1For, look, the Master, LORD of Armies,
is about to take away from Jerusalem and from Judah
staff and stay,
every staff of bread
and every staff of water,
2warrior and fighting man,
judge and prophet and wizard and elder,
3commander of fifty and notable
and councillor and craftsman and caster of spells.
4And I shall make lads their commanders
and babes shall rule them.
5And the people shall oversee each other,
one man and his fellow.
The lad shall lord it over the elder,
and the worthless over the honored.
6Should a man take hold of his brother
in his father’s house:
“You have a cloak. You shall be our captain
and this stumbling block under your hand.”
7He shall speak out on that day, saying,
“I will be no dresser of wounds
when there is no bread nor cloak in my house.
You shall not make me the people’s captain.”
8For Jerusalem has stumbled
and Judah has fallen.
For their tongue and their acts are against the LORD
to defy His glorious gaze.
9The look of their face bears witness against them,
and their offense is like Sodom.
They have told it, they did not hide it.
Alas for them,
for they have paid themselves back with evil.
10One says: it is good for the righteous,
for the fruit of his deeds he enjoys.
11Alas, for the wicked, there is evil,
for as his hands have done, it will be done to him.
12My people’s overseers are babes,
and women rule over them.
My people, those who guide you mislead you
and the course of your paths they confound.
13The LORD is stationed to plead in court,
and stands to judge peoples.
14The LORD shall come in judgment
with His people’s elders and commanders.
As for you, you have ravaged the vineyard,
what is robbed from the poor—in your homes.
15Why should you crush my people
and grind down the face of the poor?
Word of the Master LORD of Armies.
16And the LORD said:
Since Zion’s daughters are haughty,
and they walk with necks thrust forth
and with wanton eyes,
walking with mincing steps
17the Master shall blight the pates of Zion’s daughters
and expose their private parts.
18On that day the Master shall take away
the splendid ankle bells and the headgear
19and the crescents and the pendants
and the bracelets and the veils
20and the necklaces and the armlets
and the sashes and the amulets and the charms,
21the finger-rings and the nose-rings,
22the robes and the wraps and the shawls and the purses,
23and the gowns and the draped cloths
and the turbans and the capes.
24For instead of perfume, rot shall be,
and instead of beaten-work, baldness,
and instead of rich nobles, girding of sackcloth,
25Your men shall fall by the sword,
your valor, in battle.
26And her gates shall mourn and lament,
and stripped, she shall sit on the ground.
4:1And seven women shall take hold of
one man on that day,
saying, “We shall eat our own bread,
we shall wear our own cloak.
Only let your name be called upon us.
Gather in our shame.”
CHAPTER 3 NOTES
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4. I shall make lads their commanders. In the political chaos that God will trigger, with all the leaders taken away (verses 1–3), mere lads and babes will be left to lead the people.
6. this stumbling block under your hand. There might be a distant play on words between makhshelah, “stumbling block,” and memshalah, “government.” In the general state of political disarray, government has turned into a stumbling block.
8. For Jerusalem has stumbled. This line pointedly picks up “stumbling block” from verse 6.
12. My people’s overseers are babes, / and women rule over them. This line reverts to the evocation of a comprehensive absence of leadership that was announced at the beginning of the prophecy. In the patriarchal view—despite the exceptional instance of Deborah in Judges 4–5—women are no fitter than babes to govern.
14. As for you. The emphatic use of the second-person plural pronoun, usually not stated before the conjugated form of the verb, is probably directed to the elders and commanders mentioned at the end of the preceding line of verse. This makes thematic sense of the removal of the leaders of the people that has been stressed from the beginning of the poem: these so-called leaders enrich themselves with goods robbed from the poor, grind down their faces, and so it is a leadership that must be revoked.
16. with necks thrust forth. The idea is that these elegant Jerusalemite women go about with their noses stuck up in the air.
jingling with their feet. They are wearing some sort of ankle bracelets, which jingle as they walk in their mincing, seductive gait.
17. expose their private parts. Though some modern translations understand the rare Hebrew word pot as “head,” a word close to it occurs elsewhere in the sense of “aperture” or “socket,” and here indicates an orifice, as the King James Version understood (“secret parts”), in keeping with traditional Hebrew commentators. The verb used is a term for the exposing of nakedness. Pot is the word for “vagina” in modern Hebrew.
18–23. the splendid ankle bells and the headgear / and the crescents and the pendants. . . . This long catalogue of items of apparel and jewelry includes quite a few terms occurring nowhere else that are of uncertain meaning as well as some others that occur elsewhere which can be confidently identified (for example, “armlets,” “veils,” “shawls”). To understand the prophet’s rage at these aristocratic women flirtatiously parading about in their expensive finery, one might imagine a contemporary social critic, dismayed and indignant over the plight of the homeless of New York, who sees the rich matrons of Manhattan walking along Madison Avenue in their designer dresses and coats, with shopping bags filled with more of the same.
24. instead of perfume, rot. There is a verbal violence in the strong antithesis between perfume and stinking “rot,” which in the Hebrew, as in the English, is a monosyllable: maq.
rope. The Hebrew niqpah occurs only here. Since Late Antiquity, it has been linked with a verbal root that means “to go around”—hence the translation “rope.” But some translators see it in a different root and understand it to mean “blow.”
instead of beaten-work, baldness. This is what the Hebrew says, but it is a little odd because one would expect “baldness” to replace something like “fine tresses,” not an ornament made of metal. Perhaps this is a metal ornament worn in the hair.
for instead of beauty, shame. The Masoretic Text reads only “for instead of beauty.” The Qumran Isaiah, however, as well as two ancient translations, shows a reading with the word “shame,” which seems far more likely.
25. Your men. The Hebrew possessive suffix is a feminine plural, as the prophet is now angrily addressing the daughters of Zion directly, whereas until this point they have been referred to in the third person. He has announced that they will be stripped of their finery; now he tells them they will also be deprived of their men, who will perish in battle.
26. stripped. The Hebrew word is problematic. This form would ordinarily mean “she shall be clean.”
4:1. The prophecy that began in 3:16 ends in this first verse of chapter 4.
seven women shall take hold of / one man. With much of the eligible male population wiped out on the battlefield, there are no longer enough men to go around. The women forcibly grab the man they find, afraid to let him get away.
We shall eat our own bread, / we shall wear our own cloak. We do not even ask, they say to the man, that you provide material support for us, according to the accepted practice. All we want is that you redeem us from our unmarried state, which is a “disgrace” for nubile women, and that you let us take your name.