12:12 A destructive army 1 will come marching
over the hilltops in the desert.
For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon 2
against 3 everyone from one end of the land to the other.
No one will be safe. 4
50:37 Destructive forces will come against her horses and her 5 chariots.
Destructive forces will come against all the foreign troops within her; 6
they will be as frightened as women! 7
Destructive forces will come against her treasures;
they will be taken away as plunder!
51:25 The Lord says, 8 “Beware! I am opposed to you, Babylon! 9
You are like a destructive mountain that destroys all the earth.
I will unleash my power against you; 10
I will roll you off the cliffs and make you like a burned-out mountain. 11
1 tn Heb “destroyers.”
2 tn Heb “It is the
3 tn Heb “For a sword of the
4 tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”
5 tn Hebrew has “his” in both cases here whereas the rest of the possessive pronouns throughout vv. 35-37 are “her.” There is no explanation for this switch unless the third masculine singular refers as a distributive singular to the soldiers mentioned in the preceding verse (cf. GKC 464 §145.l). This is probably the case here, but to refer to “their horses and their chariots” in the midst of all the “her…” might create more confusion than what it is worth to be that pedantic.
6 tn Or “in the country,” or “in her armies”; Heb “in her midst.”
7 tn Heb “A sword against his horses and his chariots and against all the mixed company [or mixed multitude] in her midst and they will become like women.” The sentence had to be split up because it is too long and the continuation of the second half with its consequential statement would not fit together with the first half very well. Hence the subject and verb have been repeated. The Hebrew word translated “foreign troops” (עֶרֶב, ’erev) is the same word that is used in 25:20 to refer to the foreign peoples living in Egypt and in Exod 12:38 for the foreign people that accompanied Israel out of Egypt. Here the word is translated contextually to refer to foreign mercenaries, an identification that most of the commentaries and many of the modern English versions accept (see, e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 355; NRSV; NIV). The significance of the simile “they will become like women” has been spelled out for the sake of clarity.
9 tn Heb “Oracle of the
10 tn The word “Babylon” is not in the text but is universally understood as the referent. It is supplied in the translation here to clarify the referent for the sake of the average reader.
11 tn Heb “I will reach out my hand against you.” See the translator’s note on 6:12 for explanation.
12 tn Heb “I am against you, oh destroying mountain that destroys all the earth. I will reach out my hand against you and roll you down from the cliffs and make you a mountain of burning.” The interpretation adopted here follows the lines suggested by S. R. Driver, Jeremiah, 318, n. c and reflected also in BDB 977 s.v. שְׂרֵפָה. Babylon is addressed as a destructive mountain because it is being compared to a volcano. The