Jeremiah 8:9

8:9 Your wise men will be put to shame.

They will be dumbfounded and be brought to judgment. ¹ 

Since they have rejected the word of the Lord,

what wisdom do they really have?

Jeremiah 10:7

10:7 Everyone should revere you, O King of all nations, ² 

because you deserve to be revered. ³ 

For there is no one like you

among any of the wise people of the nations nor among any of their kings. ⁴ 

Isaiah 19:11-13

19:11 The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; ⁵ 

Pharaoh’s wise advisers give stupid advice.

How dare you say to Pharaoh,

“I am one of the sages,

one well-versed in the writings of the ancient kings?” ⁶ 

19:12 But where, oh where, are your wise men? ⁷ 

Let them tell you, let them find out

what the Lord who commands armies has planned for Egypt.

19:13 The officials of Zoan are fools,

the officials of Memphis ⁸  are misled;

the rulers ⁹  of her tribes lead Egypt astray.

Isaiah 29:14

29:14 Therefore I will again do an amazing thing for these people –

an absolutely extraordinary deed. ¹⁰ 

Wise men will have nothing to say,

the sages will have no explanations.” ¹¹ 

Isaiah 44:25

44:25 who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers ¹² 

and humiliates ¹³  the omen readers,

who overturns the counsel of the wise men ¹⁴ 

and makes their advice ¹⁵  seem foolish,

Isaiah 47:13-14

47:13 You are tired out from listening to so much advice. ¹⁶ 

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! ¹⁷ 

47:14 Look, they are like straw,

which the fire burns up;

they cannot rescue themselves

from the heat ¹⁸  of the flames.

There are no coals to warm them,

no firelight to enjoy. ¹⁹ 

Daniel 5:7-8

5:7 The king called out loudly ²⁰  to summon ²¹  the astrologers, wise men, and diviners. The king proclaimed ²²  to the wise men of Babylon that anyone who could read this inscription and disclose its interpretation would be clothed in purple ²³  and have a golden collar ²⁴  placed on his neck and be third ruler in the kingdom.

5:8 So all the king’s wise men came in, but they were unable to read the writing or to make known its ²⁵  interpretation to the king.

[8:9]  ¹ tn Heb “be trapped.” However, the word “trapped” generally carries with it the connotation of divine judgment. See BDB 540 s.v. לָכַד Niph.2, and compare usage in Jer 6:11 for support. The verbs in the first two lines are again the form of the Hebrew verb that emphasizes that the action is as good as done (Hebrew prophetic perfects).

[10:7]  ² tn Heb “Who should not revere you…?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[10:7]  ³ tn Heb “For it is fitting to you.”

[10:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “their royalty/dominion.” This is a case of substitution of the abstract for the concrete “royalty, royal power” for “kings” who exercise it.

[19:11]  ⁵ tn Or “certainly the officials of Zoan are fools.” אַךְ (’akh) can carry the sense, “only, nothing but,” or “certainly, surely.”

[19:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “A son of wise men am I, a son of ancient kings.” The term בֶּן (ben, “son of”) could refer to literal descent, but many understand the word, at least in the first line, in its idiomatic sense of “member [of a guild].” See HALOT 138 s.v. בֶּן and J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:371. If this is the case, then one can take the word in a figurative sense in the second line as well, the “son of ancient kings” being one devoted to their memory as preserved in their literature.

[19:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “Where are they? Where are your wise men?” The juxtaposition of the interrogative pronouns is emphatic. See HALOT 38 s.v. אֶי.

[19:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “Noph” (so KJV); most recent English versions substitute the more familiar “Memphis.”

[19:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “the cornerstone.” The singular form should be emended to a plural.

[29:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Therefore I will again do something amazing with these people, an amazing deed, an amazing thing.” This probably refers to the amazing transformation predicted in vv. 17-24, which will follow the purifying judgment implied in vv. 15-16.

[29:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the wisdom of their wise ones will perish, the discernment of their discerning ones will keep hidden.”

[44:25]  ¹² tc The Hebrew text has בַּדִּים (baddim), perhaps meaning “empty talkers” (BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד). In the four other occurrences of this word (Job 11:3; Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30; 50:36) the context does not make the meaning of the term very clear. Its primary point appears to be that the words spoken are meaningless or false. In light of its parallelism with “omen readers,” some have proposed an emendation to בָּרִים (barim, “seers”). The Mesopotamian baru-priests were divination specialists who played an important role in court life. See R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 93-98. Rather than supporting an emendation, J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:189, n. 79) suggests that Isaiah used בַּדִּים purposively as a derisive wordplay on the Akkadian word baru (in light of the close similarity of the d and r consonants).

[44:25]  ¹³ tn Or “makes fools of” (NIV, NRSV); NAB and NASB both similar.

[44:25]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “who turns back the wise” (so NRSV); NIV “overthrows the learning of the wise”; TEV “The words of the wise I refute.”

[44:25]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “their knowledge” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[47:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you are tired because of the abundance of your advice.”

[47:13]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “hand,” here a metaphor for the strength or power of the flames.

[47:14]  ¹⁹ 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.

[5:7]  ²⁰ tn Aram “in strength.”

[5:7]  ²¹ tn Aram “cause to enter.”

[5:7]  ²² tn Aram “answered and said.”

[5:7]  ²³ sn Purple was a color associated with royalty in the ancient world.

[5:7]  ²⁴ tn The term translated “golden collar” here probably refers to something more substantial than merely a gold chain (cf. NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT) or necklace (cf. NASB).

[5:8]  ²⁵ tc Read וּפִשְׁרֵהּ (ufishreh) with the Qere rather than וּפִשְׁרָא (ufishra’) of the Kethib.