2 Kings 13:7

13:7 Jehoahaz had no army left ¹  except for fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and 10,000 foot soldiers. The king of Syria had destroyed his troops ²  and trampled on them like dust. ³ 

Psalms 35:5

35:5 May they be ⁴  like wind-driven chaff,

as the Lord’s angel ⁵  attacks them! ⁶ 

Daniel 2:35

2:35 Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were broken in pieces without distinction ⁷  and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors that the wind carries away. Not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a large mountain that filled the entire earth.

Malachi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ⁸  “For indeed the day ⁹  is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It ¹⁰  will not leave even a root or branch.

¹ tn Heb “Indeed he did not leave to Jehoahaz people.” The identity of the subject is uncertain, but the king of Syria, mentioned later in the verse, is a likely candidate.

² tn Heb “them,” i.e., the remainder of this troops.

³ tn Heb “and made them like dust for trampling.”

⁴ tn The prefixed verbal form is taken as a jussive. See v. 4.

⁵ sn See the mention of the Lord’s angel in Ps 34:7.

⁶ tn Heb “as the Lord’s angel pushes [them].”

⁷ tn Aram “as one.” For the meaning “without distinction” see the following: F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 36, §64, and p. 93; E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 60.

⁸ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.

⁹ sn This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.

¹⁰ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.