Yeremia 2:5-6

2:5 This is what the Lord says:

“What fault could your ancestors ¹  have possibly found in me

that they strayed so far from me? ² 

They paid allegiance to ³  worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. ⁴ 

2:6 They did not ask:

‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt,

who brought us through the wilderness,

through a land of desert sands and rift valleys,

through a land of drought and deep darkness, ⁵ 

through a land in which no one travels,

and where no one lives?’ ⁶ 

Yeremia 2:2

2:2 “Go and declare in the hearing of the people of Jerusalem: ⁷  ‘This is what the Lord says: “I have fond memories of you, ⁸  how devoted you were to me in your early years. ⁹  I remember how you loved me like a new bride; you followed me through the wilderness, through a land that had never been planted.

1 Samuel 12:7-9

12:7 Now take your positions, so I may confront you ¹⁰  before the Lord regarding all the Lord’s just actions toward you and your ancestors. ¹¹  12:8 When Jacob entered Egypt, your ancestors cried out to the Lord. The Lord sent Moses and Aaron, and they led your ancestors out of Egypt and settled them in this place.

12:9 “But they forgot the Lord their God, so he gave ¹²  them into the hand of Sisera, the general in command of Hazor’s ¹³  army, ¹⁴  and into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them.

1 Samuel 12:2

12:2 Now look! This king walks before you. As for me, I am old and gray, though my sons are here with you. I have walked before you from the time of my youth till the present day.

1 Samuel 31:10

31:10 They placed Saul’s armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths ¹⁵  and hung his corpse on the city wall of Beth Shan.

Nehemia 9:21-25

9:21 For forty years you sustained them. Even in the desert they never lacked anything. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

9:22 “You gave them kingdoms and peoples, and you allocated them to every corner of the land. ¹⁶  They inherited the land of King Sihon of Heshbon ¹⁷  and the land of King Og of Bashan. 9:23 You multiplied their descendants like the stars of the sky. You brought them to the land you had told their ancestors to enter in order to possess. 9:24 Their descendants ¹⁸  entered and possessed the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites who were the inhabitants of the land. You delivered them into their hand, together with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with as they pleased. 9:25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land. They took possession of houses full of all sorts of good things – wells previously dug, vineyards, olive trees, and fruit trees in abundance. They ate until they were full ¹⁹  and grew fat. They enjoyed to the full your great goodness.

Hosea 2:7-8

2:7 Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch ²⁰  them;

she will seek them, but she will not find them. ²¹ 

Then she will say,

“I will go back ²²  to my husband, ²³ 

because I was better off then than I am now.” ²⁴ 

Agricultural Fertility Withdrawn from Israel

2:8 Yet ²⁵  until now ²⁶  she has refused to acknowledge ²⁷  that I ²⁸  was the one

who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil;

and that it was I who ²⁹  lavished on her the silver and gold –

which they ³⁰  used in worshiping Baal! ³¹ 

Maleakhi 3:9-11

3:9 You are bound for judgment ³²  because you are robbing me – this whole nation is guilty. ³³ 

3:10 “Bring the entire tithe into the storehouse ³⁴  so that there may be food in my temple. Test me in this matter,” says the Lord who rules over all, “to see if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until there is no room for it all. 3:11 Then I will stop the plague ³⁵  from ruining your crops, ³⁶  and the vine will not lose its fruit before harvest,” says the Lord who rules over all.

[2:5]  ¹ tn Heb “fathers.”

[2:5]  ² tn Or “I did not wrong your ancestors in any way. Yet they went far astray from me.” Both translations are an attempt to render the rhetorical question which demands a negative answer.

[2:5]  ³ tn Heb “They went/followed after.” This idiom is found most often in Deuteronomy or covenant contexts. It refers to loyalty to God and to his covenant or his commandments (e.g., 1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (e.g., Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (i.e., to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (see, e.g., Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[2:5]  ⁴ tn The words “to me” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context: Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing,” which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[2:6]  ⁵ tn This word is erroneously rendered “shadow of death” in most older English versions; that translation is based on a faulty etymology. Contextual studies and comparative Semitic linguistics have demonstrated that the word is merely another word for darkness. It is confined to poetic texts and often carries connotations of danger and distress. It is associated in poetic texts with the darkness of a prison (Ps 107:10, 14), a mine (Job 28:3), and a ravine (Ps 23:4). Here it is associated with the darkness of the wasteland and ravines of the Sinai desert.

[2:6]  ⁶ sn The context suggests that the question is related to a lament where the people turn to God in their troubles, asking him for help and reminding him of his past benefactions. See for example Isa 63:11-19 and Ps 44. It is an implicit prayer for his intervention, cf. 2 Kgs 2:14.

[2:2]  ⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “I remember to/for you.”

[2:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “the loyal love of your youth.”

[2:2]  sn The Hebrew word translated “how devoted you were” (חֶסֶד, khesed) refers metaphorically to the devotion of a new bride to her husband. In typical Hebraic fashion, contemporary Israel is identified with early Israel after she first entered into covenant with (= married) the Lord. The reference to her earlier devotion is not absolute but relative. Compared to her unfaithfulness in worshiping other gods after she got into the land, the murmuring and complaining in the wilderness are ignored.

[12:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and I will enter into judgment with you” (NRSV similar); NAB “and I shall arraign you.”

[12:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “all the just actions which he has done with you and with your fathers.”

[12:9]  ¹² tn Heb “sold” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “he allowed them to fall into the clutches of Sisera”; NLT “he let them be conquered by Sisera.”

[12:9]  ¹³ map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 D3; Map3 A2; Map4 C1.

[12:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “captain of the host of Hazor.”

[31:10]  ¹⁵ sn The Semitic goddess Astarte was associated with love and war in the ancient Near East. See the note on the same term in 7:3.

[9:22]  ¹⁶ tn The words “of the land” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:22]  ¹⁷ tc Most Hebrew MSS read “the land of Sihon and the land of the king of Heshbon.” The present translation (along with NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, CEV, NLT) follows the reading of one Hebrew MS, the LXX, and the Vulgate.

[9:24]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the sons.”

[9:25]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they ate and were sated.” This expression is a hendiadys. The first verb retains its full verbal sense, while the second functions adverbially: “they ate and were filled” = “they ate until they were full.”

[2:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “overtake” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NLT “be able to catch up with.”

[2:7]  ²¹ tn In the Hebrew text the accusative direct object pronoun אֹתָם (’otam, “them”) is omitted/elided for balanced poetic parallelism. The LXX supplies αὐτους (autous, “them”); but it is not necessary to emend the MT because this is a poetic literary convention rather than a textual problem.

[2:7]  ²² tn Heb “I will go and return” (so NRSV). The two verbs joined with vav form a verbal hendiadys. Normally, the first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense (GKC 386-87 §120.d, h). The Hebrew phrase אֵלְכָה וְאָשׁוּבָה (’elkhah vÿ’ashuvah, “I will go and I will return”) connotes, “I will return again.” As cohortatives, both verbs emphasize the resolution of the speaker.

[2:7]  ²³ tn Heb “to my man, the first.” Many English translations (e.g., KJV, NAB, NRSV, TEV) take this as “my first husband,” although this implies that there was more than one husband involved. The text refers to multiple lovers, but these were not necessarily husbands.

[2:7]  ²⁴ tn Or “because it was better for me then than now” (cf. NCV).

[2:8]  ²⁵ tn Or “For” (so KJV, NASB); or “But” (so NCV).

[2:8]  ²⁶ tn The phrase “until now” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[2:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “she does not know” (so NASB, NCV); or “she does not acknowledge.”

[2:8]  ²⁸ tn The 1st person common singular independent personal pronoun אָנֹכִי (’anokhi, “I”) is emphatic, since the subject of this verbal clause is already explicit in the verb נָתַתִּי (natatti, Qal perfect 1st person common singular: “I gave”).

[2:8]  ²⁹ tn The phrase “that it was I who” does not appear in the Hebrew text here, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[2:8]  ³⁰ sn The third person plural here is an obvious reference to the Israelites who had been unfaithful to the Lord in spite of all that he had done for them. To maintain the imagery of Israel as the prostitute, a third person feminine singular would be called for; in the interest of literary consistency this has been supplied in some English translations (e.g., NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[2:8]  ³¹ tn Heb “for Baal” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); cf. TEV “in the worship of Baal.”

[3:9]  ³² tn Heb “cursed with a curse” that is, “under a curse” (so NIV, NLT, CEV).

[3:9]  ³³ tn The phrase “is guilty” is not present in the Hebrew text but is implied, and has been supplied in the translation for clarification and stylistic reasons.

[3:10]  ³⁴ tn The Hebrew phrase בֵּית הָאוֹצָר (bet ha’otsar, here translated “storehouse”) refers to a kind of temple warehouse described more fully in Nehemiah (where the term לִשְׁכָּה גְדוֹלָה [lishkah gÿdolah, “great chamber”] is used) as a place for storing grain, frankincense, temple vessels, wine, and oil (Neh 13:5). Cf. TEV “to the Temple.”

[3:11]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the eater” (אֹכֵל, ’okhel), a general term for any kind of threat to crops and livelihood. This is understood as a reference to a locust plague by a number of English versions: NAB, NRSV “the locust”; NIV “pests”; NCV, TEV “insects.”

[3:11]  ³⁶ tn Heb “and I will rebuke for you the eater and it will not ruin for you the fruit of the ground.”