Ezekiel 22:4-5

22:4 you are guilty because of the blood you shed and defiled by the idols you made. You have hastened the day of your doom; ¹  the end of your years has come. ²  Therefore I will make ³  you an object of scorn to the nations, an object to be mocked by all lands. 22:5 Those both near and far from you will mock you, you with your bad reputation, ⁴  full of turmoil.

Ezekiel 25:6

25:6 For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you clapped your hands, stamped your feet, and rejoiced with intense scorn ⁵  over the land of Israel,

Ezekiel 26:2

26:2 “Son of man, because Tyre ⁶  has said about Jerusalem, ⁷  ‘Aha, the gateway of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I will become rich, ⁸  now that she ⁹  has been destroyed,’

Ezekiel 35:15

35:15 As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so will I deal with you – you will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all of Edom – all of it! Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

Ezekiel 36:3

36:3 So prophesy and say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Surely because they have made you desolate and crushed you from all directions, so that you have become the property of the rest of the nations, and have become the subject of gossip ¹⁰  and slander among the people,

Deuteronomy 28:37

28:37 You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the Lord will drive you.

Deuteronomy 28:1

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ¹¹  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ¹²  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth.

Deuteronomy 9:7

The History of Israel’s Stubbornness

9:7 Remember – don’t ever forget ¹³  – how you provoked the Lord your God in the desert; from the time you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were constantly rebelling against him. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 79:3

79:3 They have made their blood flow like water

all around Jerusalem, and there is no one to bury them. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 25:9

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ¹⁶  I will send for all the peoples of the north ¹⁷  and my servant, ¹⁸  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy ¹⁹  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ²⁰  and make them everlasting ruins. ²¹  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ²² 

Lamentations 2:15-16

ס (Samek)

2:15 All who passed by on the road

clapped their hands to mock you. ²³ 

They sneered and shook their heads

at Daughter Jerusalem.

“Ha! Is this the city they called ²⁴ 

‘The perfection of beauty, ²⁵ 

the source of joy of the whole earth!’?” ²⁶ 

פ (Pe)

2:16 All your enemies

gloated over you. ²⁷ 

They sneered and gnashed their teeth;

they said, “We have destroyed ²⁸  her!

Ha! We have waited a long time for this day.

We have lived to see it!” ²⁹ 

Micah 7:8

Jerusalem Will Be Vindicated

7:8 My enemies, ³⁰  do not gloat ³¹  over me!

Though I have fallen, I will get up.

Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. ³² 

[22:4]  ¹ tn Heb “you have brought near your days.” The expression “bring near your days” appears to be an adaptation of the idiom “days draw near,” which is used to indicate that an event, such as death, is imminent (see Gen 27:41; 47:29; Deut 31:14; 1 Kgs 2:1; Ezek 12:23). Here “your days” probably refers to the days of the personified city’s life, which was about to come to an end through God’s judgment.

[22:4]  ² tn Heb “and you have come to your years.” This appears to mean that she has arrived at the time when her years (i.e., life) would end, though it may mean that her years of punishment will begin. Because “day” and “time” are so closely associated in the immediate context (see 21:25, 29) some prefer to emend the text and read “you have brought near your time.” See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:31, as well as the translator’s note on verse 3.

[22:4]  ³ tn The Hebrew verb is a prophetic perfect, emphasizing that the action is as good as done from the speaker’s perspective.

[22:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “unclean of name.”

[25:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “with all your scorn in (the) soul.”

[26:2]  ⁶ sn Tyre was located on the Mediterranean coast north of Israel.

[26:2]  ⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[26:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will be filled.”

[26:2]  ⁹ sn That is, Jerusalem.

[36:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “lip of the tongue.”

[28:1]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ¹² tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[9:7]  ¹³ tn By juxtaposing the positive זְכֹר (zekhor, “remember”) with the negative אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח (’al-tishÿkakh, “do not forget”), Moses makes a most emphatic plea.

[9:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Lord” (likewise in the following verse with both “him” and “he”). See note on “he” in 9:3.

[79:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they have poured out their blood like water, all around Jerusalem, and there is no one burying.”

[25:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[25:9]  ¹⁷ sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon which included within it contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20 for earlier allusions.

[25:9]  ¹⁸ sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6; 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6) and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.

[25:9]  ¹⁹ tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah see 50:21, 26; 51:3.

[25:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (this land, its inhabitants, and the nations surrounding it) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.

[25:9]  ²¹ sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).

[25:9]  ²² tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the latter.

[2:15]  ²³ tn Heb “clap their hands at you.” Clapping hands at someone was an expression of malicious glee, derision and mockery (Num 24:10; Job 27:23; Lam 2:15).

[2:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “of which they said.”

[2:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “perfection of beauty.” The noun יֹפִי (yofi, “beauty”) functions as a genitive of respect in relation to the preceding construct noun: Jerusalem was perfect in respect to its physical beauty.

[2:15]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the joy of all the earth.” This is similar to statements found in Pss 48:2 and 50:2.

[2:16]  ²⁷ tn Heb “they have opened wide their mouth against you.”

[2:16]  ²⁸ tn Heb “We have swallowed!”

[2:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “We have attained, we have seen!” The verbs מָצָאנוּ רָאִינוּ (matsa’nu ra’inu) form a verbal hendiadys in which the first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions as an object complement. It forms a Hebrew idiom that means something like, “We have lived to see it!” The three asyndetic 1st person common plural statements in 2:16 (“We waited, we destroyed, we saw!”) are spoken in an impassioned, staccato style reflecting the delight of the conquerors.

[7:8]  ³⁰ tn The singular form is understood as collective.

[7:8]  ³¹ tn Or “rejoice” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NCV “don’t laugh at me.”

[7:8]  ³² sn Darkness represents judgment; light (also in v. 9) symbolizes deliverance. The Lord is the source of the latter.