1. clan. The Hebrew mishpaḥah slides from a clan proper to larger groups. It may be used here to underscore the mutual belonging of the Israelites.

2. was I intimate. The literal sense of the verb is “know,” which famously has in some contexts a sexual connotation but here is employed to suggest a special close relationship.

3. Do two walk together. These words initiate an extended anaphoric series arriving at a compelling conclusion that will not be revealed until verse 8. Everything in nature and in human affairs exhibits a pattern of cause and effect, including the call to prophecy.

4. Does the lion roar in the forest. It should be observed that all of the instances cited involve either the inspiring of fear or the creating of an entrapment: the call to prophecy is scary, and it locks the person called in a trap.

6. Is the ram’s horn sounded in the town. The shrill piercing notes of the ram’s horn were used to sound the alarm in moments of military crisis.

Is there harm within the town / and the LORD has not done it? God is introduced at the end of the series, preparing the ground for the introduction of prophecy.

7. For the Master, the LORD. This prose verse breaks the poetic series and, in the way it makes explicit the point of all the images, it looks like an editorial interpolation.

8. A lion roars. / Who does not fear? The poem in this way loops back to its beginning, making an envelope structure. Then God and prophecy will be added in the next line.

The Master, the LORD, speaks. / Who cannot prophesy? This is an idea invoked by other prophets—most strikingly, by Jeremiah. Prophecy is not experienced as a choice. The prophet feels it as an overwhelming imperative coming from God.

9. Let it be heard in the citadels of Ashdod and in the citadels of the land of Egypt. Philistia and Egypt are summoned to serve as witnesses of the shame of Samaria.

10. who store up outrage and plunder. An expressive ellipsis is put into play: what the Israelites store up in their citadels is the ill-gotten wealth amassed from acts of outrage and plunder. After the prose introduction of verses 9 and 10, the prophecy swings back into poetry, beginning with “A foe goes round the land.”

11. A foe goes round the land. The received text reads tsar wesaviv, “a foe and around.” This translation presupposes an emendation to tsar yesoveiv.

12. save / from the lion’s mouth. The verb here incorporates the sense of “to pull out from.”

so shall Israel be saved. Only a few bloody scraps will be left.

the head of a bed or at the end of a couch. There are philological grounds for thinking that the first term, peʾah, means “head of the bed” here (elsewhere, it means “corner”). The second term is obscure, and so the translation leans on the poetic parallelism. Sitting on the bed may allude to the indolence of the aristocrats of the northern kingdom.

14. the horns of the altar. The four corners of altars had hornlike protuberances, symbolic of power.

15. the winter house / together with the summer house. Many think these are the winter and summer palaces of the king, but members of the wealthy class could well have enjoyed such luxuries.

the houses of ivory. The houses were not built of ivory but decorated inside with ornamental ivory panels, some of which have been unearthed by archaeologists.

the great houses. The adjective here usually means “many” but can also mean “great,” and the target of the destruction is clearly not the habitations of the general populace but the grand homes of the aristocracy.