2 Chronicles 29:9

29:9 Look, our fathers died violently ¹  and our sons, daughters, and wives were carried off ²  because of this.

Jeremiah 11:22

11:22 So the Lord who rules over all ³  said, “I will surely ⁴  punish them! Their young men will be killed in battle. ⁵  Their sons and daughters will die of starvation.

Jeremiah 14:18

14:18 If I go out into the countryside,

I see those who have been killed in battle.

If I go into the city,

I see those who are sick because of starvation. ⁶ 

For both prophet and priest go about their own business

in the land without having any real understanding.’” ⁷ 

Jeremiah 18:21

18:21 So let their children die of starvation.

Let them be cut down by the sword. ⁸ 

Let their wives lose their husbands and children.

Let the older men die of disease ⁹ 

and the younger men die by the sword in battle.

Jeremiah 19:7

19:7 In this place I will thwart ¹⁰  the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword ¹¹  at the hands of their enemies. ¹²  I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat.

Jeremiah 21:9

21:9 Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians who are besieging it will live. They will escape with their lives. ¹³ 

Lamentations 2:21

ש (Sin/Shin)

2:21 The young boys and old men

lie dead on the ground in the streets.

My young women ¹⁴  and my young men

have fallen by the sword.

You killed them when you were angry; ¹⁵ 

you slaughtered them without mercy. ¹⁶ 

Amos 9:10

9:10 All the sinners among my people will die by the sword –

the ones who say, ‘Disaster will not come near, it will not confront us.’

[29:9]  ¹ tn Heb “fell by the sword.”

[29:9]  ² tn Heb “are in captivity.”

[11:22]  ³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[11:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “Behold I will.” For the function of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.

[11:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “will die by the sword.” Here “sword” stands contextually for “battle” while “starvation” stands for death by starvation during siege.

[14:18]  ⁶ tn The word “starvation” has been translated “famine” elsewhere in this passage. It is the word which refers to hunger. The “starvation” here may be war induced and not simply that which comes from famine per se. “Starvation” will cover both.

[14:18]  ⁷ tn The meaning of these last two lines is somewhat uncertain. The meaning of these two lines is debated because of the uncertainty of the meaning of the verb rendered “go about their business” (סָחַר, sakhar) and the last phrase translated here “without any real understanding.” The verb in question most commonly occurs as a participle meaning “trader” or “merchant” (cf., e.g., Ezek 27:21, 36; Prov 31:14). It occurs as a finite verb elsewhere only in Gen 34:10, 21; 42:34 and there in a literal sense of “trading,” “doing business.” While the nuance is metaphorical here it need not extend to “journeying into” (cf., e.g., BDB 695 s.v. סָחַר Qal.1) and be seen as a reference to exile as is sometimes assumed. That seems at variance with the causal particle which introduces this clause, the tense of the verb, and the surrounding context. People are dying in the land (vv. 17-18a) not because prophet and priest have gone (the verb is the Hebrew perfect or past) into exile but because prophet and priest have no true knowledge of God or the situation. The clause translated here “without having any real understanding” (Heb “and they do not know”) is using the verb in the absolute sense indicated in BDB 394 s.v. יָדַע Qal.5 and illustrated in Isa 1:3; 56:10. For a more thorough discussion of the issues one may consult W. McKane, Jeremiah (ICC), 1:330-31.

[18:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “be poured out to the hand [= power] of the sword.” For this same expression see Ezek 35:5; Ps 63:10 (63:11 HT). Comparison with those two passages show that it involved death by violent means, perhaps death in battle.

[18:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “be slain by death.” The commentaries are generally agreed that this refers to death by disease or plague as in 15:2. Hence, the reference is to the deadly trio of sword, starvation, and disease which were often connected with war. See the notes on 15:2.

[19:7]  ¹⁰ sn There is perhaps a two-fold wordplay in the use of this word. One involves the sound play with the word for “jar,” which has been explained as a water decanter. The word here is בַקֹּתִי (vaqqoti). The word for jar in v. 1 is בַקְבֻּק (vaqbuq). There may also be a play on the literal use of this word to refer to the laying waste or destruction of a land (see Isa 24:3; Nah 2:3). Many modern commentaries think that at this point Jeremiah emptied out the contents of the jar, symbolizing the “emptying” out of their plans.

[19:7]  ¹¹ sn This refers to the fact that they will die in battle. The sword would be only one of the weapons that strikes them down. It is one of the trio of “sword,” “starvation,” and “disease” which were the concomitants of war referred to so often in the book of Jeremiah. Starvation is referred to in v. 9.

[19:7]  ¹² tn Heb “I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and in the hand of those who seek their soul [= life].” In this context the two are meant as obvious qualifications of one entity, not two. Some rearrangement of the qualifiers had to be made in the English translation to convey this.

[21:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil.”

[2:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “virgins.” The term “virgin” probably functions as a metonymy of association for single young women.

[2:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in the day of your anger.” The construction בָּיוֹם (bayom, “in the day of…”) is a common Hebrew idiom, meaning “when…” (e.g., Gen 2:4; Lev 7:35; Num 3:1; Deut 4:15; 2 Sam 22:1; Pss 18:1; 138:3; Zech 8:9). This temporal idiom refers to a general time period, but uses the term “day” as a forceful rhetorical device to emphasize the vividness and drama of the event, depicting it as occurring within a single day. In the ancient Near East, military minded kings often referred to a successful campaign as “the day of X” in order to portray themselves as powerful conquerors who, as it were, could inaugurate and complete a victory military campaign within the span of one day.

[2:21]  ¹⁶ tc The MT reads לֹא חָמָלְתָּ (lo’ khamalta, “You showed no mercy”). However, many medieval Hebrew mss and most of the ancient versions (Aramaic Targum, Syriac Peshitta and Latin Vulgate) read וְלֹא חָמָלְתָּ (vÿlo’ khamalta, “and You showed no mercy”).