.

[1:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “come to.”

[1:9]  ¹⁴ tn Or “reached.”

[1:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the gate.” Kings and civic leaders typically conducted important business at the city gate (see 1 Kgs 22:10 for an example), and the term is understood here to refer by metonymy to the leadership who would be present at the gate.

[1:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to Jerusalem.” The expression “it has contaminated” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied to fill out the parallelism with the preceding line.

[2:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “He”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he will stretch out his hand against the north.”

[2:13]  ¹⁹ tn Or “dry.”

[2:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “flocks.” The Hebrew word can refer to both flocks of sheep and herds of cattle.

[2:14]  ²¹ tn Heb “[and] all the wild animals of a nation.” How גוֹי (goy, “nation”) relates to what precedes is unclear. It may be a corruption of another word. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 193.

[2:14]  ²² tn The Hebrew text reads here גַּם־קָאַת גַּם־קִפֹּד (gam-qa’at gam-qippod). The term קָאַת refers to some type of bird (see Lev 11:18; Deut 14:17) that was typically found near ruins (Isa 34:11); one of the most common translations is “owl” (cf. NEB “horned owl”; NIV, NRSV “desert owl”; contra NASB “pelican”). The term קִפֹּד may also refer to a type of bird (cf. NEB “ruffed bustard”; NIV, NRSV “screech owl”). Some suggest a rodent may be in view (cf. NASB “hedgehog”); this is not unreasonable, for a rodent or some other small animal would be able to sleep in the tops of pillars which would be lying in the ruins of the fallen buildings.

[2:14]  ²³ tn Heb “a sound will sing in the window.” If some type of owl is in view, “hoot” is a more appropriate translation (cf. NEB, NRSV).

[2:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “rubble [will be] on the threshold.” “Rubble” translates the Hebrew word חֹרֶב (khorev, “desolation”). Some emend to עֹרֵב (’orev, “raven”) following the LXX and Vulgate; Adele Berlin translates, “A voice shall shriek from the window – a raven at the sill” (Zephaniah [AB 25A], 104).

[2:14]  ²⁵ tn The meaning of the Hebrew word translated “cedar work” (so NASB, NRSV) is unclear; NIV has “the beams of cedar.”

[2:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “one will expose.” The subject is probably indefinite, though one could translate, “for he [i.e., God] will lay bare.”

[2:15]  ²⁷ tn Heb “this is the proud city.”

[2:15]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the one that lived securely.”

[2:15]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the one who says in her heart.”

[2:15]  ³⁰ tn Heb “I [am], and besides me there is no other.”

[2:15]  ³¹ tn Heb “hisses”; or “whistles.”

[2:15]  ³² sn Hissing (or whistling) and shaking the fist were apparently ways of taunting a defeated foe or an object of derision in the culture of the time.