2 Tawarikh 36:12

36:12 He did evil in the sight of ¹  the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, the Lord’s spokesman.

Mazmur 44:10

44:10 You made us retreat ²  from the enemy.

Those who hate us take whatever they want from us. ³ 

Amsal 18:12

18:12 Before destruction the heart ⁴  of a person is proud,

but humility comes ⁵  before honor. ⁶ 

Yesaya 2:11

2:11 Proud men will be brought low,

arrogant men will be humiliated; ⁷ 

the Lord alone will be exalted ⁸ 

in that day.

Yeremia 44:10

44:10 To this day your people ⁹  have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded ¹⁰  you and your ancestors.’

[36:12]  ¹ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[44:10]  ² tn Heb “you caused us to turn backward.”

[44:10]  ³ tn Heb “plunder for themselves.” The prepositional phrase לָמוֹ (lamo, “for themselves”) here has the nuance “at their will” or “as they please” (see Ps 80:6).

[18:12]  ⁴ sn The term “heart” is a metonymy of subject, referring to the seat of the spiritual and intellectual capacities – the mind, the will, the motivations and intentions. Proud ambitions and intentions will lead to a fall.

[18:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “[is] before honor”; cf. CEV “humility leads to honor.”

[18:12]  ⁶ sn The way to honor is through humility (e.g., Prov 11:2; 15:33; 16:18). The humility and exaltation of Jesus provides the classic example (Phil 2:1-10).

[2:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the eyes of the pride of men will be brought low, and the arrogance of men will be brought down.” The repetition of the verbs שָׁפַל (shafal) and שָׁחָח (shakhakh) from v. 9 draws attention to the appropriate nature of the judgment. Those proud men who “bow low” before idols will be forced to “bow low” before God when he judges their sin.

[2:11]  ⁸ tn Or “elevated”; CEV “honored.”

[44:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “they” but as H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 284) notes the third person is used here to include the people just referred to as well as the current addressees. Hence “your people” or “the people of Judah.” It is possible that the third person again reflects the rhetorical distancing that was referred to earlier in 35:16 (see the translator’s note there for explanation) in which case one might translate “you have shown,” and “you have not revered.”

[44:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to set before.” According to BDB 817 s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.b(g) this refers to “propounding to someone for acceptance or choice.” This is clearly the usage in Deut 30:15, 19; Jer 21:8 and is likely the case here. However, to translate literally would not be good English idiom and “proposed to” might not be correctly understood, so the basic translation of נָתַן (natan) has been used here.