Yesaya 32:13-14

32:13 Mourn ¹  over the land of my people,

which is overgrown with thorns and briers,

and over all the once-happy houses ² 

in the city filled with revelry. ³ 

32:14 For the fortress is neglected;

the once-crowded ⁴  city is abandoned.

Hill ⁵  and watchtower

are permanently uninhabited. ⁶ 

Wild donkeys love to go there,

and flocks graze there. ⁷ 

Yesaya 33:9

33:9 The land ⁸  dries up ⁹  and withers away;

the forest of Lebanon shrivels up ¹⁰  and decays.

Sharon ¹¹  is like the desert; ¹² 

Bashan and Carmel ¹³  are parched. ¹⁴ 

Yesaya 64:10

64:10 Your chosen ¹⁵  cities have become a desert;

Zion has become a desert,

Jerusalem ¹⁶  is a desolate ruin.

Yeremia 2:31

2:31 You people of this generation,

listen to what the Lord says.

“Have I been like a wilderness to you, Israel?

Have I been like a dark and dangerous land to you? ¹⁷ 

Why then do you ¹⁸  say, ‘We are free to wander. ¹⁹ 

We will not come to you any more?’

Yeremia 4:26

4:26 I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert

and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins.

The Lord had brought this all about

because of his blazing anger. ²⁰ 

Yeremia 12:10

12:10 Many foreign rulers ²¹  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ²² 

They will trample all over my chosen land. ²³ 

They will turn my beautiful land

into a desolate wasteland.

Yeremia 22:6

22:6 “‘For the Lord says concerning the palace of the king of Judah,

“This place looks like a veritable forest of Gilead to me.

It is like the wooded heights of Lebanon in my eyes.

But I swear that I will make it like a wilderness

whose towns have all been deserted. ²⁴ 

Yehezkiel 19:13

19:13 Now it is planted in the wilderness,

in a dry and thirsty land. ²⁵ 

Yehezkiel 20:35-36

20:35 I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. 20:36 Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares the sovereign Lord.

[32:13]  ¹ tn “Mourn” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 12-13 are one long sentence.

[32:13]  ² tn Heb “indeed, over all the houses of joy.” It is not certain if this refers to individual homes or to places where parties and celebrations were held.

[32:13]  ³ sn This same phrase is used in 22:2.

[32:14]  ⁴ tn Or “noisy” (NAB, NIV, NCV).

[32:14]  ⁵ tn Hebrew עֹפֶל (’ofel), probably refers here to a specific area within the city of Jerusalem. See HALOT 861 s.v. II עֹפֶל.

[32:14]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew text has בְעַד מְעָרוֹת (vÿ’ad mÿ’arot). The force of בְעַד, which usually means “behind, through, round about,” or “for the benefit of,” is uncertain here. HALOT 616 s.v. *מְעָרָה takes מְעָרוֹת (mÿ’arot) as a homonym of “cave” and define it here as “cleared field.” Despite these lexical problems, the general point of the statement seems clear – the city will be uninhabited.

[32:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “the joy of wild donkeys, a pasture for flocks.”

[33:9]  ⁸ tn Or “earth” (KJV); NAB “the country.”

[33:9]  ⁹ tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. I אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism. See 24:4.

[33:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Lebanon is ashamed.” The Hiphil is exhibitive, expressing the idea, “exhibits shame.” In this context the statement alludes to the withering of vegetation.

[33:9]  ¹¹ sn Sharon was a fertile plain along the Mediterranean coast. See 35:2.

[33:9]  ¹² tn Or “the Arabah” (NIV). See 35:1.

[33:9]  ¹³ sn Both of these areas were known for their trees and vegetation. See 2:13; 35:2.

[33:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “shake off [their leaves]” (so ASV, NRSV); NAB “are stripped bare.”

[64:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “holy” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT); NIV “sacred.”

[64:10]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:31]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “a land of the darkness of Yah [= thick or deep darkness].” The idea of danger is an added connotation of the word in this context.

[2:31]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “my people.”

[2:31]  ¹⁹ tn Or more freely, “free to do as we please.” There is some debate about the meaning of this verb (רוּד, rud) because its usage is rare and its meaning is debated in the few passages where it does occur. The key to its meaning may rest in the emended text (reading וְרַדְתִּי [vÿradti] for וְיָרַדְתִּי [vÿyaradti]) in Judg 11:37 where it refers to the roaming of Jephthah’s daughter on the mountains of Israel.

[4:26]  ²⁰ tn Heb “because of the Lord, because of his blazing anger.”

[12:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “Many shepherds.” For the use of the term “shepherd” as a figure for rulers see the notes on 10:21.

[12:10]  ²² tn Heb “my vineyard.” To translate literally would presuppose an unlikely familiarity of this figure on the part of some readers. To translate as “vineyards” as some do would be misleading because that would miss the figurative nuance altogether.

[12:10]  sn The figure of Israel as God’s vine and the land as God’s vineyard is found several times in the Bible. The best known of these is the extended metaphor in Isa 5:1-7. This figure also appears in Jer 2:20.

[12:10]  ²³ tn Heb “my portion.”

[22:6]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Gilead you are to me, the height of Lebanon, but I will surely make you a wilderness [with] cities uninhabited.” The points of comparison are made explicit in the translation for the sake of clarity. See the study note for further explanation. For the use of the preposition לְ (lamed) = “in my eyes/in my opinion” see BDB 513 s.v. לְ 5.a(d) and compare Jonah 3:3; Esth 10:3. For the use of the particles אִם לֹא (’im lo’) to introduce an emphatic oath see BDB 50 s.v. אִם 1.b(2).

[22:6]  sn Lebanon was well known for its cedars and the palace (and the temple) had used a good deal of such timber in its construction (see 1 Kgs 5:6, 8-10; 7:2-3). In this section several references are made to cedar (see vv. 7, 14, 15, 23) and allusion has also been made to the paneled and colonnade armory of the Forest of Lebanon (2:14). It appears to have been a source of pride and luxury, perhaps at the expense of justice. Gilead was also noted in antiquity for its forests as well as for its fertile pastures.

[19:13]  ²⁵ sn This metaphor depicts the Babylonian exile of the Davidic dynasty.