Psalms 36:11-12

36:11 Do not let arrogant men overtake me,

or let evil men make me homeless! ¹ 

36:12 I can see the evildoers! They have fallen! ² 

They have been knocked down and are unable to get up! ³ 

Lamentations 2:9

ט (Tet)

2:9 Her city gates have fallen ⁴  to the ground;

he smashed to bits ⁵  the bars that lock her gates. ⁶ 

Her king and princes were taken into exile; ⁷ 

there is no more guidance available. ⁸ 

As for her prophets,

they no longer receive ⁹  a vision from the Lord.

Hosea 4:17

4:17 Ephraim has attached himself to idols;

Do not go near him!

Amos 5:10

5:10 The Israelites ¹⁰  hate anyone who arbitrates at the city gate; ¹¹ 

they despise anyone who speaks honestly.

Amos 8:11-12

8:11 Be certain of this, ¹²  the time is ¹³  coming,” says the sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine through the land –

not a shortage of food or water

but an end to divine revelation! ¹⁴ 

8:12 People ¹⁵  will stagger from sea to sea, ¹⁶ 

and from the north around to the east.

They will wander about looking for a revelation from ¹⁷  the Lord,

but they will not find any. ¹⁸ 

Micah 3:6-7

3:6 Therefore night will fall, and you will receive no visions; ¹⁹ 

it will grow dark, and you will no longer be able to read the omens. ²⁰ 

The sun will set on these prophets,

and the daylight will turn to darkness over their heads. ²¹ 

3:7 The prophets ²²  will be ashamed;

the omen readers will be humiliated.

All of them will cover their mouths, ²³ 

for they will receive no divine oracles.” ²⁴ 

[36:11]  ¹ tn Heb “let not a foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of the evil ones cause me to wander as a fugitive.”

[36:12]  ² tn Heb “there the workers of wickedness have fallen.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here for dramatic effect, as the psalmist envisions the evildoers lying fallen at a spot that is vivid in his imagination (BDB 1027 s.v.).

[36:12]  ³ tn The psalmist uses perfect verbal forms in v. 12 to describe the demise of the wicked as if it has already taken place.

[2:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “have sunk down.” This expression, “her gates have sunk down into the ground,” is a personification, picturing the city gates descending into the earth, as if going down into the grave or the netherworld. Most English versions render it literally (KJV, RSV, NRSV, NASB, NIV, NJPS); however, a few paraphrases have captured the equivalent sense quite well: “Zion’s gates have fallen facedown on the ground” (CEV) and “the gates are buried in rubble” (TEV).

[2:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “he has destroyed and smashed her bars.” The two verbs אִבַּד וְשִׁבַּר (’ibbad vÿshibbar) form a verbal hendiadys that emphasizes the forcefulness of the destruction of the locking bars on the gates. The first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense: “he has smashed to pieces.” Several English versions render this expression literally and miss the rhetorical point: “he has ruined and broken” (RSV, NRSV), “he has destroyed and broken” (KJV, NASB), “he has broken and destroyed” (NIV). The hendiadys has been correctly noted by others: “smashed to pieces” (TEV, CEV) and “smashed to bits” (NJPS).

[2:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “her bars.” Since the literal “bars” could be misunderstood as referring to saloons, the phrase “the bars that lock her gates” has been used in the present translation.

[2:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “are among the nations.”

[2:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “there is no torah” or “there is no Torah” (אֵין תּוֹרָה, ’en torah). Depending on whether תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction, law”) is used in parallelism with the preceding or following line, it refers to (1) political guidance that the now-exiled king had formerly provided or (2) prophetic instruction that the now-ineffective prophets had formerly provided (BDB 434 s.v. תּוֹרָה 1.b). It is possible that the three lines are arranged in an ABA chiastic structure, exploiting the semantic ambiguity of the term תּוֹרָה (torah, “instruction”). Possibly it is an oblique reference to the priests’ duties of teaching, thus introducing a third group of the countries leaders. It is possible to hear in this a lament in reference to the destruction of Torah scrolls that may have been at the temple when it was destroyed.

[2:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “they cannot find.”

[5:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they”; the referent (the Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:10]  ¹¹ sn In ancient Israelite culture, legal disputes were resolved in the city gate, where the town elders met.

[8:11]  ¹² tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[8:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “the days are.”

[8:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “not a hunger for food or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.”

[8:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:12]  ¹⁶ tn That is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east – that is, across the whole land.

[8:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “looking for the word of.”

[8:12]  ¹⁸ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[3:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “it will be night for you without a vision.”

[3:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “it will be dark for you without divination.”

[3:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “and the day will be dark over them.”

[3:7]  ²² tn Or “seers.”

[3:7]  ²³ tn Or “the mustache,” or perhaps “the beard.” Cf. KJV, NAB, NRSV “cover their lips.”

[3:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “for there will be no answer from God.”