Exodus 3:7

3:7 The Lord said, “I have surely seen ¹  the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. ² 

Exodus 12:30

12:30 Pharaoh got up ³  in the night, ⁴  along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house ⁵  in which there was not someone dead.

Proverbs 21:13

21:13 The one who shuts his ears ⁶  to the cry ⁷  of the poor,

he too will cry out and will not be answered. ⁸ 

Isaiah 15:4-5

15:4 The people of ⁹  Heshbon and Elealeh cry out,

their voices are heard as far away as Jahaz.

For this reason Moab’s soldiers shout in distress;

their courage wavers. ¹⁰ 

15:5 My heart cries out because of Moab’s plight, ¹¹ 

and for the fugitives ¹²  stretched out ¹³  as far as Zoar and Eglath Shelishiyah.

For they weep as they make their way up the ascent of Luhith;

they loudly lament their demise on the road to Horonaim. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 15:8

15:8 Indeed, the cries of distress echo throughout Moabite territory;

their wailing can be heard in Eglaim and Beer Elim. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 31:15

31:15 The Lord says,

“A sound is heard in Ramah, ¹⁶ 

a sound of crying in bitter grief.

It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” ¹⁷ 

Lamentations 3:8

3:8 Also, when I cry out desperately ¹⁸  for help, ¹⁹ 

he has shut out my prayer. ²⁰ 

Amos 5:17

5:17 In all the vineyards there will be wailing,

for I will pass through ²¹  your midst,” says the Lord.

Zephaniah 1:10

1:10 On that day,” says the Lord,

“a loud cry will go up ²²  from the Fish Gate, ²³ 

wailing from the city’s newer district, ²⁴ 

and a loud crash ²⁵  from the hills.

Luke 13:28

13:28 There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth ²⁶  when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, ²⁷  and all the prophets in the kingdom of God ²⁸  but you yourselves thrown out. ²⁹ 

Revelation 6:16-17

6:16 They ³⁰  said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, ³¹  6:17 because the great day of their ³²  wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?” ³³ 

Revelation 18:18-19

18:18 and began to shout ³⁴  when they saw the smoke from the fire that burned her up, ³⁵  “Who is like the great city?” 18:19 And they threw dust on their heads and were shouting with weeping and mourning, ³⁶ 

“Woe, Woe, O great city –

in which all those who had ships on the sea got rich from her wealth –

because in a single hour she has been destroyed!” ³⁷ 

[3:7]  ¹ tn The use of the infinitive absolute with the perfect tense intensifies the statement: I have surely seen – there is no doubt that I have seen and will do something about it.

[3:7]  ² sn Two new words are introduced now to the report of suffering: “affliction” and “pain/suffering.” These add to the dimension of the oppression of God’s people.

[12:30]  ³ tn Heb “arose,” the verb קוּם (qum) in this context certainly must describe a less ceremonial act. The entire country woke up in terror because of the deaths.

[12:30]  ⁴ tn The noun is an adverbial accusative of time – “in the night” or “at night.”

[12:30]  ⁵ sn Or so it seemed. One need not push this description to complete literalness. The reference would be limited to houses that actually had firstborn people or animals. In a society in which households might include more than one generation of humans and animals, however, the presence of a firstborn human or animal would be the rule rather than the exception.

[21:13]  ⁶ sn The imagery means “pay no attention to” the cry for help or “refuse to help,” so it is a metonymy of cause for the effect.

[21:13]  ⁷ sn “Cry” here would be a metonymy of effect for the cause, the cause being the great needs of the poor.

[21:13]  ⁸ sn The proverb is teaching that those who show mercy will receive mercy. It involves the principle of talionic justice – those who refuse the needs of others will themselves be refused when they need help (so Luke 16:19-31).

[15:4]  ⁹ tn The words “the people of” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[15:4]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew text has, “For this reason the soldiers of Moab shout, his inner being quivers for him.” To achieve tighter parallelism, some emend the first line, changing חֲלֻצֵי (khalutse, “soldiers”) to חַלְצֵי (khaltse, “loins”) and יָרִיעוּ (yari’u, “they shout,” from רוּעַ, rua’) to יָרְעוּ (yor’u, “they quiver”), a verb from יָרַע (yara’), which also appears in the next line. One can then translate v. 4b as “For this reason the insides of the Moabites quiver, their whole body shakes” (cf. NAB, NRSV).

[15:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for Moab.” For rhetorical purposes the speaker (the Lord?, see v. 9) plays the role of a mourner.

[15:5]  ¹² tn The vocalization of the Hebrew text suggests “the bars of her gates,” but the form should be repointed to yield, “her fugitives.” See HALOT 156-57 s.v. בָּרִחַ, and BDB 138 s.v. בָּרִיהַ.

[15:5]  ¹³ tn The words “are stretched out” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[15:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “For the ascent of Luhith, with weeping they go up it; for [on] the road to Horonaim an outcry over shattering they raise up.”

[15:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “to Eglaim [is] her wailing, and [to] Beer Elim [is] her wailing.”

[31:15]  ¹⁶ sn Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

[31:15]  ¹⁷ tn Or “gone into exile” (cf. v. 16), though some English versions take this as meaning “dead” (e.g., NCV, CEV, NLT), presumably in light of Matt 2:18.

[3:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I call and I cry out.” The verbs אֶזְעַק וַאֲשַׁוֵּעַ (’ez’aq va’asha’vvea’, “I call and I cry out”) form a verbal hendiadys: the second retains its full verbal sense, while the first functions adverbially: “I cry out desperately.”

[3:8]  ¹⁹ tn The verb שׁוע (“to cry out”) usually refers to calling out to God for help or deliverance from a lamentable plight (e.g., Job 30:20; 36:13; 38:41; Pss 5:3; 18:7, 42; 22:25; 28:2; 30:3; 31:23; 88:14; 119:147; Isa 58:9; Lam 3:8; Jon 2:3; Hab 1:2).

[3:8]  ²⁰ tn The verb שָׂתַם (satam) is a hapax legomenon (term that appears in the Hebrew scriptures only once) that means “to stop up” or “shut out.” It functions as an idiom here, meaning “he has shut his ears to my prayer” (BDB 979 s.v.).

[5:17]  ²¹ sn The expression pass through your midst alludes to Exod 12:12, where the Lord announced he would “pass through” Egypt and bring death to the Egyptian firstborn.

[1:10]  ²² tn The words “will go up” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[1:10]  ²³ sn The Fish Gate was located on Jerusalem’s north side (cf. 2 Chr 33:14; Neh 3:3; 12:39).

[1:10]  ²⁴ tn Heb “from the second area.” This may refer to an area northwest of the temple where the rich lived (see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah [AB 25A], 86; cf. NASB, NRSV “the Second Quarter”; NIV “the New Quarter”).

[1:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “great breaking.”

[13:28]  ²⁶ sn Weeping and gnashing of teeth is a figure for remorse and trauma, which occurs here because of exclusion from God’s promise.

[13:28]  ²⁷ tn Grk “and Isaac and Jacob,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[13:28]  ²⁸ sn The kingdom of God is a major theme of Jesus. It is a realm in which Jesus rules and to which those who trust him belong. See Luke 6:20; 11:20; 17:20-21.

[13:28]  ²⁹ tn Or “being thrown out.” The present accusative participle, ἐκβαλλομένους (ekballomenous), related to the object ὑμᾶς (Jumas), seems to suggest that these evildoers will witness their own expulsion from the kingdom.

[6:16]  ³⁰ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[6:16]  ³¹ tn It is difficult to say where this quotation ends. The translation ends it after “withstand it” at the end of v. 17, but it is possible that it should end here, after “Lamb” at the end of v. 16. If it ends after “Lamb,” v. 17 is a parenthetical explanation by the author.

[6:17]  ³² tc Most mss (A Ï bo) change the pronoun “their” to “his” (αὐτοῦ, autou) in order to bring the text in line with the mention of the one seated on the throne in the immediately preceding verse, and to remove the ambiguity about whose wrath is in view here. The reading αὐτῶν (autwn, “their”) is well supported by א C 1611 1854 2053 2329 2344 pc latt sy. On both internal and external grounds, it should be regarded as original.

[6:17]  ³³ tn The translation “to withstand (it)” for ἵστημι (Jisthmi) is based on the imagery of holding one’s ground in a military campaign or an attack (BDAG 482 s.v. B.4).

[18:18]  ³⁴ tn Here the imperfect ἔκραζον (ekrazon) has been translated ingressively.

[18:18]  ³⁵ tn Grk “from the burning of her, saying.” For the translation “the smoke from the fire that burned her up,” see L&N 14.63. Here the participle λέγοντες (legontes, “saying”) has not been translated because it is redundant in contemporary English.

[18:19]  ³⁶ tn Grk “with weeping and mourning, saying.” Here the participle λέγοντες (legontes) has not been translated because it is redundant in contemporary English.

[18:19]  ³⁷ tn On ἡρημώθη (Jhrhmwqh) L&N 20.41 states, “to suffer destruction, with the implication of being deserted and abandoned – ‘to be destroyed, to suffer destruction, to suffer desolation.’ ἐρημόομαι: μιᾷ ὥρᾳ ἠρημώθη ὁ τοσοῦτος πλοῦτος ‘such great wealth has been destroyed within a single hour’ Re 18:17.”