17:45 But David replied to the Philistine, “You are coming against me with sword and spear and javelin. But I am coming against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel’s armies, whom you have defied! 17:46 This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand! I will strike you down and cut off your head. This day I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land. Then all the land will realize that Israel has a God
A psalm of Asaph.
79:1 O God, foreigners 3 have invaded your chosen land; 4
they have polluted your holy temple
and turned Jerusalem 5 into a heap of ruins.
79:2 They have given the corpses of your servants
to the birds of the sky; 6
the flesh of your loyal followers
to the beasts of the earth.
79:3 They have made their blood flow like water
all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury them. 7
34:3 Their slain will be left unburied, 8
their corpses will stink; 9
the hills will soak up their blood. 10
8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, 12 the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves.
39:17 “As for you, son of man, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Tell every kind of bird and every wild beast: ‘Assemble and come! Gather from all around to my slaughter 17 which I am going to make for you, a great slaughter on the mountains of Israel! You will eat flesh and drink blood. 39:18 You will eat the flesh of warriors 18 and drink the blood of the princes of the earth – the rams, lambs, goats, and bulls, all of them fattened animals of Bashan. 39:19 You will eat fat until you are full, and drink blood until you are drunk, 19 at my slaughter 20 which I have made for you. 39:20 You will fill up at my table with horses and charioteers, 21 with warriors and all the soldiers,’ declares the sovereign Lord.
1 tc Many medieval Hebrew
2 sn Psalm 79. The author laments how the invading nations have destroyed the temple and city of Jerusalem. He asks God to forgive his people and to pour out his vengeance on those who have mistreated them.
3 tn Or “nations.”
4 tn Heb “have come into your inheritance.”
5 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
6 tn Heb “[as] food for the birds of the sky.”
7 tn Heb “they have poured out their blood like water, all around Jerusalem, and there is no one burying.”
8 tn Heb “will be cast aside”; NASB, NIV “thrown out.”
9 tn Heb “[as for] their corpses, their stench will arise.”
10 tn Heb “hills will dissolve from their blood.”
11 tn Heb “Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.”
12 tn Heb “At that time.”
13 sn There is perhaps a two-fold wordplay in the use of this word. One involves the sound play with the word for “jar,” which has been explained as a water decanter. The word here is בַקֹּתִי (vaqqoti). The word for jar in v. 1 is בַקְבֻּק (vaqbuq). There may also be a play on the literal use of this word to refer to the laying waste or destruction of a land (see Isa 24:3; Nah 2:3). Many modern commentaries think that at this point Jeremiah emptied out the contents of the jar, symbolizing the “emptying” out of their plans.
14 sn This refers to the fact that they will die in battle. The sword would be only one of the weapons that strikes them down. It is one of the trio of “sword,” “starvation,” and “disease” which were the concomitants of war referred to so often in the book of Jeremiah. Starvation is referred to in v. 9.
15 tn Heb “I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and in the hand of those who seek their soul [= life].” In this context the two are meant as obvious qualifications of one entity, not two. Some rearrangement of the qualifiers had to be made in the English translation to convey this.
16 sn See this same phrase in Jer 7:33; 16:4; 19:7.
17 tn Or “sacrifice” (so also in the rest of this verse).
18 sn See Rev 19:17-18.
19 sn Eating the fat and drinking blood were God’s exclusive rights in Israelite sacrifices (Lev 3:17).
20 tn Or “sacrifice” (so also in the rest of this verse).
21 tn Heb “chariots.”