Mazmur 58:2-3

58:2 No! ¹  You plan how to do what is unjust; ² 

you deal out violence in the earth. ³ 

58:3 The wicked turn aside from birth; ⁴ 

liars go astray as soon as they are born. ⁵ 

Yesaya 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ⁶ 

they associate with ⁷  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ⁸  payoffs. ⁹ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ¹⁰ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ¹¹ 

[58:2]  ¹ tn The particle אַף (’af, “no”) is used here as a strong adversative emphasizing the following statement, which contrasts reality with the rulers’ claim alluded to in the rhetorical questions (see Ps 44:9).

[58:2]  ² tn Heb “in the heart unjust deeds you do.” The phrase “in the heart” (i.e., “mind”) seems to refer to their plans and motives. The Hebrew noun עַוְלָה (’avlah, “injustice”) is collocated with פָּעַל (pa’al, “do”) here and in Job 36:23 and Ps 119:3. Some emend the plural form עוֹלֹת (’olot, “unjust deeds”; see Ps 64:6) to the singular עָוֶל (’avel, “injustice”; see Job 34:32), taking the final tav (ת) as dittographic (note that the following verbal form begins with tav). Some then understand עָוֶל (’avel, “injustice”) as a genitive modifying “heart” and translate, “with a heart of injustice you act.”

[58:2]  ³ tn Heb “in the earth the violence of your hands you weigh out.” The imagery is from the economic realm. The addressees measure out violence, rather than justice, and distribute it like a commodity. This may be ironic, since justice was sometimes viewed as a measuring scale (see Job 31:6).

[58:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the womb.”

[58:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “speakers of a lie go astray from the womb.”

[1:23]  ⁶ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ⁸ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ¹¹ 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.