Ezekiel 17:7

17:7 “‘There was another great eagle ¹ 

with broad wings and thick plumage.

Now this vine twisted its roots toward him

and sent its branches toward him

to be watered from the soil where it was planted.

Ezekiel 17:12-21

17:12 “Say to the rebellious house of Israel: ²  ‘Don’t you know what these things mean?’ ³  Say: ‘See here, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem ⁴  and took her king and her officials prisoner and brought them to himself in Babylon. 17:13 He took one from the royal family, ⁵  made a treaty with him, and put him under oath. ⁶  He then took the leaders of the land 17:14 so it would be a lowly kingdom which could not rise on its own but must keep its treaty with him in order to stand. 17:15 But this one from Israel’s royal family ⁷  rebelled against the king of Babylon ⁸  by sending his emissaries to Egypt to obtain horses and a large army. Will he prosper? Will the one doing these things escape? Can he break the covenant and escape?

17:16 “‘As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, surely in the city ⁹  of the king who crowned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke – in the middle of Babylon he will die! 17:17 Pharaoh with his great army and mighty horde will not help ¹⁰  him in battle, when siege ramps are erected and siege-walls are built to kill many people. 17:18 He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Take note ¹¹  – he gave his promise ¹²  and did all these things – he will not escape!

17:19 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, I will certainly repay him ¹³  for despising my oath and breaking my covenant! 17:20 I will throw my net over him and he will be caught in my snare; I will bring him to Babylon and judge him there because of the unfaithfulness he committed against me. 17:21 All the choice men ¹⁴  among his troops will die ¹⁵  by the sword and the survivors will be scattered to every wind. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken!

Deuteronomy 28:49

28:49 The Lord will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth ¹⁶  as the eagle flies, ¹⁷  a nation whose language you will not understand,

Jeremiah 4:13

4:13 Look! The enemy is approaching like gathering clouds. ¹⁸ 

The roar of his chariots is like that of a whirlwind. ¹⁹ 

His horses move more swiftly than eagles.”

I cry out, ²⁰  “We are doomed, ²¹  for we will be destroyed!”

Jeremiah 48:40

48:40 For the Lord says,

“Look! Like an eagle with outspread wings

a nation will swoop down on Moab. ²² 

Jeremiah 49:16

49:16 The terror you inspire in others ²³ 

and the arrogance of your heart have deceived you.

You may make your home in the clefts of the rocks;

you may occupy the highest places in the hills. ²⁴ 

But even if you made your home where the eagles nest,

I would bring you down from there,”

says the Lord.

Lamentations 4:19

ק (Qof)

4:19 Those who pursued us were swifter

than eagles ²⁵  in the sky. ²⁶ 

They chased us over the mountains;

they ambushed us in the wilderness.

Hosea 8:1

God Will Raise Up the Assyrians to Attack Israel

8:1 Sound the alarm! ²⁷ 

An eagle ²⁸  looms over the temple of the Lord!

For they have broken their covenant with me, ²⁹ 

and have rebelled against my law.

Matthew 24:28

24:28 Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures ³⁰  will gather. ³¹ 

[17:7]  ¹ sn The phrase another great eagle refers to Pharaoh Hophra.

[17:12]  ² tn The words “of Israel” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation as a clarification of the referent.

[17:12]  ³ sn The narrative description of this interpretation of the riddle is given in 2 Kgs 24:11-15.

[17:12]  ⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[17:13]  ⁵ tn Or “descendants”; Heb “seed” (cf. v. 5).

[17:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “caused him to enter into an oath.”

[17:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the member of the royal family, v. 13) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:15]  ⁸ tn Heb “him”; the referent (the king of Babylon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “place.”

[17:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “deal with” or “work with.”

[17:18]  ¹¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates being aware of or taking notice of something.

[17:18]  ¹² sn Heb “hand.” “Giving one’s hand” is a gesture of promise (2 Kgs 10:15).

[17:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “place it on his head.”

[17:21]  ¹⁴ tc Some manuscripts and versions read “choice men,” while most manuscripts read “fugitives”; the difference arises from the reversal, or metathesis, of two letters, מִבְרָחָיו (mivrakhyv) for מִבְחָריו (mivkharyv).

[17:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “fall.”

[28:49]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from the end of the earth.”

[28:49]  ¹⁷ 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.

[4:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he is coming up like clouds.” The words “The enemy” are supplied in the translation to identify the referent and the word “gathering” is supplied to try to convey the significance of the simile, i.e., that of quantity and of an approaching storm.

[4:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his chariots [are] like a whirlwind.” The words “roar” and “sound” are supplied in the translation to clarify the significance of the simile.

[4:13]  ²⁰ tn The words “I cry out” are not in the text, but the words that follow are obviously not the Lord’s. They are either those of the people or of Jeremiah. Taking them as Jeremiah’s parallels the interjection of Jeremiah’s response in 4:10 which is formally introduced.

[4:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “Woe to us!” The words “woe to” are common in funeral laments and at the beginning of oracles of judgment. In many contexts they carry the connotation of hopelessness or apprehensiveness of inevitable doom.

[48:40]  ²² tn Heb “Behold! Like an eagle he will swoop and will spread his wings against Moab.” The sentence has been reordered in English to give a better logical flow and the unidentified “he” has been identified as “a nation.” The nation is, of course, Babylon, but it is nowhere identified so the referent has been left ambiguous.

[49:16]  ²³ tn The meaning of this Hebrew word (תִּפְלֶצֶת, tifletset) is uncertain because it occurs only here. However, it is related to a verb root that refers to the shaking of the pillars (of the earth) in Job 9:6 and a noun (מִפְלֶצֶת, mifletset) that refers to “horror” or “shuddering” used in Job 21:6; Isa 21:4; Ezek 7:18; Ps 55:6. This is the nuance that is accepted by BDB, KBL, HAL and a majority of the modern English versions. The suffix is an objective genitive. The fact that the following verb is masculine singular suggests that the text here (הִשִּׁיא אֹתָךְ, hishi’ ’otakh) is in error for הִשִּׁיאָתָךְ (hishi’atakh; so G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 327, n. 16.a).

[49:16]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew text of the first four lines reads: “Your terror [= the terror you inspire] has deceived you, [and] the arrogance of your heart, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who occupy the heights of the hill.” The sentence is broken up and restructured to better conform with English style.

[4:19]  ²⁵ tn The bird referred to here could be one of several species of eagles, but more likely is the griffin-vulture (cf. NEB “vultures”). However, because eagles are more commonly associated with swiftness than vultures in contemporary English, “eagles” was used in the translation.

[4:19]  ²⁶ tn Or “in the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[8:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “A horn unto your gums!”; NAB “A trumpet to your lips!”

[8:1]  ²⁸ tn Or perhaps “A vulture.” Some identify the species indicated by the Hebrew term נֶשֶׁר (nesher) as the griffon vulture (cf. NEB, NRSV).

[8:1]  ²⁹ tn Heb “my covenant” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “the covenant I made with them.”

[24:28]  ³⁰ tn The same Greek term can refer to “eagles” or “vultures” (L&N 4.42; BDAG 22 s.v. ἀετός), but in this context it must mean vultures because the gruesome image is one of dead bodies being consumed by scavengers.

[24:28]  ³¹ tn Grk “will be gathered.” The passive construction has been translated as an active one in English.