Deuteronomy 28:26

28:26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off.

Jeremiah 12:9

12:9 The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ¹ 

But other birds of prey are all around them. ² 

Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts.

Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ³ 

Ezekiel 29:5

29:5 I will leave you in the wilderness,

you and all the fish of your waterways;

you will fall in the open field and will not be gathered up or collected. ⁴ 

I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the skies.

Ezekiel 39:17

39:17 “As for you, son of man, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Tell every kind of bird and every wild beast: ‘Assemble and come! Gather from all around to my slaughter ⁵  which I am going to make for you, a great slaughter on the mountains of Israel! You will eat flesh and drink blood.

Revelation 19:17-18

19:17 Then ⁶  I saw one angel standing in ⁷  the sun, and he shouted in a loud voice to all the birds flying high in the sky: ⁸ 

“Come, gather around for the great banquet ⁹  of God,

19:18 to eat ¹⁰  your fill ¹¹  of the flesh of kings,

the flesh of generals, ¹² 

the flesh of powerful people,

the flesh of horses and those who ride them,

and the flesh of all people, both free and slave, ¹³ 

and small and great!”

[12:9]  ¹ tn Or “like speckled birds of prey.” The meanings of these words are uncertain. In the Hebrew text sentence is a question: “Is not my inheritance to me a bird of prey [or] a hyena/a speckled bird of prey?” The question expects a positive answer and so is rendered here as an affirmative statement. The meaning of the word “speckled” is debated. It occurs only here. BDB 840 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates it to another word that occurs only once in Judg 5:30 which is translated “dyed stuff.” HALOT 936 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates a word found in the cognates meaning “hyena.” This is more likely and is the interpretation followed by the Greek which reads the first two words as “cave of hyena.” This translation has led some scholars to posit a homonym for the word “bird of prey” meaning “cave” which is based on Arabic parallels. The metaphor would then be of Israel carried off by hyenas and surrounded by birds of prey. The evidence for the meaning “cave” is weak and would involve a wordplay of a rare homonym with another word that is better known. For a discussion of the issues see J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 128-29, 153.

[12:9]  ² tn Heb “Are birds of prey around her?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. The birds of prey are of course the hostile nations surrounding her. The metaphor involved in these two lines may be interpreted differently. I.e., God considers Israel a proud bird of prey (hence the word for speckled) but one who is surrounded and under attack by other birds of prey. The fact that the sentences are divided into two rhetorical questions speaks somewhat against this.

[12:9]  ³ tn Heb “Go, gather all the beasts of the field [= wild beasts]. Bring them to devour.” The verbs are masculine plural imperatives addressed rhetorically to some unidentified group (the heavenly counsel?) Cf. the notes on 5:1 for further discussion. Since translating literally would raise question about who the commands are addressed to, they have been turned into passive third person commands to avoid confusion. The metaphor has likewise been turned into a simile to help the modern reader. By the way, the imperatives here implying future action argue that the passage is future and that it is correct to take the verb forms as prophetic perfects.

[29:5]  ⁴ tc Some Hebrew mss, the Targum, and the LXX read “buried.”

[39:17]  ⁵ tn Or “sacrifice” (so also in the rest of this verse).

[19:17]  ⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[19:17]  ⁷ tn The precise significance of ἐν (en) here is difficult to determine.

[19:17]  ⁸ tn On μεσουρανήματι (mesouranhmati) here see L&N 1.10: “high in the sky, midpoint in the sky, directly overhead, straight above in the sky.” The birds mentioned here are carrion birds like vultures, circling high overhead, and now being summoned to feast on the corpses.

[19:17]  ⁹ tn This is the same Greek word (δεῖπνον, deipnon) used in 19:9.

[19:18]  ¹⁰ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause, insofar as it is related to the first imperative, has the force of an imperative.

[19:18]  ¹¹ tn The idea of eating “your fill” is evident in the context with the use of χορτάζω (cortazw) in v. 21.

[19:18]  ¹² tn Grk “chiliarchs”; normally a chiliarch was 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).

[19:18]  ¹³ tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.