Psalms 17:13

17:13 Rise up, Lord!

Confront him! ¹  Knock him down! ² 

Use your sword to rescue me from the wicked man! ³ 

Isaiah 10:5-6

The Lord Turns on Arrogant Assyria

10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, ⁴ 

a cudgel with which I angrily punish. ⁵ 

10:6 I sent him ⁶  against a godless ⁷  nation,

I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, ⁸ 

to take plunder and to carry away loot,

to trample them down ⁹  like dirt in the streets.

Ezekiel 30:24-25

30:24 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and I will place my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan like the fatally wounded before the king of Babylon. ¹⁰  30:25 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh will fall limp. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I place my sword in the hand of the king of Babylon and he extends it against the land of Egypt.

¹ tn Heb “Be in front of his face.”

² tn Or “bring him to his knees.”

³ tn Heb “rescue my life from the wicked [one] [by] your sword.”

⁴ tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.

⁵ tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”

⁶ sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).

⁷ tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”

⁸ tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”

⁹ tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “him”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.