Deuteronomy 28:65-67

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. ¹  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.

Deuteronomy 32:25

32:25 The sword will make people childless outside,

and terror will do so inside;

they will destroy ²  both the young man and the virgin,

the infant and the gray-haired man.

Job 15:20-21

15:20 All his days ³  the wicked man suffers torment, ⁴ 

throughout the number of the years

that ⁵  are stored up for the tyrant. ⁶ 

15:21 Terrifying sounds fill ⁷  his ears;

in a time of peace marauders ⁸  attack him.

Job 18:11

18:11 Terrors ⁹  frighten him on all sides

and dog ¹⁰  his every step.

Job 20:25

20:25 When he pulls it out ¹¹  and it comes out of his back,

the gleaming point ¹²  out of his liver,

terrors come over him.

Psalms 73:19

73:19 How desolate they become in a mere moment!

Terrifying judgments make their demise complete! ¹³ 

Isaiah 7:2

7:2 It was reported to the family ¹⁴  of David, “Syria has allied with ¹⁵  Ephraim.” They and their people were emotionally shaken, just as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 15:8

15:8 Their widows will become in my sight more numerous ¹⁷ 

than the grains of sand on the seashores.

At noontime I will bring a destroyer

against the mothers of their young men. ¹⁸ 

I will cause anguish ¹⁹  and terror

to fall suddenly upon them. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 20:4

20:4 For the Lord says, ‘I will make both you and your friends terrified of what will happen to you. ²¹  You will see all of them die by the swords of their enemies. ²²  I will hand all the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry some of them away into exile in Babylon and he will kill others of them with the sword.

Hebrews 10:31

10:31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

[28:66]  ¹ tn Heb “you will not be confident in your life.” The phrase “from one day to the next” is implied by the following verse.

[32:25]  ² tn A verb is omitted here in the Hebrew text; for purposes of English style one suitable to the context is supplied.

[15:20]  ³ tn Heb “all the days of the wicked, he suffers.” The word “all” is an adverbial accusative of time, stating along with its genitives (“of the days of a wicked man”) how long the individual suffers. When the subject is composed of a noun in construct followed by a genitive, the predicate sometimes agrees with the genitive (see GKC 467 §146.a).

[15:20]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew term מִתְחוֹלֵל (mitkholel) is a Hitpolel participle from חִיל (khil, “to tremble”). It carries the idea of “torment oneself,” or “be tormented.” Some have changed the letter ח (khet) for a letter ה (he), and obtained the meaning “shows himself mad.” Theodotion has “is mad.” Syriac (“behave arrogantly,” apparently confusing Hebrew חול with חלל; Heidi M. Szpek, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Job [SBLDS], 277), Symmachus, and Vulgate have “boasts himself.” But the reading of the MT is preferable.

[15:20]  ⁵ tn It is necessary, with Rashi, to understand the relative pronoun before the verb “they are stored up/reserved.”

[15:20]  ⁶ tn This has been translated with the idea of “oppressor” in Job 6:23; 27:13.

[15:21]  ⁷ tn The word “fill” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation.

[15:21]  ⁸ tn The word שׁוֹדֵד (shoded) means “a robber; a plunderer” (see Job 12:6). With the verb bo’ the sentence means that the robber pounces on or comes against him (see GKC 373 §118.f). H. H. Rowley observes that the text does not say that he is under attack, but that the sound of fears is in his ears, i.e., that he is terrified by thoughts of this.

[18:11]  ⁹ sn Bildad is referring here to all the things that afflict a person and cause terror. It would then be a metonymy of effect, the cause being the afflictions.

[18:11]  ¹⁰ tn The verb פּוּץ (puts) in the Hiphil has the meaning “to pursue” and “to scatter.” It is followed by the expression “at his feet.” So the idea is easily derived: they chase him at his feet. But some commentators have other proposals. The most far-fetched is that of Ehrlich and Driver (ZAW 24 [1953]: 259-60) which has “and compel him to urinate on his feet,” one of many similar readings the NEB accepted from Driver.

[20:25]  ¹¹ tn The MT has “he draws out [or as a passive, “it is drawn out/forth”] and comes [or goes] out of his back.” For the first verb שָׁלַף (shalaf, “pull, draw”), many commentators follow the LXX and use שֶׁלַח (shelakh, “a spear”). It then reads “and a shaft comes out of his back,” a sword flash comes out of his liver.” But the verse could also be a continuation of the preceding.

[20:25]  ¹² tn Possibly a reference to lightnings.

[73:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “they come to an end, they are finished, from terrors.”

[7:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “house.” In this context the “house of David” includes King Ahaz, his family, and the royal court. See also Jer 21:12; Zech 12:7-8, 10, 12, for a similar use of the phrase.

[7:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “rests upon.” Most understand the verb as נוּחַ (nuakh, “rest”), but HALOT 685 s.v. II נחה proposes that this is a hapax legomenon which means “stand by.”

[7:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and his heart shook and the heart of his people shook, like the shaking of the trees of the forest before the wind.” The singular pronoun “his” is collective, referring to the Davidic house/family. לֵבָב (levav, “heart”) here refers to the seat of the emotions.

[15:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to me.” BDB 513 s.v. ל 5.a(d) compares the usage of the preposition “to” here to that in Jonah 3:3, “Nineveh was a very great city to God [in God’s estimation].” The NEB/REB interpret as though it were the agent after a passive verb, “I have made widows more numerous.” Most English versions ignore it. The present translation follows BDB though the emphasis on God’s agency has been strong in the passage.

[15:8]  ¹⁸ tn The translation of this line is a little uncertain because of the double prepositional phrase which is not represented in this translation or most of the others. The Hebrew text reads: “I will bring in to them, against mother of young men, a destroyer at noon time.” Many commentaries delete the phrase with the Greek text. If the preposition read “against” like the following one this would be a case of apposition of nearer definition. There is some evidence of that in the Targum and the Syriac according to BHS. Both nouns “mothers” and “young men” are translated as plural here though they are singular; they are treated by most as collectives. It would be tempting to translate these two lines “In broad daylight I have brought destroyers against the mothers of her fallen young men.” But this may be too interpretive. In the light of 6:4, noontime was a good time to attack. NJPS has “I will bring against them – young men and mothers together – ….” In this case “mother” and “young men” would be a case of asyndetic coordination.

[15:8]  ¹⁹ tn This word is used only here and in Hos 11:9. It is related to the root meaning “to rouse” (so BDB 735 s.v. I עִיר). Here it refers to the excitement or agitation caused by terror. In Hos 11:9 it refers to the excitement or arousal of anger.

[15:8]  ²⁰ tn The “them” in the Hebrew text is feminine referring to the mothers.

[20:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “I will make you an object of terror to both you and your friends.”

[20:4]  ²² tn Heb “And they will fall by the sword of their enemies and [with] your eyes seeing [it].”