NRSV

[21] How the faithful city has become a whore!

She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her–but now murderers!

[22] Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.

[23] Your princes are rebels, and companions of thieves.

Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts.

They do not defend the orphan, 

And the widow’s cause does not come before them.

[24] Therefore says the Sovereign, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel;

Ah, I will pour out my wrath on my enemies,

And avenge myself on my foes!

[25] I will turn my hand against you;

I will smelt away your dross as with lye

And remove all your alloy.

[26] And I will restore your judges as the first,

And your counselors as at the beginning.

Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness,

The faithful city.

[27] Zion shall be redeemed by justice,

And those in her who repent, by righteousness.

[28] But rebels and sinners shall be destroyed together,

And those who forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

[29] For you shall be ashamed of the oaks in which you delighted;

And you shall blush for the gardens you have chosen.

[30] For you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water.

[31] The strong shall become like tinder, and their work like a spark

They and their work shall burn together, with no one to quench them.

LXX

[21] How the faithful city Zion has become a prostitute,

In it righteousness has slept, but now it is a murderer.

[22] Your silver is without value; your innkeepers mix wine and water.

[23] Your rulers are disobedient, companions of thieves,

Loving gifts, pursuing rewards,

For orphans they are not judges and the judgment of widows they do not attend.

[24] Because of this, this is what the despot, Lord of the Sabbath says

Woe, the strong ones of Israel

For my wrath shall not cease against the ones who oppose 

And I shall make a judgment from my enemies. 

[25] And I shall bring my hands upon you and I shall burn you into purity,

But the disobedient I shall destroy

And I shall remove all the lawless from you

And all the arrogant I shall humble.

[26] And I shall appoint judges for you as at the first,

And counselors for you as from the beginning.

And with these it shall be called

A city of righteousness, a metropolis of faith, Zion.

[27] For with judgment her captives shall be saved, and with mercy;

[28] And the lawless shall be shattered and at the same time the sinners,

And the ones who forsake shall be finished by the Lord.

[29] Since they are dishonored by their idols, which they choose

And they are ashamed by their gardens, which they long for.

[30] For they shall be as a terebinth tree shedding its leaves 

And as a garden not having water. 

[31] And their strength shall be as a stalk of flax

And their works as a spark of fire,

And the lawless shall be burned up at the same time as the sinners, 

And there shall not be anyone to extinguish them. 

Notes on Text

Okay, so two posts ago we were discussing vv. 26, wherein God promises to restore a counsel of judges, as Israel was ruled prior to the monarchy, and in our last post we briefly digressed to look at another example of pro-judge and anti-monarchy sentiment in the Hebrew Bible.  We should keep the fact that God is apparently promising political overthrow in mind while we read the rest of the passage.  Returning for example, to vv. 22-23, “your silver is worthless” might be read as a criticism of debased silver coinage by the ruling class, and the vv. 23 explicitly condemns “the rulers.” The Greek here is ἂρχων archōn, which means “ruler” but is descended from a verb that means “to begin,” which adds the sense of “first citizens” and could be read as indicating a slightly broader slice of the ruling class than just the king.  This sense that criticism is being leveled at a broader class of powerful people is heightened by the term “the strong ones” in vv. 24.  

There is also an interesting difference between the NRSV text and the LXX text in these early verses. The NRSV in vv. 22 reads “Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water,” which reads as a complaint that purity has been lost, whereas the LXX text reads “Your silver is without value; your innkeepers mix wine and water,” which has a more ambiguous message. In vv. 24, the NRSV reads:

Therefore says the Sovereign, the LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel;

Ah, I will pour out my wrath on my enemies,

And avenge myself on my foes!

Whereas the LXX text reads:

Because of this, this is what the despot, Lord of the Sabbath says

Woe, the strong ones of Israel

For my wrath shall not cease against the ones who oppose 

And I shall make a judgment from my enemies.

This is perhaps an instance where translated the Hebrew into Greek caused a change in phrasing, since “the Might One of Israel” and “woe, the strong ones of Israel” are actually quite similarly worded. This change makes the LXX explicit in numbering the ruling class among God’s enemies, whereas the NRSV relies on context to convey this impression. 

The text then proceeds to talk about God’s wrath. Who specifically is receiving God’s wrath has evolved over the course of chapter 1, in vv. 1-9, it seems like there is a distinction between Israel, which is being punished, and Judah, which is being warned. “Daugther Zion” is described as besieged, and nearly suffering the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the rulers of Judah are compared to the rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Zion is then described as a whore, although this description seems primarily directed at its rule class, who are described as God’s enemies, and in vv. 24, we hear of his judgment against these enemies. The word here is κρίσις krisis, which is the same word used in vv. 23 in the phrase “the judgment of widows,” but here obviously with a quite different meaning. 

This judgment is then described in quite wonderful imagery over the remainder of the chapter, which we will discuss in more detail in the next post.