Yesaya 1:3

1:3 An ox recognizes its owner,

a donkey recognizes where its owner puts its food; ¹ 

but Israel does not recognize me, ² 

my people do not understand.”

Yesaya 27:11

27:11 When its branches get brittle, ³  they break;

women come and use them for kindling. ⁴ 

For these people lack understanding, ⁵ 

therefore the one who made them has no compassion on them;

the one who formed them has no mercy on them.

Yeremia 2:8

2:8 Your priests ⁶  did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ ⁷ 

Those responsible for teaching my law ⁸  did not really know me. ⁹ 

Your rulers rebelled against me.

Your prophets prophesied in the name of the god Baal. ¹⁰ 

They all worshiped idols that could not help them. ¹¹ 

[1:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and the donkey the feeding trough of its owner.” The verb in the first line does double duty in the parallelism.

[1:3]  ² tn Although both verbs have no object, the parallelism suggests that Israel fails to recognize the Lord as the one who provides for their needs. In both clauses, the placement of “Israel” and “my people” at the head of the clause focuses the reader’s attention on the rebellious nation (C. van der Merwe, J. Naudé, J. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, 346-47).

[27:11]  ³ tn Heb “are dry” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[27:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “women come [and] light it.” The city is likened to a dead tree with dried up branches that is only good for firewood.

[27:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “for not a people of understanding [is] he.”

[2:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “The priests…the ones who grasp my law…the shepherds…the prophets…they…”

[2:8]  ⁷ sn See the study note on 2:6.

[2:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “those who handle my law.”

[2:8]  sn The reference is likely to the priests and Levites who were responsible for teaching the law (so Jer 18:18; cf. Deut 33:10). According to Jer 8:8 it could possibly refer to the scribes who copied the law.

[2:8]  ⁹ tn Or “were not committed to me.” The Hebrew verb rendered “know” refers to more than mere intellectual knowledge. It carries also the ideas of emotional and volitional commitment as well intimacy. See for example its use in contexts like Hos 4:1; 6:6.

[2:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “by Baal.”

[2:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and they followed after those things [the word is plural] which do not profit.” The poetic structure of the verse, four lines in which a distinct subject appears at the beginning followed by a fifth line beginning with a prepositional phrase and no distinct subject, argues that this line is climactic and refers to all four classes enumerated in the preceding lines. See W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:88-89. There may be a play or pun in the Hebrew text on the name for the god Baal (בַּעַל, ba’al) and the verb “cannot help you” (Heb “do not profit”) which is spelled יַעַל (ya’al).