46:25 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all 1 says, “I will punish Amon, the god of Thebes. 2 I will punish Egypt, its gods, and its kings. I will punish Pharaoh and all who trust in him. 3
48:7 “Moab, you trust in the things you do and in your riches.
So you too will be conquered.
Your god Chemosh 4 will go into exile 5
along with his priests and his officials.
50:2 “Announce 6 the news among the nations! Proclaim it!
Signal for people to pay attention! 7
Declare the news! Do not hide it! Say:
‘Babylon will be captured.
Bel 8 will be put to shame.
Marduk will be dismayed.
Babylon’s idols will be put to shame.
Her disgusting images 9 will be dismayed. 10
51:44 I will punish the god Bel in Babylon.
I will make him spit out what he has swallowed.
The nations will not come streaming to him any longer.
Indeed, the walls of Babylon will fall.” 11
12:12 I will pass through 12 the land of Egypt in the same 13 night, and I will attack 14 all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, 15 and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. 16 I am the Lord.
19:1 Here is a message about Egypt:
Look, the Lord rides on a swift-moving cloud
and approaches Egypt.
The idols of Egypt tremble before him;
the Egyptians lose their courage. 23
21:9 Look what’s coming!
A charioteer,
a team of horses.” 24
When questioned, he replies, 25
“Babylon has fallen, fallen!
All the idols of her gods lie shattered on the ground!”
46:1 Bel 26 kneels down,
Nebo 27 bends low.
Their images weigh down animals and beasts. 28
Your heavy images are burdensome to tired animals. 29
30:13 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
I will destroy the idols,
and put an end to the gods of Memphis.
There will no longer be a prince from the land of Egypt;
so I will make the land of Egypt fearful. 30
2:11 The Lord will terrify them, 31
for 32 he will weaken 33 all the gods of the earth.
All the distant nations will worship the Lord in their own lands. 34
1 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For the significance of this title see the note at 2:19.
2 tn Heb “Amon of No.”
3 tc Heb “Behold I will punish Amon of No and Pharaoh and Egypt and its gods and its kings and Pharaoh and all who trust in him.” There appears to be a copyist slip involving a double writing of וְעַל־פַּרְעֹה (vÿ’al-par’oh). The present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and deleted the first one since the second is necessary for the syntactical connection, “Pharaoh and all who trust in him.”
4 sn Chemosh was the national god of Moab (see also Numb 21:29). Child sacrifice appears to have been a part of his worship (2 Kgs 3:27). Solomon built a high place in Jerusalem for him (1 Kgs 11:7), and he appears to have been worshiped in Israel until Josiah tore that high place down (2 Kgs 23:13).
5 sn The practice of carrying off the gods of captive nations has already been mentioned in the study note on 43:12. See also Isa 46:1-2 noted there.
6 tn The verbs are masculine plural. Jeremiah is calling on other unnamed messengers to spread the news.
7 tn Heb “Raise a signal flag.”
8 sn Bel was originally the name or title applied to the Sumerian storm god. During the height of Babylon’s power it became a title that was applied to Marduk who was Babylon’s chief deity. As a title it means “Lord.” Here it is a poetical parallel reference to Marduk mentioned in the next line.
9 tn The Hebrew word used here (גִּלּוּלִים, gillulim) is always used as a disdainful reference to idols. It is generally thought to have originally referred to “dung pellets” (cf. KBL 183 s.v. גִלּוּלִים). It is only one of several terms used in this way, such as “worthless things” (אַלִילִים, ’alilim), “vanities,” or “empty winds” (הֲבָלִים, havalim).
10 tn The verbs here are all in the tense that views the actions as though they were already done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). The verbs in the next verse are a mixture of prophetic perfects and imperfects which announce future actions.
11 tn Heb “And I will punish Bel in Babylon…And the nations will not come streaming to him anymore. Yea, the walls of Babylon have fallen.” The verbs in the first two lines are vav consecutive perfects and the verb in the third line is an imperfect all looking at the future. That indicates that the perfect that follows and the perfects that precede are all prophetic perfects. The translation adopted seemed to be the best way to make the transition from the pasts which were adopted in conjunction with the taunting use of אֵיךְ (’ekh) in v. 41 to the futures in v. 44. For the usage of גַּם (gam) to indicate a climax, “yea” or “indeed” see BDB 169 s.v. גַּם 3. It seemed to be impossible to render the meaning of v. 44 in any comprehensible way, even in a paraphrase.
12 tn The verb וְעָבַרְתִּי (vÿ’avarti) is a Qal perfect with vav (ו) consecutive, announcing the future action of God in bringing judgment on the land. The word means “pass over, across, through.” This verb provides a contextual motive for the name “Passover.”
13 tn Heb “this night.”
14 tn The verb נָכָה (nakhah) means “to strike, smite, attack”; it does not always mean “to kill,” but that is obviously its outcome in this context. This is also its use in 2:12, describing how Moses killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.
15 tn Heb “from man and to beast.”
16 tn The phrase אֶעֱשֶׂה שְׁפָטִים (’e’eseh shÿfatim) is “I will do judgments.” The statement clearly includes what had begun in Exod 6:1. But the statement that God would judge the gods of Egypt is appropriately introduced here (see also Num 33:4) because with the judgment on Pharaoh and the deliverance from bondage, Yahweh would truly show himself to be the one true God. Thus, “I am Yahweh” is fitting here (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 312).
17 sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 294-95) shows that the intent of the passage was not to make this month in the spring the New Year – that was in the autumn. Rather, when counting months this was supposed to be remembered first, for it was the great festival of freedom from Egypt. He observes how some scholars have unnecessarily tried to date one New Year earlier than the other.
18 tn The foremen vented their anger on Moses and Aaron. The two jussives express their desire that the evil these two have caused be dealt with. “May Yahweh look on you and may he judge” could mean only that God should decide if Moses and Aaron are at fault, but given the rest of the comments it is clear the foremen want more. The second jussive could be subordinated to the first – “so that he may judge [you].”
19 tn Heb “you have made our aroma stink.”
20 tn Heb “in the eyes of.”
21 tn Heb “in the eyes of his servants.” This phrase is not repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.
22 tn Heb “to put a sword in their hand to kill us.” The infinitive construct with the lamed (לָתֶת, latet) signifies the result (“so that”) of making the people stink. Their reputation is now so bad that Pharaoh might gladly put them to death. The next infinitive could also be understood as expressing result: “put a sword in their hand so that they can kill us.”
23 tn Heb “and the heart of Egypt melts within it.”
24 tn Or “[with] teams of horses,” or perhaps, “with a pair of horsemen.”
25 tn Heb “and he answered and said” (so KJV, ASV).
26 sn Bel was the name of a Babylonian god. The name was originally associated with Enlil, but later was applied to Marduk. See HALOT 132 s.v. בֵּל.
27 sn Nebo is a variation of the name of the Babylonian god Nabu.
28 tn Heb “their images belong to animals and beasts”; NIV “their idols are borne by beasts of burden”; NLT “are being hauled away.”
29 tn Heb “your loads are carried [as] a burden by a weary [animal].”
30 tn Heb “I will put fear in the land of Egypt.”
31 tn Heb “will be awesome over [or, “against”] them.”
32 tn Or “certainly.”
33 tn The meaning of this rare Hebrew word is unclear. If the meaning is indeed “weaken,” then this line may be referring to the reduction of these gods’ territory through conquest (see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah [AB 25A], 110-11). Cf. NEB “reduce to beggary”; NASB “starve”; NIV “when he destroys”; NRSV “shrivel.”
34 tn Heb “and all the coastlands of the nations will worship [or, “bow down”] to him, each from his own place.”