Deuteronomy 28:49-68

28:49 The Lord will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth ¹  as the eagle flies, ²  a nation whose language you will not understand, 28:50 a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young. 28:51 They ³  will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, ⁴  or lambs of your flocks ⁵  until they have destroyed you. 28:52 They will besiege all of your villages ⁶  until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. 28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, ⁷  the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege ⁸  by which your enemies will constrict you. 28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict ⁹  you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most ¹⁰  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ¹¹  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth ¹²  and her newborn children ¹³  (since she has nothing else), ¹⁴  because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

The Curse of Covenant Termination

28:58 “If you refuse to obey ¹⁵  all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 28:59 then the Lord will increase your punishments and those of your descendants – great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses. 28:60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt ¹⁶  that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you. ¹⁷  28:61 Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments, ¹⁸  until you have perished. 28:62 There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, ¹⁹  because you will have disobeyed ²⁰  the Lord your God. 28:63 This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he ²¹  will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess. 28:64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. 28:65 Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 28:66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next. ²²  28:67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see. 28:68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

Isaiah 10:5-7

The Lord Turns on Arrogant Assyria

10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, ²³ 

a cudgel with which I angrily punish. ²⁴ 

10:6 I sent him ²⁵  against a godless ²⁶  nation,

I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, ²⁷ 

to take plunder and to carry away loot,

to trample them down ²⁸  like dirt in the streets.

10:7 But he does not agree with this,

his mind does not reason this way, ²⁹ 

for his goal is to destroy,

and to eliminate many nations. ³⁰ 

Isaiah 13:2-5

13:2 ³¹ On a bare hill raise a signal flag,

shout to them,

wave your hand,

so they might enter the gates of the princes!

13:3 I have given orders to my chosen soldiers; ³² 

I have summoned the warriors through whom I will vent my anger, ³³ 

my boasting, arrogant ones. ³⁴ 

13:4 ³⁵ There is a loud noise on the mountains –

it sounds like a large army! ³⁶ 

There is great commotion among the kingdoms ³⁷  –

nations are being assembled!

The Lord who commands armies is mustering

forces for battle.

13:5 They come from a distant land,

from the horizon. ³⁸ 

It is the Lord with his instruments of judgment, ³⁹ 

coming to destroy the whole earth. ⁴⁰ 

Jeremiah 51:20-23

51:20 “Babylon, ⁴¹  you are my war club, ⁴² 

my weapon for battle.

I used you to smash nations. ⁴³ 

I used you to destroy kingdoms.

51:21 I used you to smash horses and their riders. ⁴⁴ 

I used you to smash chariots and their drivers.

51:22 I used you to smash men and women.

I used you to smash old men and young men.

I used you to smash young men and young women.

51:23 I used you to smash shepherds and their flocks.

I used you to smash farmers and their teams of oxen.

I used you to smash governors and leaders.” ⁴⁵ 

Joel 2:11

2:11 The voice of the Lord thunders ⁴⁶  as he leads his army. ⁴⁷ 

Indeed, his warriors ⁴⁸  are innumerable; ⁴⁹ 

Surely his command is carried out! ⁵⁰ 

Yes, the day of the Lord is awesome ⁵¹ 

and very terrifying – who can survive ⁵²  it?

Joel 2:25

2:25 I will make up for the years ⁵³ 

that the ‘arbeh-locust ⁵⁴  consumed your crops ⁵⁵  –

the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust –

my great army ⁵⁶  that I sent against you.

Joel 3:2

3:2 Then I will gather all the nations,

and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. ⁵⁷ 

I will enter into judgment ⁵⁸  against them there

concerning my people Israel who are my inheritance, ⁵⁹ 

whom they scattered among the nations.

They partitioned my land,

Luke 19:27

19:27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, ⁶⁰  bring them here and slaughter ⁶¹  them ⁶²  in front of me!’”

[28:49]  ¹ tn Heb “from the end of the earth.”

[28:49]  ² tn Some translations understand this to mean “like an eagle swoops down” (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), comparing the swift attack of an eagle to the attack of the Israelites’ enemies.

[28:51]  ³ tn Heb “it” (so NRSV), a collective singular referring to the invading nation (several times in this verse and v. 52).

[28:51]  ⁴ tn Heb “increase of herds.”

[28:51]  ⁵ tn Heb “growth of flocks.”

[28:52]  ⁶ tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.

[28:53]  ⁷ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”

[28:53]  ⁸ tn Heb “siege and stress.”

[28:55]  ⁹ tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

[28:56]  ¹⁰ tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.

[28:56]  ¹¹ tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”

[28:57]  ¹² tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”

[28:57]  ¹³ tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”

[28:57]  ¹⁴ tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”

[28:58]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “If you are not careful to do.”

[28:60]  ¹⁶ sn These are the plagues the Lord inflicted on the Egyptians prior to the exodus which, though they did not fall upon the Israelites, must have caused great terror (cf. Exod 15:26).

[28:60]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “will cling to you” (so NIV); NLT “will claim you.”

[28:61]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew term תּוֹרָה (torah) can refer either (1) to the whole Pentateuch or, more likely, (2) to the book of Deuteronomy or even (3) only to this curse section of the covenant text. “Scroll” better reflects the actual document, since “book” conveys the notion of a bound book with pages to the modern English reader. Cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “the book of this law”; NIV, NLT “this Book of the Law”; TEV “this book of God’s laws and teachings.”

[28:62]  ¹⁹ tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[28:62]  ²⁰ tn Heb “have not listened to the voice of.”

[28:63]  ²¹ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:66]  ²² tn Heb “you will not be confident in your life.” The phrase “from one day to the next” is implied by the following verse.

[10:5]  ²³ 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.

[10:5]  ²⁴ 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.”

[10:6]  ²⁵ sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).

[10:6]  ²⁶ tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”

[10:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”

[10:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”

[10:7]  ²⁹ tn Heb “but he, not so does he intend, and his heart, not so does it think.”

[10:7]  ³⁰ tn Heb “for to destroy [is] in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.”

[13:2]  ³¹ sn The Lord is speaking here (see v. 3).

[13:3]  ³² tn Heb “my consecrated ones,” i.e., those who have been set apart by God for the special task of carrying out his judgment.

[13:3]  ³³ tn Heb “my warriors with respect to my anger.”

[13:3]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the boasting ones of my pride”; cf. ASV, NASB, NRSV “my proudly exulting ones.”

[13:4]  ³⁵ sn In vv. 4-10 the prophet appears to be speaking, since the Lord is referred to in the third person. However, since the Lord refers to himself in the third person later in this chapter (see v. 13), it is possible that he speaks throughout the chapter.

[13:4]  ³⁶ tn Heb “a sound, a roar [is] on the mountains, like many people.”

[13:4]  ³⁷ tn Heb “a sound, tumult of kingdoms.”

[13:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “from the end of the sky.”

[13:5]  ³⁹ tn Or “anger”; cf. KJV, ASV “the weapons of his indignation.”

[13:5]  ⁴⁰ tn Or perhaps, “land” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NLT). Even though the heading and subsequent context (see v. 17) indicate Babylon’s judgment is in view, the chapter has a cosmic flavor that suggests that the coming judgment is universal in scope. Perhaps Babylon’s downfall occurs in conjunction with a wider judgment, or the cosmic style is poetic hyperbole used to emphasize the magnitude and importance of the coming event.

[51:20]  ⁴¹ tn Or “Media.” The referent is not identified in the text; the text merely says “you are my war club.” Commentators in general identify the referent as Babylon because Babylon has been referred to as a hammer in 50:23 and Babylon is referred to in v. 25 as a “destroying mountain” (compare v. 20d). However, S. R. Driver, Jeremiah, 317, n. c maintains that v. 24 speaks against this. It does seem a little inconsistent to render the vav consecutive perfect at the beginning of v. 24 as future while rendering those in vv. 20b-23 as customary past. However, change in person from second masculine singular (vv. 20b-23) to the second masculine plural in “before your very eyes” and its position at the end of the verse after “which they did in Zion” argue that a change in address occurs there. Driver has to ignore the change in person and take “before your eyes” with the verb “repay” at the beginning to maintain the kind of consistency he seeks. The vav (ו) consecutive imperfect can be used for either the customary past (GKC 335-36 §112.dd with cross reference back to GKC 331-32 §112.e) or the future (GKC 334 §112.x). Hence the present translation has followed the majority of commentaries (and English versions like TEV, NCV, CEV, NIrV) in understanding the referent as Babylon and v. 24 being a transition to vv. 25-26 (cf., e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 356-57, and J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 756-57). If the referent is understood as Media then the verbs in vv. 20-23 should all be translated as futures. See also the translator’s note on v. 24.

[51:20]  ⁴² tn This Hebrew word (מַפֵּץ, mappets) only occurs here in the Hebrew Bible, but its meaning is assured from the use of the verbs that follow which are from the same root (נָפַץ, nafats) and there is a cognate noun מַפָּץ (mappats) that occurs in Ezek 9:2 in the sense of weapon of “smashing.”

[51:20]  ⁴³ tn Heb “I smash nations with you.” This same structure is repeated throughout the series in vv. 20c-23.

[51:21]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “horse and its rider.” However, the terms are meant as generic or collective singulars (cf. GKC 395 §123.b) and are thus translated by the plural. The same thing is true of all the terms in vv. 21-23b. The terms in vv. 20c-d, 23c are plural.

[51:23]  ⁴⁵ tn These two words are Akkadian loan words into Hebrew which often occur in this pairing (cf. Ezek 23:6, 12, 23; Jer 51:23, 28, 57). BDB 688 s.v. סָגָן (sagan) gives “prefect, ruler” as the basic definition for the second term but neither works very well in a modern translation because “prefect” would be unknown to most readers and “ruler” would suggest someone along the lines of a king, which these officials were not. The present translation has chosen “leaders” by default, assuming there is no other term that would be any more appropriate in light of the defects noted in “prefect” and “ruler.”

[2:11]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “the Lord gives his voice.”

[2:11]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “before his army.”

[2:11]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “military encampment.”

[2:11]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “very large.”

[2:11]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “he makes his word powerful.”

[2:11]  ⁵¹ tn Or “powerful.” Heb “great.”

[2:11]  ⁵² tn Heb “endure.” The MT and LXX read “endure,” while one of the Qumran manuscripts (4QXXII^c) has “bear.”

[2:25]  ⁵³ tn Heb “I will restore to you the years.”

[2:25]  ⁵⁴ sn The same four terms for locust are used here as in 1:4, but in a different order. This fact creates some difficulty for the notion that the four words refer to four distinct stages of locust development.

[2:25]  ⁵⁵ tn The term “your crops” does not appear in the Hebrew, but has been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[2:25]  ⁵⁶ sn Here Joel employs military language to describe the locusts. In the prophet’s thinking this invasion was far from being a freak accident. Rather, the Lord is pictured here as a divine warrior who leads his army into the land as a punishment for past sin and as a means of bringing about spiritual renewal on the part of the people.

[3:2]  ⁵⁷ sn There is a play on words here. Jehoshaphat in Hebrew means “the Lord has judged,” and the next line in v. 2 further explicates this thought. The location of this valley is uncertain (cf. v. 12). Many interpreters have understood the Valley of Jehoshaphat to be the Kidron Valley, located on the east side of old Jerusalem. Since this is described as a scene of future messianic activity and judgment, many Jews and Muslims have desired to be buried in the vicinity, a fact attested to in modern times by the presence of many graves in the area. A variation of this view is mentioned by Eusebius, Onomasticon 1:10. According to this view, the Valley of Jehoshaphat is located in the Hinnom Valley, on the south side of the old city. Yet another view is held by many modern scholars, who understand the reference to this valley to be one of an idealized and nonliteral scene of judgment.

[3:2]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “I will execute judgment.”

[3:2]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “concerning my people and my inheritance Israel.”

[19:27]  ⁶⁰ tn Grk “to rule over them.”

[19:27]  ⁶¹ tn This term, when used of people rather than animals, has some connotations of violence and mercilessness (L&N 20.72).

[19:27]  ⁶² sn Slaughter them. To reject the king is to face certain judgment from him.