2 Kings 10:30

10:30 The Lord said to Jehu, “You have done well. You have accomplished my will and carried out my wishes with regard to Ahab’s dynasty. Therefore four generations of your descendants will rule over Israel.” ¹ 

Isaiah 10:6-7

10:6 I sent him ²  against a godless ³  nation,

I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, ⁴ 

to take plunder and to carry away loot,

to trample them down ⁵  like dirt in the streets.

10:7 But he does not agree with this,

his mind does not reason this way, ⁶ 

for his goal is to destroy,

and to eliminate many nations. ⁷ 

Isaiah 45:1-3

45:1 This is what the Lord says to his chosen ⁸  one,

to Cyrus, whose right hand I hold ⁹ 

in order to subdue nations before him,

and disarm kings, ¹⁰ 

to open doors before him,

so gates remain unclosed:

45:2 “I will go before you

and level mountains. ¹¹ 

Bronze doors I will shatter

and iron bars ¹²  I will hack through.

45:3 I will give you hidden treasures, ¹³ 

riches stashed away in secret places,

so you may recognize that I am the Lord,

the one who calls you by name, the God of Israel.

Jeremiah 25:9

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ¹⁴  I will send for all the peoples of the north ¹⁵  and my servant, ¹⁶  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy ¹⁷  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ¹⁸  and make them everlasting ruins. ¹⁹  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ²⁰ 

¹ tn Heb “Because you have done well by doing what is proper in my eyes – according to all which was in my heart you have done to the house of Ahab – sons of four generations will sit for you on the throne of Israel.” In the Hebrew text the Lord’s statement is one long sentence (with a parenthesis). The translation above divides it into shorter sentences for stylistic reasons.

² sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).

³ tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”

⁴ tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”

⁵ tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”

⁶ tn Heb “but he, not so does he intend, and his heart, not so does it think.”

⁷ tn Heb “for to destroy [is] in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.”

⁸ tn Heb “anointed” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NCV “his appointed king.”

⁹ sn The “right hand” is a symbol of activity and strength; the Lord directs Cyrus’ activities and assures his success.

¹⁰ tn Heb “and the belts of kings I will loosen”; NRSV “strip kings of their robes”; NIV “strip kings of their armor.”

¹¹ tc The form הֲדוּרִים (hadurim) makes little, if any, sense here. It is probably a corruption of an original הָרָרִים (hararim, “mountains”), the reduplicated form of הָר (har, “mountain”).

¹² tn That is, on the gates. Cf. CEV “break the iron bars on bronze gates.”

¹³ tn Heb “treasures of darkness” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “treasures from dark, secret places.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹⁵ sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon which included within it contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20 for earlier allusions.

¹⁶ sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6; 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6) and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.

¹⁷ tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah see 50:21, 26; 51:3.

¹⁸ tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (this land, its inhabitants, and the nations surrounding it) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.

¹⁹ sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).

²⁰ tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the latter.