103:20 Praise the Lord, you angels of his,
you powerful warriors who carry out his decrees
and obey his orders! 1
10:34 The thickets of the forest will be chopped down with an ax,
and mighty Lebanon will fall. 2
13:3 I have given orders to my chosen soldiers; 3
I have summoned the warriors through whom I will vent my anger, 4
my boasting, arrogant ones. 5
37:36 The Lord’s messenger 6 went out and killed 185,000 troops 7 in the Assyrian camp. When they 8 got up early the next morning, there were all the corpses! 9
1:7 Your land is devastated,
your cities burned with fire.
Right before your eyes your crops
are being destroyed by foreign invaders. 11
They leave behind devastation and destruction. 12
1 tn Heb “[you] mighty ones of strength, doers of his word, by listening to the voice of his word.”
2 tn The Hebrew text has, “and Lebanon, by/as [?] a mighty one, will fall.” The translation above takes the preposition בְּ (bet) prefixed to “mighty one” as indicating identity, “Lebanon, as a mighty one, will fall.” In this case “mighty one” describes Lebanon. (In Ezek 17:23 and Zech 11:2 the adjective is used of Lebanon’s cedars.) Another option is to take the preposition as indicating agency and interpret “mighty one” as a divine title (see Isa 33:21). One could then translate, “and Lebanon will fall by [the agency of] the Mighty One.”
3 tn Heb “my consecrated ones,” i.e., those who have been set apart by God for the special task of carrying out his judgment.
4 tn Heb “my warriors with respect to my anger.”
5 tn Heb “the boasting ones of my pride”; cf. ASV, NASB, NRSV “my proudly exulting ones.”
6 tn Traditionally, “the angel of the Lord” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
7 tn The word “troops” is supplied in the translation for smoothness and clarity.
8 tn This refers to the Israelites and/or the rest of the Assyrian army.
9 tn Heb “look, all of them were dead bodies”; NLT “they found corpses everywhere.”
10 tn Heb “elders of the priests” (so KJV, NAB, NASB); NCV “the older priests”; NRSV, TEV, CEV “the senior priests.”
11 tn Heb “As for your land, before you foreigners are devouring it.”
12 tn Heb “and [there is] devastation like an overthrow by foreigners.” The comparative preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like, as”) has here the rhetorical nuance, “in every way like.” The point is that the land has all the earmarks of a destructive foreign invasion because that is what has indeed happened. One could paraphrase, “it is desolate as it can only be when foreigners destroy.” On this use of the preposition in general, see GKC 376 §118.x. Many also prefer to emend “foreigners” here to “Sodom,” though there is no external attestation for such a reading in the
13 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
14 tn On the term translated “fine linen,” BDAG 185 s.v. βύσσινος states, “made of fine linen, subst. τὸ β. fine linen, linen garment…Rv 18:12, 16; 19:8, 14.”