Discovery BoxPsalms 48:1-2
ContextA song, a psalm by the Korahites.
48:1 The Lord is great and certainly worthy of praise
in the city of our God, 2 his holy hill.
48:2 It is lofty and pleasing to look at, 3
a source of joy to the whole earth. 4
Mount Zion resembles the peaks of Zaphon; 5
it is the city of the great king.
Isaiah 1:21-23
Context1:21 How tragic that the once-faithful city
has become a prostitute! 6
She was once a center of 7 justice,
fairness resided in her,
but now only murderers. 8
1:22 Your 9 silver has become scum, 10
your beer is diluted with water. 11
1:23 Your officials are rebels, 12
they associate with 13 thieves.
All of them love bribery,
They do not take up the cause of the orphan, 16
or defend the rights of the widow. 17
Luke 13:34
Context13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 18 you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! 19 How often I have longed 20 to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but 21 you would have none of it! 22
[48:1] 1 sn Psalm 48. This so-called “Song of Zion” celebrates the greatness and glory of the Lord’s dwelling place, Jerusalem. His presence in the city elevates it above all others and assures its security.
[48:1] 2 sn The city of our God is Jerusalem, which is also referred to here as “his holy hill,” that is, Zion (see v. 2, as well as Isa 66:20; Joel 2:1; 3:17; Zech 8:3; Pss 2:6; 15:1; 43:3; 87:1; Dan 9:16).
[48:2] 3 tn Heb “beautiful of height.” The Hebrew term נוֹף (nof, “height”) is a genitive of specification after the qualitative noun “beautiful.” The idea seems to be that Mount Zion, because of its lofty appearance, is pleasing to the sight.
[48:2] 4 sn A source of joy to the whole earth. The language is hyperbolic. Zion, as the dwelling place of the universal king, is pictured as the world’s capital. The prophets anticipated this idealized picture becoming a reality in the eschaton (see Isa 2:1-4).
[48:2] 5 tn Heb “Mount Zion, the peaks of Zaphon.” Like all the preceding phrases in v. 2, both phrases are appositional to “city of our God, his holy hill” in v. 1, suggesting an identification in the poet’s mind between Mount Zion and Zaphon. “Zaphon” usually refers to the “north” in a general sense (see Pss 89:12; 107:3), but here, where it is collocated with “peaks,” it refers specifically to Mount Zaphon, located in the vicinity of ancient Ugarit and viewed as the mountain where the gods assembled (see Isa 14:13). By alluding to West Semitic mythology in this way, the psalm affirms that Mount Zion is the real divine mountain, for it is here that the
[1:21] 6 tn Heb “How she has become a prostitute, the faithful city!” The exclamatory אֵיכָה (’ekhah, “how!”) is used several times as the beginning of a lament (see Lam 1:1; 2;1; 4:1-2). Unlike a number of other OT passages that link references to Israel’s harlotry to idolatry, Isaiah here makes the connection with social and moral violations.
[1:21] 7 tn Heb “filled with.”
[1:21] 8 tn Or “assassins.” This refers to the oppressive rich and/or their henchmen. R. Ortlund (Whoredom, 78) posits that it serves as a synecdoche for all varieties of criminals, the worst being mentioned to imply all lesser ones. Since Isaiah often addressed his strongest rebuke to the rulers and leaders of Israel, he may have in mind the officials who bore the responsibility to uphold justice and righteousness.
[1:22] 9 tn The pronoun is feminine singular; personified Jerusalem (see v. 21) is addressed.
[1:22] 10 tn Or “dross.” The word refers to the scum or impurites floating on the top of melted metal.
[1:22] 11 sn The metaphors of silver becoming impure and beer being watered down picture the moral and ethical degeneration that had occurred in Jerusalem.
[1:23] 12 tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”
[1:23] 13 tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”
[1:23] 14 tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”
[1:23] 15 sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).
[1:23] 16 sn See the note at v. 17.
[1:23] 17 sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.
[13:34] 18 sn The double use of the city’s name betrays intense emotion.
[13:34] 19 tn Although the opening address (“Jerusalem, Jerusalem”) is direct (second person), the remainder of this sentence in the Greek text is third person (“who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her”). The following sentences then revert to second person (“your… you”), so to keep all this consistent in English, the third person pronouns in the present verse were translated as second person (“you who kill… sent to you”).
[13:34] 20 sn How often I have longed to gather your children. Jesus, like a lamenting prophet, speaks for God here, who longed to care tenderly for Israel and protect her.
[13:34] 21 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.
