Ezekiel 26:7-12

26:7 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Take note that ¹  I am about to bring King Nebuchadrezzar ²  of Babylon, king of kings, against Tyre from the north, with horses, chariots, and horsemen, an army and hordes of people. 26:8 He will kill your daughters in the field with the sword. He will build a siege wall against you, erect a siege ramp against you, and raise a great shield against you. 26:9 He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and tear down your towers with his weapons. ³  26:10 He will cover you with the dust kicked up by his many horses. ⁴  Your walls will shake from the noise of the horsemen, wheels, and chariots when he enters your gates like those who invade through a city’s broken walls. ⁵  26:11 With his horses’ hoofs he will trample all your streets. He will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will tumble down to the ground. 26:12 They will steal your wealth and loot your merchandise. They will tear down your walls and destroy your luxurious ⁶  homes. Your stones, your trees, and your soil he will throw ⁷  into the water. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 25:9

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ⁹  I will send for all the peoples of the north ¹⁰  and my servant, ¹¹  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 ¹²  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ¹³  and make them everlasting ruins. ¹⁴  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 27:6

27:6 I have at this time placed all these nations of yours under the power ¹⁶  of my servant, ¹⁷  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I have even made all the wild animals subject to him. ¹⁸ 

[26:7]  ¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something.

[26:7]  ² tn Heb “Nebuchadrezzar” is a variant and more correct spelling of Nebuchadnezzar, as the Babylonian name Nabu-kudurri-usur has an an “r” rather than an “n.”

[26:9]  ³ tn Heb “swords.”

[26:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “From the abundance of his horses he will cover you (with) their dust.”

[26:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “like those who enter a breached city.”

[26:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “desirable.”

[26:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “set.”

[26:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “into the midst of the water.”

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

[25:9]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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.

[27:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “have given…into the hand of.”

[27:6]  ¹⁷ sn See the study note on 25:9 for the significance of the application of this term to Nebuchadnezzar.

[27:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I have given…to him to serve him.” The verb “give” in this syntactical situation is functioning like the Hiphil stem, i.e., as a causative. See Dan 1:9 for parallel usage. For the usage of “serve” meaning “be subject to” compare 2 Sam 22:44 and BDB 713 s.v. עָבַד 3.