Yehezkiel 22:13

22:13 “‘See, I strike my hands together ¹  at the dishonest profit you have made, and at the bloodshed ²  they have done among you.

Kejadian 37:24

37:24 Then they took him and threw him into the cistern. (Now the cistern was empty; ³  there was no water in it.)

Yesaya 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ⁴ 

they associate with ⁵  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ⁶  payoffs. ⁷ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ⁸ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ⁹ 

Yeremia 12:2

12:2 You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. ¹⁰ 

They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. ¹¹ 

They always talk about you,

but they really care nothing about you. ¹² 

Yeremia 51:13

51:13 “You who live along the rivers of Babylon, ¹³ 

the time of your end has come.

You who are rich in plundered treasure,

it is time for your lives to be cut off. ¹⁴ 

Yehezkiel 33:31

33:31 They come to you in crowds, ¹⁵  and they sit in front of you as ¹⁶  my people. They hear your words, but do not obey ¹⁷  them. For they talk lustfully, ¹⁸  and their heart is set on ¹⁹  their own advantage. ²⁰ 

[22:13]  ¹ sn This gesture apparently expresses mourning and/or anger (see 6:11; 21:14, 17).

[22:13]  ² tn Heb “the blood which was in you.”

[37:24]  ³ tn The disjunctive clause gives supplemental information that helps the reader or hearer to picture what happened.

[1:23]  ⁴ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ⁹ 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.

[12:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “You planted them and they took root.”

[12:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they grow and produce fruit.” For the nuance “grow” for the verb which normally means “go, walk,” see BDB 232 s.v. חָלַךְ Qal.I.3 and compare Hos 14:7.

[12:2]  ¹² tn Heb “You are near in their mouths, but far from their kidneys.” The figure of substitution is being used here, “mouth” for “words” and “kidneys” for passions and affections. A contemporary equivalent might be, “your name is always on their lips, but their hearts are far from you.”

[51:13]  ¹³ sn Babylon was situated on the Euphrates River and was surrounded by canals (also called “rivers”).

[51:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “You who live upon [or beside] many waters, rich in treasures, your end has come, the cubit of your cutting off.” The sentence has been restructured and paraphrased to provide clarity for the average reader. The meaning of the last phrase is debated. For a discussion of the two options see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:423. Most modern commentaries and English versions see an allusion to the figure in Isa 38:12 where the reference is to the end of life compared to a tapestry which is suddenly cut off from the loom. Hence, NRSV renders the last line as “the thread of your life is cut” and TEV renders “its thread of life is cut.” That idea is accepted also in HALOT 141 s.v. בצע Qal.1.

[33:31]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “as people come.” Apparently this is an idiom indicating that they come in crowds. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:264.

[33:31]  ¹⁶ tn The word “as” is supplied in the translation.

[33:31]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “do.”

[33:31]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “They do lust with their mouths.”

[33:31]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “goes after.”

[33:31]  ²⁰ tn The present translation understands the term often used for “unjust gain” in a wider sense, following M. Greenberg, who also notes that the LXX uses a term which can describe either sexual or ritual pollution. See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:687.