Deuteronomy 32:14

32:14 butter from the herd

and milk from the flock,

along with the fat of lambs,

rams and goats of Bashan,

along with the best of the kernels of wheat;

and from the juice of grapes you drank wine.

Deuteronomy 32:42

32:42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,

and my sword will devour flesh –

the blood of the slaughtered and captured,

the chief¹ of the enemy’s leaders!’”

Psalms 17:13

17:13 Rise up, Lord!

Confront him!² Knock him down!³

Use your sword to rescue me from the wicked man!⁴

Jeremiah 46:10

46:10 But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all.⁵

It is the day when he will pay back his enemies.⁶

His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied!

It will drink their blood until it is full!⁷

For the Lord God who rules over all⁸ will offer them up as a sacrifice

in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

Jeremiah 47:6

47:6 How long will you cry out,⁹ ‘Oh, sword of the Lord,

how long will it be before you stop killing?¹⁰

Go back into your sheath!

Stay there and rest!’¹¹

Ezekiel 21:3-5

21:3 and say to them,¹² ‘This is what the Lord says: Look,¹³ I am against you.¹⁴ I will draw my sword¹⁵ from its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked.¹⁶ 21:4 Because I will cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked, my sword will go out from its sheath against everyone¹⁷ from the south¹⁸ to the north. 21:5 Then everyone will know that I am the Lord, who drew my sword from its sheath – it will not be sheathed again!’

Ezekiel 21:9-11

21:9 “Son of man, prophesy and say: ‘This is what the Lord says:

“‘A sword, a sword is sharpened,

and also polished.

21:10 It is sharpened for slaughter,

it is polished to flash like lightning!

“‘Should we rejoice in the scepter of my son? No! The sword despises every tree!¹⁹

21:11 “‘He gave it to be polished,

to be grasped in the hand –

the sword is sharpened, it is polished –

giving it into the hand of the executioner.

Zephaniah 2:12

2:12 “You²⁰ Ethiopians²¹ will also die by my sword!”²²

Revelation 1:16

1:16 He held²³ seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword extended out of his mouth. His²⁴ face shone like the sun shining at full strength.

¹tn Or “head” (the same Hebrew word can mean “head” in the sense of “leader, chieftain” or “head” in the sense of body part).

²tn Heb “Be in front of his face.”

³tn Or “bring him to his knees.”

⁴tn Heb “rescue my life from the wicked [one] [by] your sword.”

⁵tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

⁶sn Most commentators think that this is a reference to the Lord exacting vengeance on Pharaoh Necho for killing Josiah, carrying Jehoahaz off into captivity, and exacting heavy tribute on Judah in 609 b.c. (2 Kgs 23:29, 33-35).

⁷tn Or more paraphrastically, “he will kill them/ until he has exacted full vengeance”; Heb “The sword will eat and be sated; it will drink its fill of their blood.”

⁸tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

⁹tn The words “How long will you cry out” are not in the text but some such introduction seems necessary because the rest of the speech assumes a personal subject.

¹⁰tn Heb “before you are quiet/at rest.”

¹¹sn The passage is highly figurative. The sword of the Lord, which is itself a figure of the destructive agency of the enemy armies, is here addressed as a person and is encouraged in rhetorical questions (the questions are designed to dissuade) to “be quiet,” “be at rest,” “be silent,” all of which is designed to get the Lord to call off the destruction against the Philistines.

¹²tn Heb “the land of Israel.”

¹³tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something and has been translated here as a verb.

¹⁴tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

¹⁵sn This is the sword of judgment, see Isa 31:8; 34:6; 66:16.

¹⁶sn Ezekiel elsewhere pictures the Lord’s judgment as discriminating between the righteous and the wicked (9:4-6; 18:1-20; see as well Pss 1 and 11) and speaks of the preservation of a remnant (3:21; 6:8; 12:16). Perhaps here he exaggerates for rhetorical effect in an effort to subdue any false optimism. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:25-26; D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:669-70; and W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (Hermeneia), 1:424-25.

¹⁷tn Heb “all flesh” (also in the following verse).

¹⁸tn Heb “Negev.” The Negev is the south country.

¹⁹tn Heb “Or shall we rejoice, scepter of my son, it despises every tree.” The translation understands the subject of the verb “despises,” which is a feminine form in the Hebrew text, to be the sword (which is a feminine noun) mentioned just before this. Alternatively, the line may be understood as “let us not rejoice, O tribe of my son; it despises every tree.” The same word in Hebrew may be either “rod,” “scepter,” or “tribe.” The word sometimes translated as “or” or taken as an interrogative particle may be a negative particle. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:672, n. 79.

²⁰sn Though there is no formal introduction, these words are apparently spoken by the Lord (note my sword).

²¹tn Heb “Cushites.” This is traditionally assumed to refer to people from the region south of Egypt, i.e., Nubia or northern Sudan, referred to as “Ethiopia” by classical authors (not the more recent Abyssinia).

²²tn Heb “Also you Cushites, who lie dead by my sword.”

²³tn Grk “and having.” In the Greek text this is a continuation of the previous sentence, but because contemporary English style employs much shorter sentences, a new sentence was started here in the translation by supplying the pronoun “he.”

²⁴tn This is a continuation of the previous sentence in the Greek text, but a new sentence was started here in the translation.