Jeremiah 8:5-6

8:5 Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem ¹ 

continually turn away from me in apostasy?

They hold fast to their deception. ² 

They refuse to turn back to me. ³ 

8:6 I have listened to them very carefully, ⁴ 

but they do not speak honestly.

None of them regrets the evil he has done.

None of them says, “I have done wrong!” ⁵ 

All of them persist in their own wayward course ⁶ 

like a horse charging recklessly into battle.

Deuteronomy 32:16-21

32:16 They made him jealous with other gods, ⁷ 

they enraged him with abhorrent idols. ⁸ 

32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,

to gods they had not known;

to new gods who had recently come along,

gods your ancestors ⁹  had not known about.

32:18 You have forgotten ¹⁰  the Rock who fathered you,

and put out of mind the God who gave you birth.

A Word of Judgment

32:19 But the Lord took note and despised them

because his sons and daughters enraged him.

32:20 He said, “I will reject them, ¹¹ 

I will see what will happen to them;

for they are a perverse generation,

children ¹²  who show no loyalty.

32:21 They have made me jealous ¹³  with false gods, ¹⁴ 

enraging me with their worthless gods; ¹⁵ 

so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, ¹⁶ 

with a nation slow to learn ¹⁷  I will enrage them.

Isaiah 1:4

1:4 ¹⁸ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ¹⁹ 

the people weighed down by evil deeds.

They are offspring who do wrong,

children ²⁰  who do wicked things.

They have abandoned the Lord,

and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ²¹ 

They are alienated from him. ²² 

[8:5]  ¹ tc The text is quite commonly emended, changing שׁוֹבְבָה הָעָם (shovÿvah ha’am) to שׁוֹבָב הָעָם (shovav ha’am) and omitting יְרוּשָׁלַםִ (yÿrushalaim); this is due to the anomaly of a feminine singular verb with a masculine singular subject and the fact that the word “Jerusalem” is absent from one Hebrew ms and the LXX. However, it is possible that this is a case where the noun “Jerusalem” is a defining apposition to the word “these people,” an apposition which GKC 425 §131.k calls “permutation.” In this case the verb could be attracted to the appositional noun and there would be no reason to emend the text. The MT is undoubtedly the harder reading and is for that reason to be preferred.

[8:5]  ² tn Or “to their allegiance to false gods,” or “to their false professions of loyalty”; Heb “to deceit.” Either “to their mistaken beliefs” or “to their allegiance to false gods” would fit the preceding context. The former is more comprehensive than the latter and was chosen for that reason.

[8:5]  ³ sn There is a continuing play on the same root word used in the preceding verse. Here the words “turn away from me,” “apostasy,” and “turn back to me” are all forms from the root that was translated “go the wrong way” and “turn around” in v. 4. The intended effect is to contrast Judah’s recalcitrant apostasy with the usual tendency to try and correct one’s mistakes.

[8:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “I have paid attention and I have listened.” This is another case of two concepts being joined by “and” where one expresses the main idea and the other acts as an adverbial or adjectival modifier (a figure called hendiadys).

[8:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “What have I done?” The addition of the word “wrong” is implicit in the context and is supplied in the translation for clarity. The rhetorical question does not function as a denial of wrongdoing, but rather as contrite shock at one’s own wrongdoing. It is translated as a declaration for the sake of clarity.

[8:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “each one of them turns aside into their own running course.”

[32:16]  ⁷ tc Heb “with strange (things).” The Vulgate actually supplies diis (“gods”).

[32:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “abhorrent (things)” (cf. NRSV). A number of English versions understand this as referring to “idols” (NAB, NIV, NCV, CEV), while NLT supplies “acts.”

[32:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “your fathers.”

[32:18]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew text is corrupt here; the translation follows the suggestion offered in HALOT 1477 s.v. שׁיה. Cf. NASB, NLT “You neglected”; NIV “You deserted”; NRSV “You were unmindful of.”

[32:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I will hide my face from them.”

[32:20]  ¹² tn Heb “sons” (so NAB, NASB); TEV “unfaithful people.”

[32:21]  ¹³ sn They have made me jealous. The “jealousy” of God is not a spirit of pettiness prompted by his insecurity, but righteous indignation caused by the disloyalty of his people to his covenant grace (see note on the word “God” in Deut 4:24). The jealousy of Israel, however (see next line), will be envy because of God’s lavish attention to another nation. This is an ironic wordplay. See H. Peels, NIDOTTE 3:938-39.

[32:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “what is not a god,” or a “nondeity.”

[32:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “their empty (things).” The Hebrew term used here to refer pejoratively to the false gods is הֶבֶל (hevel, “futile” or “futility”), used frequently in Ecclesiastes (e.g., Eccl 1:1, “Futile! Futile!” laments the Teacher, “Absolutely futile! Everything is futile!”).

[32:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “what is not a people,” or a “nonpeople.” The “nonpeople” (לֹא־עָם, lo’-’am) referred to here are Gentiles who someday would become God’s people in the fullest sense (cf. Hos 1:9; 2:23).

[32:21]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “a foolish nation” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV); NIV “a nation that has no understanding”; NLT “I will provoke their fury by blessing the foolish Gentiles.”

[1:4]  ¹⁸ sn Having summoned the witnesses and announced the Lord’s accusation against Israel, Isaiah mourns the nation’s impending doom. The third person references to the Lord in the second half of the verse suggest that the quotation from the Lord (cf. vv. 2-3) has concluded.

[1:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Woe [to the] sinful nation.” The Hebrew term הוֹי, (hoy, “woe, ah”) was used in funeral laments (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5) and carries the connotation of death. In highly dramatic fashion the prophet acts out Israel’s funeral in advance, emphasizing that their demise is inevitable if they do not repent soon.

[1:4]  ²⁰ tn Or “sons” (NASB). The prophet contrasts four terms of privilege – nation, people, offspring, children – with four terms that depict Israel’s sinful condition in Isaiah’s day – sinful, evil, wrong, wicked (see J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 43).

[1:4]  ²¹ sn Holy One of Israel is one of Isaiah’s favorite divine titles for God. It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.

[1:4]  ²² tn Heb “they are estranged backward.” The LXX omits this statement, which presents syntactical problems and seems to be outside the synonymous parallelistic structure of the verse.