Deuteronomy 28:28

28:28 The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind. ¹ 

Deuteronomy 28:34

28:34 You will go insane from seeing all this.

Job 21:20

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction; ² 

let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

Psalms 11:6

11:6 May the Lord rain down ³  burning coals ⁴  and brimstone ⁵  on the wicked!

A whirlwind is what they deserve! ⁶ 

Psalms 60:3

60:3 You have made your people experience hard times; ⁷ 

you have made us drink intoxicating wine. ⁸ 

Psalms 75:8

75:8 For the Lord holds in his hand a cup full

of foaming wine mixed with spices, ⁹ 

and pours it out. ¹⁰ 

Surely all the wicked of the earth

will slurp it up and drink it to its very last drop.” ¹¹ 

Psalms 75:10

75:10 God says, ¹² 

“I will bring down all the power of the wicked;

the godly will be victorious.” ¹³ 

Jeremiah 25:15-17

Judah and the Nations Will Experience God’s Wrath

25:15 So ¹⁴  the Lord, the God of Israel, spoke to me in a vision. ¹⁵  “Take this cup from my hand. It is filled with the wine of my wrath. ¹⁶  Take it and make the nations to whom I send you drink it. 25:16 When they have drunk it, they will stagger to and fro ¹⁷  and act insane. For I will send wars sweeping through them.” ¹⁸ 

25:17 So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand. I made all the nations to whom he sent me drink the wine of his wrath. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 25:27

25:27 Then the Lord said to me, ²⁰  “Tell them that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²¹  says, ²²  ‘Drink this cup ²³  until you get drunk and vomit. Drink until you fall down and can’t get up. ²⁴  For I will send wars sweeping through you.’ ²⁵ 

Ezekiel 23:31-34

23:31 You have followed the ways of your sister, so I will place her cup of judgment ²⁶  in your hand. 23:32 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: “You will drink your sister’s deep and wide cup; ²⁷  you will be scorned and derided, for it holds a great deal. 23:33 You will be overcome by ²⁸  drunkenness and sorrow. The cup of your sister Samaria is a cup of horror and desolation. 23:34 You will drain it dry, ²⁹  gnaw its pieces, ³⁰  and tear out your breasts, ³¹  for I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.

Zechariah 12:2

12:2 “I am about to make Jerusalem ³²  a cup that brings dizziness ³³  to all the surrounding nations; indeed, Judah will also be included when Jerusalem is besieged.

Revelation 14:10

14:10 that person ³⁴  will also drink of the wine of God’s anger ³⁵  that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur ³⁶  in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb.

Revelation 18:6

18:6 Repay her the same way she repaid others; ³⁷  pay her back double ³⁸  corresponding to her deeds. In the cup she mixed, mix double the amount for her.

[28:28]  ¹ tn Heb “heart” (so KJV, NASB).

[21:20]  ² tc This word occurs only here. The word כִּיד (kid) was connected to Arabic kaid, “fraud, trickery,” or “warfare.” The word is emended by the commentators to other ideas, such as פִּיד (pid, “[his] calamity”). Dahood and others alter it to “cup”; Wright to “weapons.” A. F. L. Beeston argues for a meaning “condemnation” for the MT form, and so makes no change in the text (Mus 67 [1954]: 315-16). If the connection to Arabic “warfare” is sustained, or if such explanations of the existing MT can be sustained, then the text need not be emended. In any case, the sense of the line is clear.

[11:6]  ³ tn The verb form is a jussive, indicating that the statement is imprecatory (“May the Lord rain down”), not indicative (“The Lord rains down”; see also Job 20:23). The psalmist appeals to God to destroy the wicked, rather than simply stating his confidence that God will do so. In this way the psalmist seeks to activate divine judgment by appealing to God’s just character. For an example of the power of such a curse, see Judg 9:7-57.

[11:6]  ⁴ tc The MT reads “traps, fire, and brimstone,” but the image of God raining traps, or snares, down from the sky is bizarre and does not fit the fire and storm imagery of this verse. The noun פַּחִים (pakhim, “traps, snares”) should be emended to פַּחֲמֵי (pakhamey, “coals of [fire]”). The rare noun פֶּחָם (pekham, “coal”) occurs in Prov 26:21 and Isa 44:12; 54:16.

[11:6]  ⁵ sn The image of God “raining down” brimstone on the objects of his judgment also appears in Gen 19:24 and Ezek 38:22.

[11:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “[may] a wind of rage [be] the portion of their cup.” The precise meaning of the rare noun זִלְעָפוֹת (zil’afot) is uncertain. It may mean “raging heat” (BDB 273 s.v. זַלְעָפָה) or simply “rage” (HALOT 272 s.v. זַלְעָפָה). If one understands the former sense, then one might translate “hot wind” (cf. NEB, NRSV). The present translation assumes the latter nuance, “a wind of rage” (the genitive is attributive) referring to a “whirlwind” symbolic of destructive judgment. In this mixed metaphor, judgment is also compared to an allotted portion of a beverage poured into one’s drinking cup (see Hab 2:15-16).

[60:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “you have caused your people to see [what is] hard.”

[60:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “wine of staggering,” that is, intoxicating wine that makes one stagger in drunkenness. Intoxicating wine is here an image of divine judgment that makes its victims stagger like drunkards. See Isa 51:17-23.

[75:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “for a cup [is] in the hand of the Lord, and wine foams, it is full of a spiced drink.” The noun מֶסֶךְ (mesekh) refers to a “mixture” of wine and spices.

[75:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and he pours out from this.”

[75:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “surely its dregs they slurp up and drink, all the wicked of the earth.”

[75:10]  ¹² tn The words “God says” are not in the Hebrew text. They are supplied in the translation to clarify that God speaks in v. 10.

[75:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “and all the horns of the wicked I will cut off, the horns of the godly will be lifted up.” The imagery of the wild ox’s horn is once more utilized (see vv. 4-5).

[25:15]  ¹⁴ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) which is probably being used in the sense that BDB 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c notes, i.e., the causal connection is somewhat loose, related here to the prophecies against the nations. “So” seems to be the most appropriate way to represent this.

[25:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, to me.” It is generally understood that the communication is visionary. God does not have a “hand” and the action of going to the nations and making them drink of the cup are scarcely literal. The words are supplied in the translation to show the figurative nature of this passage.

[25:15]  ¹⁶ sn “Drinking from the cup of wrath” is a common figure to represent being punished by God. Isaiah had used it earlier to refer to the punishment which Judah was to suffer and from which God would deliver her (Isa 51:17, 22) and Jeremiah’s contemporary Habakkuk uses it of Babylon “pouring out its wrath” on the nations and in turn being forced to drink the bitter cup herself (Hab 2:15-16). In Jer 51:7 the Lord will identify Babylon as the cup which makes the nations stagger. In v. 16 drinking from the cup will be identified with the sword (i.e., wars) that the Lord will send against the nations. Babylon is also to be identified as the sword (cf. Jer 51:20-23). What is being alluded to here in highly figurative language is the judgment that the Lord will wreak on the nations listed here through the Babylonians. The prophecy given here in symbolical form is thus an expansion of the one in vv. 9-11.

[25:16]  ¹⁷ tn There is some debate about the meaning of the verb here. Both BDB 172 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hithpo and KBL 191 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpol interpret this of the back and forth movement of staggering. HALOT 192 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpo interprets it as vomiting. The word is used elsewhere of the up and down movement of the mountains (2 Sam 22:8) and the up and down movement of the rolling waves of the Nile (Jer 46:7, 8). The fact that a different verb is used in v. 27 for vomiting would appear to argue against it referring to vomiting (contra W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:674; it is “they” that do this not their stomachs).

[25:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among them.” Here, as often elsewhere in Jeremiah, the sword is figurative for warfare which brings death. See, e.g., 15:2. The causal particle here is found in verbal locutions where it is the cause of emotional states or action. Hence there are really two “agents” which produce the effects of “staggering” and “acting insane,” the cup filled with God’s wrath and the sword. The sword is the “more literal” and the actual agent by which the first agent’s action is carried out.

[25:17]  ¹⁹ tn The words “the wine of his wrath” are not in the text but are implicit in the metaphor (see vv. 15-16). They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:27]  ²⁰ tn The words “Then the Lord said to me” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity, to connect this part of the narrative with vv. 15, 17 after the long intervening list of nations who were to drink the cup of God’s wrath in judgment.

[25:27]  ²¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[25:27]  ²² tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord….’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quotation marks to help avoid confusion.

[25:27]  ²³ tn The words “this cup” are not in the text but are implicit to the metaphor and the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:27]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Drink, and get drunk, and vomit and fall down and don’t get up.” The imperatives following drink are not parallel actions but consequent actions. For the use of the imperative plus the conjunctive “and” to indicate consequent action, even intention see GKC 324-25 §110.f and compare usage in 1 Kgs 22:12; Prov 3:3b-4a.

[25:27]  ²⁵ tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among you.” See the notes on 2:16 for explanation.

[23:31]  ²⁶ tn Heb “her cup.” A cup of intoxicating strong drink is used, here and elsewhere, as a metaphor for judgment because both leave one confused and reeling. (See Jer 25:15, 17, 28; Hab 2:16.) The cup of wrath is a theme also found in the NT (Mark 14:36).

[23:32]  ²⁷ sn The image of a deep and wide cup suggests the degree of punishment; it will be extensive and leave the victim helpless.

[23:33]  ²⁸ tn Heb “filled with.”

[23:34]  ²⁹ tn Heb “You will drink it and drain (it).”

[23:34]  ³⁰ tn D. I. Block compares this to the idiom of “licking the plate” (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:754, n. 137). The text is difficult as the word translated “gnaw” is rare. The noun is used of the shattered pieces of pottery and so could envision a broken cup. But the Piel verb form is used in only one other place (Num 24:8), where it is a denominative from the noun “bone” and seems to mean to “break (bones).” Why it would be collocated with “sherds” is not clear. For this reason some emend the phrase to read “consume its dregs” (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:44) or emend the verb to read “swallow,” as if the intoxicated Oholibah breaks the cup and then eats the very sherds in an effort to get every last drop of the beverage that dampens them.

[23:34]  ³¹ sn The severe action is more extreme than beating the breasts in anguish (Isa 32:12; Nah 2:7). It is also ironic for these are the very breasts she so blatantly offered to her lovers (vv. 3, 21).

[12:2]  ³² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[12:2]  ³³ sn The image of a cup that brings dizziness is that of drunkenness. The Lord will force the nations to drink of his judgment and in doing so they will become so intoxicated by his wrath that they will stumble and become irrational.

[14:10]  ³⁴ tn Grk “he himself.”

[14:10]  ³⁵ tn The Greek word for “anger” here is θυμός (qumos), a wordplay on the “passion” (θυμός) of the personified city of Babylon in 14:8.

[14:10]  ³⁶ tn Traditionally, “brimstone.”

[18:6]  ³⁷ tn The word “others” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[18:6]  ³⁸ tn On this term BDAG 252 s.v. διπλόω states, “to double τὰ διπλᾶ pay back double Rv 18:6.”