Yesaya 57:9

57:9 You take olive oil as tribute ¹  to your king, ² 

along with many perfumes. ³ 

You send your messengers to a distant place;

you go all the way to Sheol. ⁴ 

Yesaya 57:2

57:2 Those who live uprightly enter a place of peace;

they rest on their beds. ⁵ 

Kisah Para Rasul 17:4

17:4 Some of them were persuaded ⁶  and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large group ⁷  of God-fearing Greeks ⁸  and quite a few ⁹  prominent women.

Hosea 7:11-12

Israel Turns to Assyria and Egypt for Help

7:11 Ephraim has been like a dove,

easily deceived and lacking discernment.

They called to Egypt for help;

they turned to Assyria for protection.

7:12 I will throw my bird net over them while they are flying,

I will bring them down like birds in the sky;

I will discipline them when I hear them flocking together.

Hosea 7:16

7:16 They turn to Baal; ¹⁰ 

they are like an unreliable bow.

Their leaders will fall by the sword

because their prayers to Baal ¹¹  have made me angry.

So people will disdain them in the land of Egypt. ¹² 

[57:9]  ¹ tn Heb “you journey with oil.”

[57:9]  ² tn Heb “the king.” Since the context refers to idolatry and child sacrifice (see v. 5), some emend מֶלֶך (melekh, “king”) to “Molech.” Perhaps Israel’s devotion to her idols is likened here to a subject taking tribute to a ruler.

[57:9]  ³ tn Heb “and you multiply your perfumes.”

[57:9]  ⁴ sn Israel’s devotion to her idols is inordinate, irrational, and self-destructive.

[57:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “he enters peace, they rest on their beds, the one who walks straight ahead of himself.” The tomb is here viewed in a fairly positive way as a place where the dead are at peace and sleep undisturbed.

[17:4]  ⁶ tn Or “convinced.”

[17:4]  ⁷ tn Or “a large crowd.”

[17:4]  ⁸ tn Or “of devout Greeks,” but this is practically a technical term for the category called God-fearers, Gentiles who worshiped the God of Israel and in many cases kept the Mosaic law, but did not take the final step of circumcision necessary to become a proselyte to Judaism. See further K. G. Kuhn, TDNT 6:732-34, 743-44. Luke frequently mentions such people (Acts 13:43, 50; 16:14; 17:17; 18:7).

[17:4]  ⁹ tn Grk “not a few”; this use of negation could be misleading to the modern English reader, however, and so has been translated as “quite a few” (which is the actual meaning of the expression).

[7:16]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reads the enigmatic יָשׁוּבוּ לֹא עָל (yashuvu lo’ ’al) which is taken variously: “they turn, but not upward” (NASB); “they do not turn to the Most High” (NIV); “they return, but not to the most High” (KJV). The BHS editors suggest יָשׁוּבוּ לַבַּעַל (yashuvu labba’al, “they turn to Baal”; so RSV) or יָשׁוּבוּ לַבְּלִיַּעַל (yashuvu labbÿliyya’al, “they turn to Belial”) which is reflected by the LXX.

[7:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “because their tongue.” The term “tongue” is used figuratively, as a metonymy of cause (tongue) for the effect (prayers to Baal).

[7:16]  ¹² tn Heb “this [will] be for scorn in the land of Egypt”; NIV “they will be ridiculed (NAB shall be mocked) in the land of Egypt.”