Leviticus 26:8

26:8 Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall before you by the sword.

Leviticus 26:37

26:37 They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though ¹  there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand ²  for you before your enemies.

Deuteronomy 32:30

32:30 How can one man chase a thousand of them, ³ 

and two pursue ten thousand;

unless their Rock had delivered them up, ⁴ 

and the Lord had handed them over?

Isaiah 30:17

30:17 One thousand will scurry at the battle cry of one enemy soldier; ⁵ 

at the battle cry of five enemy soldiers you will all run away, ⁶ 

until the remaining few are as isolated ⁷ 

as a flagpole on a mountaintop

or a signal flag on a hill.”

Jeremiah 37:10

37:10 For even if you were to defeat all the Babylonian forces ⁸  fighting against you so badly that only wounded men were left lying in their tents, they would get up and burn this city down.”’” ⁹ 

¹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) is used in a concessive sense here.

² tn The term rendered “to stand up” is a noun, not an infinitive. It occurs only here and appears to designate someone who would take a powerful stand for them against their enemies.

³ tn The words “man” and “of them” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “sold them” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

⁵ tn Heb “One thousand from before [or “because of”] one battle cry.” גְּעָרָה (gÿ’arah) is often defined as “threat,” but in war contexts it likely refers to a shout or battle cry. See Ps 76:6.

⁶ tn Heb “from before [or “because of”] the battle cry of five you will flee.

⁷ tn Heb “until you are left” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV).

⁸ tn Heb “all the army of the Chaldeans.” For the rendering “Babylonian” in place of Chaldean see the study note on 21:4.

⁹ tn The length and complexity of this English sentence violates the more simple style that has been used to conform such sentences to contemporary English style. However, there does not seem to be any alternative that would enable a simpler style and still retain the causal and conditional connections that give this sentence the rhetorical force that it has in the original. The condition is, of course, purely hypothetical and the consequence a poetic exaggeration. The intent is to assure Zedekiah that there is absolutely no hope of the city being spared.