NRSV

[5] O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!

[6] For you have forsaken the ways of your people, O house of Jacob.

Indeed they are full of diviners from the east, and of soothsayers like the Philistines, 

And they clasp hands with foreigners. 

[7] Their land is filled with silver and gold, and there is no end to their treasures;

Their land is filled with horses, and there is no end to their chariots

[8] Their land is filled with idols; they bow down to the work of their hands,

To what their own fingers have made. 

[9] And so people are humbled, 

and everyone is brought low — do not forgive them!

[10] Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust

From the terror of the LORD, and from the glory of his majesty. 

LXX

[5] And now, house of Jakob,

Come, we depart to the light of the Lord.

[6] He has neglected his people, the house of Israel,

Because they have filled up their land as from the beginning with divination,

As the other tribes,

And many children by other tribes were begat to them.

[7] For their country was full of silver and gold,

And there was not a number for their treasures;

And the earth was full of horses,

And there was not a number for their chariots.

[8] And the earth was full of abominations, the works of their hands,

And they made obeisance to that which their fingers made.

[9] And a person shall bow down, and a man shall be humbled,

And I shall certainly not neglect them.

[10] And now go into the rock and hide in the earth

From the face of the fear of the Lord, and from the glory of his strength,

Whenever he should rise to shake the earth.

Notes on Text

This passage has two main motifs, which are interrelated.  First, there is a very interesting succession imagery in vv. 7 and vv. 8, wherein vv. 7 there is imagery of lands filled with silver, gold, treasures, horses, and chariots, which is to say symbols of worldly wealth and power.  Verse 8 then copies the phrasing of the previous verse to describe idols (or in the Greek text literally ‘abominations’). The heavy implication here is that the pursuit of wealth and power are themselves a form of idolatry. 

In the LXX text, two uses of the word ἀνίημι aniēmi bookend the core argument that wealth and power are like idolatry. It first appears in vv. 6 and then again in vv. 9.  I have translated this word as ‘neglected’ in both instances, but doing so creates a situation in which God declares that he has neglected his people and then later says that he will certainly not neglect them. Notably the NETS translates this pairing as neglect / forgive. In the Greek, the implication is that to forgive is to neglect to collect something rightfully owed or justly retaliate for a wrong that has been committed, and so perhaps we should read vv. 6 as reading something along the lines of “He has neglected [to do well by] his people…” whereas in vv. 9 we should read it as “And I shall certainly not neglect [punishing] them.”

Notably the NRSV sidesteps this issue completely, by describing the house of Jacob as having forsaken the ways of its people in vv. 6, rather than having God forsake them.  The NRSV also describes this forsaking as a results of divination and clasping hands with foreigners, whereas the LXX is much more explicit that part of the problem is interbreeding with foreigners.  The Greek word here is ἀλλόφυλος allophylos, which is just the word for ‘other’ attached to a word that means ‘tribe.’ This call for ethnic isolation or purity is fairly common in parts of the Hebrew Bible, and it is often the case that the adoption of idolatry is blamed on marrying foreigners (e.g. 1 Kings spends 10 chapters describing the fidelity and wisdom of Solomon, who built the first temple for God, and then in Ch. 11 describes him as loving many foreign women, who turn his heart away from God in old age). 

The passage then concludes by saying that people shall be humbled and hide in the dirt from the glory and majesty of God. As we shall see in the next post, this neatly leads into some future arguments about how the splendor of God relates to worldly power.