Psalms 21:8-9

21:8 You ¹  prevail over ²  all your enemies;

your power is too great for those who hate you. ³ 

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ⁴  when you appear; ⁵ 

the Lord angrily devours them; ⁶ 

the fire consumes them.

Ezekiel 38:18-19

38:18 On that day, when Gog invades ⁷  the land of Israel, declares the sovereign Lord, my rage will mount up in my anger. 38:19 In my zeal, in the fire of my fury, ⁸  I declare that on that day there will be a great earthquake ⁹  in the land of Israel.

Romans 2:5

2:5 But because of your stubbornness ¹⁰  and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourselves in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed! ¹¹ 

Revelation 6:15-17

6:15 Then ¹²  the kings of the earth, the ¹³  very important people, the generals, ¹⁴  the rich, the powerful, and everyone, slave ¹⁵  and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 6:16 They ¹⁶  said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, ¹⁷  6:17 because the great day of their ¹⁸  wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?” ¹⁹ 

Revelation 11:18

11:18 The ²⁰  nations ²¹  were enraged,

but ²²  your wrath has come,

and the time has come for the dead to be judged,

and the time has come to give to your servants, ²³ 

the prophets, their reward,

as well as to the saints

and to those who revere ²⁴  your name, both small and great,

and the time has come ²⁵  to destroy those who destroy ²⁶  the earth.”

¹ tn The king is now addressed. One could argue that the Lord is still being addressed, but v. 9 militates against this proposal, for there the Lord is mentioned in the third person and appears to be distinct from the addressee (unless, of course, one takes “Lord” in v. 9 as vocative; see the note on “them” in v. 9b). Verse 7 begins this transition to a new addressee by referring to both the king and the Lord in the third person (in vv. 1-6 the Lord is addressed and only the king referred to in the third person).

² tn Heb “your hand finds.” The idiom pictures the king grabbing hold of his enemies and defeating them (see 1 Sam 23:17). The imperfect verbal forms in vv. 8-12 may be translated with the future tense, as long as the future is understood as generalizing.

³ tn Heb “your right hand finds those who hate you.”

⁴ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

⁵ tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

⁶ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).

⁷ tn Heb “goes up against.”

⁸ sn The phrase “in the fire of my fury” occurs in Ezek 21:31; 22:21, 31.

⁹ tn Or “shaking.”

¹⁰ tn Grk “hardness.” Concerning this imagery, see Jer 4:4; Ezek 3:7; 1 En. 16:3.

¹¹ tn Grk “in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”

¹² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

¹³ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated; nor is it translated before each of the following categories, since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

¹⁴ tn Grk “chiliarchs.” A chiliarch was normally a military officer commanding a thousand soldiers, but here probably used of higher-ranking commanders like generals (see L&N 55.15; cf. Rev 6:15).

¹⁵ tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

¹⁶ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

¹⁷ tn It is difficult to say where this quotation ends. The translation ends it after “withstand it” at the end of v. 17, but it is possible that it should end here, after “Lamb” at the end of v. 16. If it ends after “Lamb,” v. 17 is a parenthetical explanation by the author.

¹⁸ tc Most mss (A Ï bo) change the pronoun “their” to “his” (αὐτοῦ, autou) in order to bring the text in line with the mention of the one seated on the throne in the immediately preceding verse, and to remove the ambiguity about whose wrath is in view here. The reading αὐτῶν (autwn, “their”) is well supported by א C 1611 1854 2053 2329 2344 pc latt sy. On both internal and external grounds, it should be regarded as original.

¹⁹ tn The translation “to withstand (it)” for ἵστημι (Jisthmi) is based on the imagery of holding one’s ground in a military campaign or an attack (BDAG 482 s.v. B.4).

²⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

²¹ tn Or “The Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

²² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

²³ tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

²⁴ tn Grk “who fear.”

²⁵ tn The words “the time has come” do not occur except at the beginning of the verse; the phrase has been repeated for emphasis and contrast. The Greek has one finite verb (“has come”) with a compound subject (“your wrath,” “the time”), followed by three infinitive clauses (“to be judged,” “to give,” “to destroy”). The rhetorical power of the repetition of the finite verb in English thus emulates the rhetorical power of its lone instance in Greek.

²⁶ tn Or “who deprave.” There is a possible wordplay here on two meanings for διαφθείρω (diafqeirw), with the first meaning “destroy” and the second meaning either “to ruin” or “to make morally corrupt.” See L&N 20.40.